Satosanteru

Hi!!

Thank you to those who sent birthday messages my way, I really appreciate the thought. I had a nice birthday with my mom, who really is the best soul I could have ever come from. I don't know what I did in my past lives to deserve her. And I'm grateful you're all still here and active on my page, considering I haven't been around much. Still an active account, I just have other projects going. But I will involve my DA in my original projects as well, when the time comes.

Love!!

S~

Hello!

It's late where I am and I'm very tired, but sometimes I can't sleep with the amount of stuff happening in my head...I'm sure many of you relate to that ^^'

Everyone, I know you love my doujinshis, especially TTMUS (The Things That Make Us Strong). And you want me to continue. But making fanart is not something that has monetary value for most artists, except for a very lucky few. When I make my doujin, I do it selflessly cause I know you enjoy reading them. But now I really need to ask the favor to be returned just a little bit.

A while ago, I made a post about a Kickstarter I launched; a coloring book! I really need your support to get the project funded, or I can't publish it. If I don't meet the goal I set, I can't publish. It's all or nothing. This is not me begging, this is me asking for a fair exchange. Support me, and I will continue to support your love for SN and finish my doujinshi. Without your support, it's hard for me to even think about continuing because I have to support myself in other ways. 

Here is a link for the Kickstarter, if you're not sure how it works feel free to drop me a message

www.kickstarter.com/projects/4…

I make this promise to you: If my project gets funded, not only do you get something extremely unique, but I will finish TTMUS by the end of February 2017! Cause then I will be able to devote the time to it!

Sato~

Hello!

Yesterday, I posted art from a new project I've been working on for months. It's a coloring book featuring anime bishounen with cute animals. I've launched a campaign on kickstarter, which is a website that helps creators fund their projects. You've supported me so nicely as I made fanart of our gay ninjas, and now I hope you can support me in this very important endeavor of mine. See, if the funding goal isn't reached by the deadline, the project won't get funded and I can't go to print. 

It would help me so much if you had a look at the page, watched the video...and if you love what you see and you're able, it would mean everything to me if you supported my project. I understand so well that money is tight for nearly everyone, but even if you could share it to your social media so that as many people as possible see it, that's really great too. 

LINK::

www.kickstarter.com/projects/4…


Thank you so much in advance for having a look. I'm actually really worried I'll fail and all my hard work will lead to nothing. Art is a difficult and uncertain road that requires unending perseverance, but at the end of the day it's those who support artists that make it possible for us to keep producing. I would love to make NaruSasu doujins all day every day, but it's not original and so I can never support myself with it. However, if I can get original work published then I could afford the time to continue to draw fanart.

Sincerely,

~Sato

GUYS!! AND GIRLS! And everyone in between...

I'm very excited to be working on something I think all of you want to see...the reason many of you watched me.

Take a guess! I'm quite excited ^^

I'll post it in the next couple days ~~

 

My dearest watchers who have supported me on my DA journey,

This post is largely me trying to organize some thoughts in my head and letting you know know where I am, but I also want your opinion. So please read with me and give me your input.

At some point in every artist's life we stop copying and we want to create original work. While making NaruSasu fanart showed me that I can create a fan-base (how amazing), it will never make me an income (through DA). This is the main reason I had to stop dedicating so much time to drawing fanart, the next big reason being other projects like cosplay. Sadly, money is necessary to even be in a modest home with enough money to get food and pay the bills. I wish it wasn't like that, I wish I could spend much of my time drawing fanart for you and creating original comics for my own satisfaction.

But then I thought, well why not? Why couldn't I earn a living doing my art. My whole life up until recently I denied that my talent could be my bread-winner. I grew up with a very artistic father who taught me how to see the world creatively, but unfortunately he was permanently unemployed by choice. And my single mum,who was paying for everything herself, would get frustrated that he couldn't help raise his kid financially as well as emotionally. So I put two and two together and figured that artist always = starving artist. I pushed art away from focus even as I kept doing it. This was most obvious in high school, which in my case was very competitive, and I felt that if I wasn't good at math and science I wouldn't amount to anything. Well I'm terrible at math, but still I tried twice after I graduated to get a better mark so that I could be eligible for the sciences at University. This was after I tried animation, and quit after the first year. It was also after I fully completed a diploma of Cinema, Video, and Communications. I pushed art aside, thinking I could do better for myself elsewhere.

It would have done me so much good to drive into the arts as hard as I could from the beginning. I could have been a star, because I know I have the drive and the talent. But in those days I had a different mentality. Then I moved to Australia, and things happened and art once again took center stage; it always does. Then I watched a motivational speech (several actually), that left me with one question: what is the one thing in life that makes you forget to sleep, eat, go out, shower, pee etc? 

ART

That's what I'm meant to do. Yeah but I still need to make a living, I said. So of course I worked, and had some bad luck with losing jobs through no fault of my own, and I even quit one it was so awful. I also transitioned, which is massive on its own and took up a lot of energy, and I'm still on that journey. And now I feel I'm arriving to art again, because I can't be happy without it. And I know I -can- make it my income without compromising my creativity. I think the reason I didn't enjoy the art education I had was because I don't want to make things for others. I want to make my own ideas come to life, not someone else's. Commission work is okay for a while, but after a time I feel unmotivated because I'm not doing what interests -me-

So, I pursued a job that I really wanted, and after 6 months I was hired. However, it's only part-time to begin with, and it's not enough to get me by in the long-term. But I feel that the Universe is trying to give me enough time and energy to do my art as well as work...if I had a full-time job by progress would be slow. This is so scary because I need money but I also need to make the leap into the World that I've always dreamed of. It's a big risk.

If you're still reading, you're a legend.

I could do almost any type of art, and become skilled at it. But I had to narrow down my specialty to create a focus (that only took me 26 years). Since I'm also a writer, and I love to create stories, merging literature with art is where my passion lies; comics, manga, graphic novels. Making NaruSasu Doujinshi was critical for me to realize my love for the genre and that I was good at it. And I feel in my bones that's what I will do with my career.

Suddenly, I've had to make the conscious effort to change my language around people. When someone asks what I do, I have to stop and think before I said I'm an artist. But I feel so good saying it. I believe in the intention and power of the "Universe" as strongly as some people believe in God. And I just feel this is right for me.

The question now is, where do I go from here? An online presence is essential for success these days, which is awesome. The whole World has opened up to artists who would otherwise toil in obscurity. But that leaves me at my next big impass...what sort of online presence do I create?

Blog?
Website?
Patreon?
All three?

Problem is all of these take time to build and maintain and as any creative person knows, time is very valuable and very scarce. And for the first time ever, tonight, I thought maybe I could build a patreon. But my confidence lacks, and I'm not sure that my art is good enough, or that I'll get noticed enough, to build a following. I have over 2k NaruSasu fans who follow me here, so I know it can be done. But Naruto is a very popular franchise and my success on DA is a reflection of that. Taking the leap into original work is a big one. But if I had 2k patrons all paying just $1 a month, it would be so amazing I can't even tell you. It would solve my financial situation. As with everything, the leap is huge and the risk is great. But I want to make the leap sooner rather than later.

And I guess I'd like to know your thoughts on all of it. Suggestions, thoughts, feedback, all of it. There is also a big part of me that believes my skill is not high enough to entertain paying patrons on such a constant schedule. I do need a lot of references still and I still don't know how to draw a lot of things. That is a major drain on my confidence. Do you think I have the skill to justify a Patreon? What sort of content would you pay to see? Would you follow original work?

Any thoughts, I want to hear them.

Thanks for sticking with me

S~