Oh boy, here we go again...
Many years ago on this newfangled thing called the internet, we used forums or message boards to share our ideas, thoughts and interests and there was a community for pretty much everything you needed, but they lacked the ability to make yourself visible outside of that community. You could have your own website for a bit of individuality, but ultimately you were only promoting it to the people in the places you already used, unless you were a web design/SEO guru it was a slog to get any real interaction.
Then social media came along....
It was quite cool at first, finally there was a way that creative people could share their work with an audience outside of the niche forums on a self contained profile page, where you could post everything that made you the individual you were, while connecting with a new audience of people across the world as well and for a decade it all went pretty well.
I started with MySpace, fun site to use and I managed to grow a decent sized following, as well as my very first online art sales and it all looked like I might actually be able to make a couple of extra quid selling my work online.
Then Facebook came along....
It didn't take long for MySpace to slip into obscurity when Facebook arrived, it was annoying having to start a new following from scratch again, but Facebook brought in the kinds of "normal" everyday people who didn't even use the internet at all before then. This was what turned me from an artist who sold stuff on a website for extra cash, to a full time artist with actual collectors all over the world.
Things were going great, nothing was going to stop me now!
Then Facebook changed its algorithm...
In an attempt to make some money, Facebook decided to basically cut the reach and visibility of those who used the page feature to run businesses and pushed them into paying to promote their pages with "targeted ads", something I would've been ok with had it actually worked.
Within a week of the change, my overall interactions and visibility dropped over 80%. After a month, I had people messaging me to ask why I wasn't posting any new work etc even though I was. My own followers weren't even seeing my posts anymore, it was beyond catastrophic. So I caved and paid them to give my visibility back, a mistake I wouldn't be making again as all my targeted ads achieved was to fill my page with fake scam accounts.
I had no other choice but to abandon Facebook.
Then I remembered Twitter....
I hadn't been a big user of Twitter, the character limit was tough to work with and it wasn't really geared up as a media platform in the way I was so used to, but it was the best of a bad lineup and once again I found myself trying to build up another new following and it was starting to become tiresome.
I did eventually manage to get things going again, not at the same level as before but at least I could still make a living.
Then life happened....
2014 was the start of a series of life changing events that ultimately caused me to turn my back on everything for several years, the internet, art, music, friends, family, I walked away from the lot. I won't go into details of what caused it, but needless to say it changed me in many ways, both good and bad, I was existing rather than living, took on a very mundane job that required no thought and just went along on autopilot. I had neither the desire or energy to create anything that I had any intention of showing anyone let alone sell and to be honest, I didn't mind.
There are a handful of ink pieces I made in the last couple of years of my hiatus, especially in the last few months of my mothers life when it was the only thing that could calm down the storm of emotions that I had been able to keep at bay until that time. I didn't post any of those online at the time, I didn't have a computer or even a smartphone at that point as I was still very much no longer a fan of technology or the internet and i just didn't care if my work was never seen by another person again.
Then the lockdown happened....
My creatively empty, but reasonably blissful existence was then rudely interrupted by a global pandemic. In the space of a week I found myself unemployed and sat at home twiddling my thumbs, it wasn't long before I had an inevitably unavoidable choice to make and a few days later I had a shiny new gaming laptop sat in front of me, an internet connection and a brain full of out of date knowledge that needed updating.
So that's what I did and spent the first few months re-familiarising myself with Blender and Photoshop etc. I also made a new account on Twitter and once again, began the grind of building an online presence, this is when I realised a lot had changed in the time I was away and that social media wasn't the same anymore.
Then a wild 3D printer appeared....
In an unexpected turn of events, I found myself the owner of a "very" cheap Ender 3 Pro 3D printer, I'd always wanted one but they had always been too expensive and just not very good, this one was ok-ish and very cheap and it opened up a new area of my creative journey I had never considered before. For the first time ever I could print out the stuff I was making in blender, which tied in very nicely with an idea I was toying with for a coffee table style art book with a scifi theme.
For the first time in a few years I was actually excited about making stuff and not only showing it to the world, but making it available for them to own and print themselves!
The only issue, was making myself visible again and this is where It became obvious very quickly that social media wasn't exactly plain sailing for new accounts, trying to get genuine accounts to follow was almost a full time job in itself and even though I wasn't looking at selling art as my job anymore, just being able to share my progress on projects was fighting a seemingly futile battle.
I knew I wasn't the only one either, other artists and creatives were also struggling.
Then Twitter was bought by "that guy"....
Yeah, that happened....The least said about that place the better.....
Then I found Bluesky....
It's like old Twitter, but without the overbearing owner turning it into 4chan, there's a bunch of creatives there as well as many of the other more reasonable people fleeing the hellsite.
But there is a problem with it in that there's no algorithm at all to speak of, so unless you're posting and reposting constantly you just vanish into a sea of everyone else all battling for any scrap of visibility they can get.
Alongside this, I had started an account on Cults3D, a website where you can post your 3D models for printing, either for free or a price that you set. I tested the water by posting a couple of basic models and was surprised at how quickly I was able to build up a small following there. This was further confirmed when I started a project to make a free modular display case for Gundam models, with it being my most popular download and without any real promotion outside of the site itself.
However, I wanted to be able to communicate with all these new followers, with news on updates or new projects and other than a basic comment section on each download page or the messaging system, there isn't any way to do this. I've tried having links to Bluesky, but I think there's just a general apathy towards social media across the internet and people seem to be turning to personal websites and blogs again.
So here I am.... (Yes I broke the running subtitle theme)
I never really got into the blogging thing, but lately I've noticed a lot more people linking to their blogs from the sites where they sell their creations and this kinda makes sense to me now. I could place links to my social media in product descriptions etc, but all you would be getting is a messy jumble of multi-post threads on a platform that not everyone uses anyway. At least with a blog I can link directly to and from existing projects and updates, while at the same time being able to inform people of projects I have in the works and maybe even a way to give feedback on designs before I release them.
I'm not going to guarantee that I'll be posting every day/week/month, there will be an initial burst of posts that I can link to the stuff I already have online, but I'm not really a writer and it takes hours for me to put down anything of considerable length, (This has taken me 3 days...) so future posts will be on a need be basis.
Hopefully it'll work, I guess only time will tell!
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