1st Anniversary!
Added 2021-10-14 01:23:03 +0000 UTCLadies and gentlemen, A warm welcome to the 1st annual AGM!
Thank you all for being here and supporting myself for so long.
It is a humble opportunity for me to speak and share with you the accomplishments of this den, the past, the present and the future of us all… I am your host and artist in residence, Bbadogg. How fairs everybody? I hope everything is coming along sound and swell to all ye endeavors.
We'll begin this post with a deep, brief look into the not-so-distant past of Bbadogg Inc.…
*ahem *ahem
TIMELINE OF BBADOGG INC.
20201-10-13 - Twitter A/c @bbadogg created
The avatar art itself was inspired by my favourite anime's, HxH, creator Togashi's self portrait. During this time at the account’s creation, the pandemic hath ousted me from my usual means of employment which allowed me to focus on art seriously.
2020-11-14 - First Commission achieved. It was less an art commission and more a editing commission, I was tasked to make 2 small edits on art from SAO, which I never posted because it was not my art. The job itself was to redraw an eye and retouch the art of a character. It opened the avenue that perhaps I should state on my page that I could do edits as a service. It never went ahead, as I had faith in my own art to create something wholly of my own. Though if you like me to do edits on existing art, feel free to ask me. <(￣︶￣)>
2020-11-25 - My first real art commission from 'ych.commishes.com' auctioned successfully for a generous sum of $1 and was a threesome sailor moon sketch. Although it was only $1, it set my belief in commissions and bolstered my confidence.
To those unfamiliar with ych commishes. It is a wonderful website that allows auctioning for artists. Some patrons here would have discovered me from there.
2021-04-23 - Created Bbadogg Inc. Patreon Account
2021-04-28 - First Patron!
2021-05-09 - First High-Tier Patron!!
2021-09-18 - First Hiero-Tier Patron!!!
COMMISSION STATS
27 client commissions have been accomplished throughout the year.
Some within the 27 contains more than one work (multiple works from a single client)
My most sought after commissions are manga pages with 17 manga commission compared to 10 colour portraits.
TWITTER STATS
2020 Oct
Tweets 47
Impressions 22.2k
Visits 2847
Followers 25
2020 Nov
Tweets 64
Impressions 42.7K
Visits 6,391
Followers 57
2020 Dec
Tweets 60
Impressions 39.5K
Visits 6,767
Followers 37
2021 Jan
Tweets 49
Impressions 23.7K
Visits 4,701
Followers 33
2021 Feb
Tweets 53
Impressions 45.1K
Visits 6,473
Followers 66
2021 Mar
Tweets 45
Impressions 28.5K
Visits 4,829
Followers 28
2021 April
Tweets 61
Impressions 27.7K
Visits 5,606
Followers 34
2021 May
Tweets 106
Impressions 55.2K
Visits 8,537
Followers 93
2021 Jun
Tweets 59
Impressions 42K
Visits 6,936
Followers 39
2021 Jul
Tweets 68
Impressions 50.4K
Visits 6,855
Followers 164
2021 Aug
Tweets 88
Impressions 56.7K
Visits 6,928
Followers 116
2021 Sep
Tweets 41
Impressions 63.4K
Visits 8,749
Followers 208
2021-07-28, Most popular post:
Kill la Kill - 216 Likes, 22 Retweets
https://twitter.com/bbadogg/status/1420192610023530496
I have composed graphs from this data attached as the images in this post.
After the 10th month, followers have grown by over 100/month.
At the 8th month mark, we can see that impressions have reached a healthy and steady 40-50k.
My most tweets were 106 in May gaining 8537 visits into my profile. My tweets will be averaging around 40 for now as I’ve now made WIP works exclusive to Patreon.
September last month reached a record high with 8,749 and 208 new followers from 41 tweets.
PRESENT
The topics covered in this session will deal with:
1. PC Setup and software
2. Number and list of online accounts pertaining to me
3. Current Art Methodology
PC SETUP
For the early quarter, the PC setup was a 7yr old Intel i5 laptop hooked to an ancient square monitor. The monitor eventually died (RIP) and was unfixable. Further research revealed that old monitors were vastly energy inefficient although I had much fondness for the 4:3 ratio.
Upgraded to Dell 22” Monitor - P2219H due to rotatabliility but never used that function as it was quite large enough. Used the loophole of borrowing an acquaintance's student ID who was a student for the student discount to save costs in purchasing.
Around February 2021, it was found to be sustainable to upgrade art equipment. There was a major problem with the laptop whereby saving files when drawing took a lengthy time due to its ancient age and its HDD. Other problems included was the laptop suffered from poor WIFI performance unable to stream more than 420p-720p without dire performance issues and overheating fan issues. Again due to its elderly senior age.
Upgraded to a desktop:
Mobo: ASUS ROG STRIX B460-I GAMING Intel B460 mini ITX
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Cube Black
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM008 internal hard drive 3.5" 2000 GB Serial ATA III
RAM: G.Skill 16GB DDR4 memory module 2 x 8 GB 2400 MHz
SSD: Sandisk Plus 240 GB Serial ATA III SLC
PS: Corsair TX550M - 550W
CPU: Intel Core i5-10400
It has no graphics card because the prices have overinflated to the point of costing a kidney. It’s more reasonable to buy a prebuilt or laptop with GPU included in the current climate.
Peripherals include a basic budget Microsoft brand keyboard and mouse.
A dual monitor setup is necessary now that I don’t have my laptop screen. I used the loophole of student discount again through trickier means since the last coupon only works once.
Drawing Tablet
Wacom Intuos Pro Small Graphics Tablet Model PTH-451 from 2016. This tablet is a screenless tablet. It works wirelessly where the battery lasts 2 days until it needs to be charged again. It takes an entire day to fully charge.
Although the tablet has been used continuously for the last 2 years mostly, the same nib is still used which surprises me of the durability. The tablet itself comes with a whole host of them.
Software
Art created using Clip Studio Paint Ex 1.9.4 upgraded from previous laptop setup using CSP 1.4.1.
Heavy detailed coloured artwork can be up to around 250mb. Recent character sheets are 20mb with many elements. I’ve simplified the amount of layers I used and now it hovers around 130mb.
Photoshop CC for compression and cropping. Compression is especially needed for the exceedingly large 20mb jpeg files.
Animation using Live2D Cubism 4.0.07
Upgrading
A planned upgrade in the future will be a graphics card. Impossible to reasonably acquire under MSRP at the current state of economy.
A Samsung S7 Tab+ 12.4" will be my main aimed upgrade for direct screen interface and portable drawing. I've researched and compared it to the iPad and pricewise for minor improvements, the android is much more economical cost wise with an additional feature of connecting to windows as an additional screen.
BBADOGG ACCOUNTS
https://www.patreon.com/bbadogg
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/bbadogg/
https://reddit.com/user/brappdogg/ (Usual username was taken)
https://ping.commishes.com/@bbadogg/
https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/72771533
www.hentai-foundry.com/user/bbadogg/profile
I plan to create a deviantart a/c for more exposure in the future. There will be very few art there as I’m not sure it allows works that are too explicit.
First and foremost up to date ones are my Patreon and then my twitter for advertising purposes.
CURRENT ART METHODOLOGY
My most requested commissions are manga and the style has not changed since the very beginning. I aim for it to be more analog in style and less clean to get the authentic pen on paper look. I will keep manga mostly to commissions as that’s the most commonly requested commissions anyhow.
Similar with the manga, the colour artwork is aiming to be in a more analog style with visible brush strokes. Analog style is faster to draw even though it looks like there's more effort due to the visible brush strokes. The most important thing is a recognisable style that I want on set a firm establishment on.
FUTURE
1. Future polls
2. Approach to schedule releases and improving balance between commissions
3. Goals and direction of art and other creative mediums
4. Personal Aspirations
FUTURE POLLS
Future return to polls will work on a flexible schedule. Time between polls will be elongated but the choices will be more plentiful. The past choice selection is that the most popular character from a series is picked but the improved polls will aim to have multiple characters from series.
SCHEDULE
Future artwork will try to be working at a pace of one at a time with minor work on the side (sketching/concepting another piece). There will be an avoidance in working multiple heavy artworks at once. Previously it's been 3 commissions with patreon polls at concurrent times. Commissions were being rotated on a 3 day basis while working on patreon selections each day. Commissions ended up taking around a month to complete.
So my new pipeline will be working on patreon and if there is a commission piece, work the lighter parts (sketching/concepting) in conjunction with the usual patreon output. Once the patreon piece is finished, I'll switch to finishing off the commission piece where heavier more difficult parts should only take 2-3ish days to completion. This should allow for some speedier output on the commission side and less work load piling up. Polls will come at opportune times instead of a set schedule. There will be a balance to be struck against random work/polls/commissions which I will find through the process. Random artwork are nice for surprises as well as taking part in current trends of the month.
Any requests for commissions, I’ll put it in a queue. My hopes is to be working on 1 commission a week but this is at the mercy of others and a person usually asks me every fortnight atm. Patrons will have a higher priority and favoured.
I aim to release coloured artwork mostly with a release schedule of 2-3days for normal posts.
GOALS AND DIRECTION OF ART AND OTHER CREATIVE MEDIUMS
For special occasions such as festive months, I’ll like to do short doujins such as the Halloween one I’m planning to do to break up the monotony.
I have ventured out in using Live2D for animation before and once I hit 20 patrons I will do a poll and attempt to make full anime scenes in the spare time as an aside to the main posts here.
Live2D is a powerful tool that allows me to make v-tubers as well and once mastered it gives me another commission service to offer and can make for some interesting content. Setting up the start is the most difficult part such as getting to grips with all the software involved.
With animation, there must be of course catchy music accompanying it so I like to venture in this area for the future.
With art/animation/music/3d modelling under the belt, it will finally be time to create a 1 person production videogame or anime. I have no ideas in this area nor have I thought about it. Maybe a tamogochi hentai gacha game for mobile on raising characters that can be bred for random rare breeds created through algorithms which will be the gameloop.
I just made that up as I was typing and now I'm convinced it'll work. I will call it Dog Citizen, the plot being an dog utopia who breeds humans opposite to our reality. I will start the Kickstarter as we speak (I’m joking)
PERSONAL ASPIRATIONS
Finally a bit of an AMA to my personal goals on what all this achieves to me personally.
It will come to no surprise to anybody that my only goal in life is the same shared goal by many who are practically married to anime. The goal is... to move to Japan.
I'll label the entry methods I've tried and will try.
English teaching is the easiest opportunity to move to Japan for people like myself with no industrial skills whatsoever.
The JET is the most prestigious English teaching programme. I've applied to this before right before the pandemic hit and was rejected by after sitting the interview for it.
I still reflect on it every day and it’s a bit harrowing to think that even if I was accepted, it may have been cancelled due to covid anyway, as if any decision a person makes is ultimately futile.
Getting work visas to Japan is closed right now to my knowledge but I will search for English companies again once Japan’s borders opens up. So it was really important I get the vaccine to be ready when that happens and a portable drawing tablet when the opportunity arises (crosses fingers).
I'm thinking I might even do a $1 TEFL course from a shady website just to up my credentials. If that's not good enough, I may have to do a proper certified course which I absolutely refuse because they're expensive and I’m extremely frugal when it comes to things where the outcome is not %100 certain it'd work. I live in Europe so traveling to Japan just once is a make or break situation as there's no budget flights for long distance and the state of my piggy bank is not favorable.
Another method I've put in serious contemplation is applying to hostels to work as a volunteer or employee. Being an employee is extremely difficult if you have no work experience so volunteering is the more likely method.
The benefits is accommodation is free and having your foot in the door means further networking opportunities may arise such as being promoted to a full time janitor or grovelling and prostrating to the owners for employment using my charisma.
Long term visa and free accommodation is the most important factor. Utilizing frugality to the max, I think I can pull this off using art to support myself as well. It will be dining with cup noodles everyday which is the dream life anyhow.
My other goal is 1k likes for an art post.
IN CONCLUSION
And that it! That concludes the annual AGM! Thank you my dawgs for attending the 1st ever AGM (hopefully not last!).
If you have any question, you are very welcome to ask them in the comments below or through messaging me directly. The important points detailing commissions and polls, will be reiterated on my next posts to others who have not attended today's event (Which I don't blame them as this contains 2406 words thesis like document! To those that did, I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into the behind the scenes exclusive access).
