Faire Direct

Friday, December 21, 2018

2018 - By The Numbers

It’s December and we’re fast coming up on another click of Earth’s odometer, so it’s time for the annual By The Numbers retrospective for 2018, wherein I throw out a lot of big and not-so-big numbers to try to quantify the year. :)

Client Work & Personal Pieces 

101: Client Work/Commissions: 101 total (2017: 113; 2016: 108; 2015: 74). This year struck a slightly better balance and let me pursue some personal projects, as well as pick up a new medium - Acrylics! - though tbf, I initially picked up acrylics due to an acrylic client project. :)

Collage of some of my favorite commissioned digital pieces of 2018


10: Commissioned Color Works:  Something I haven’t had the chance to do in past years is colorist/painter work for others’ pieces, and it is a blast.

67: Traditional pieces complete: The overwhelming majority of these pieces were personal pieces in 2018, either pieces designed to help me learn a medium, Inktober pieces, or inks intended to end up as coloring book pages for the upcoming Dragons & Dragonkin coloring book (11 acrylics on canvas, 2 acrylics on large wooden shields, 12 watercolors, 42 inks on bristol) (up from 23 pieces last year). This is a huge jump in traditional pieces for me, which is a trend I’d like to continue!

Collage of some of my favorite traditional pieces of 2018



Patreon - www.patreon.com/tortoiseharecreations

2018's THC banner

211: Number of posts made to Patreon in 2018, the overwhelming majority of which are private to my Patrons. Patreon continued to be a huge deal for me in 2018, and I am immensely grateful for every single one of my Patrons! Another number in this category: 1,063 - Number of total posts made to Patreon since launch in late 2014. Holy crow! Surpassed the 1k mark this year! (This is slightly down from 276 in 2017, as I’m trying to post bulkier posts a little less often now that I’ve figured out how to include wips in the actual posts instead of having everything be its own post!)

53: The number of amazing, beautiful, glowing human beings who support my Patreon. 2016 ended at 30, 2017 at 42, trend is looking pretty good - thank you! <3

15: Number of new stock art pieces released to my Patrons in 2018, bringing the total number of stock art pieces available for Stock Art Patrons and higher to download to 46! The $3 stock art tier was introduced mid-2017, and allows anyone at that tier or higher access to all pieces, with at least one being added per month!


Miscellaneous Numbers

15: Number of conventions attended this year (compare to: 38 in 2014, 17 in 2015, 24 in 2016, and 19 in 2017). That trend line is going down as conventions become more saturated in this area and attendance has dropped; I’ve chosen my favorite/best-performing conventions from previous years to attend this year, and had to nix a few larger ones that were just too expensive up front. It has opened up more of my weekends for work, though, which let me finish a lot more pieces in total this year than in years past!


9: Number of time-lapse paintings I’ve recorded and published to THC’s YouTube channel (subscribe!), including a Portalarium team member portrait, “Mermaid,” “War,” and “Alien Landscape.” Three of the videos are only available to Patrons, as they are of a piece still in progress. BAD NEWS: Since the forced upgrade to Mojave in early November, I’m now unable to run my Wacom tablet, Photoshop, and QuickTime’s screen recording simultaneously without quite a delay in brushstrokes, rendering me currently incapable of more time lapses. I’m hoping to find a remedy for that in the next few months, but I may have to break down and upgrade my system. ><

1: Editing hire in 2018. Yes, I still need to update my rates page to include that service, something that has been pushed back on my to-do list for months now. Grr.

60: Number of comic pages completed this year - Shroud of the Avatar: New Beginnings #2 is COMPLETE and off for final review, and is a much, much, MUCH larger book than previous issues! (This number was 42 last year, with both SotA: NB#1 and a commissioned comic for the Festival of the Silver Serpent, so quite the increase!)

7: Years of Tortoise & Hare Creations. I am unbelievably proud of this number. I thank every client, every company, every Patron, every follower on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for helping me along my career path and improving my skill set - I aim every year to improve as an artist and a writer (though 2018 was not personally a publishable writing year, I penned many a post). Consider joining my Patreon to help make sure THC survives for years to come (and get lots of cool rewards for yourself, too!) - www.patreon.com/tortoiseharecreations

Previous years’ By The Numbers posts:
2017 By The Numbers
2016 By The Numbers
2015 By The Numbers

No comments:

Post a Comment

Faire Direct

Bunnies! The Coloring Book coming soon!

 Coming soon!!! New coloring book - clock here to be notified on launch! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/indimartin/bunnies-the-colorin...