Having been a forum moderator, I have very little empathy for Reddit moderators. (I think forum moderators are a significant cut above in quality for conflict management.) The reality is, 90% of them are teenagers who have no power in real life who've discovered the concept of policy and are applying it relentlessly in order to try feel like they have some control over their life which is spiralling out of control. They are not real authority figures and I've found most Redditors have sock puppets to get around stupid bans. I've been banned once by a moderator who blocked me from being able to contest it. It was a single strike failure on my part with no warning = perma ban. No respect. I have never encountered a Reddit moderator who is worth an ounce of your time or breath. Just remember to imagine a 16 year old is telling you whatever they're whining about and move on. No one likes them and either they'll realize it and become like me, a sour adult who no longer moderates because no one likes to have a child telling you that you can't say this particular word or you have to put this particular word in brackets in your title, or they become bitchy adults who think they're worthy of respect for standing in between the trolls and regular people who just wanted to have a conversation. Maybe some of them are.Originally Posted by rpglandmaps
This does not apply to this forum's moderators, whom I've had conversations with and view as regular fantasy map loving humans who also delete spam bots. Just Reddit. And probably Discord but I don't go there. Forum moderators tend to be a cut above Reddit moderators as they still remember how to have a conversation via text in order to moderate a situation without resorting to a ban. Reddit moderators just fap about their greatness and ban button powers and won't even try to difuse a potentially problematic situation before jumping onto the ban button. This is proof of their age. Teenagers especially don't understand conflict resolution, they're at the most emotionally heightened age of their life and love the power trip of being able to silence someone who makes them uncomfortable. A good moderator can diffuse a heatened situation with a few private messages and a gentle word in the open.
That said, I recommend listening to the advice of the moderators of THIS community since they're practiced map artists and not total asswipes.
I am a professional. A significant portion of my income is derived from map design. Absolutely some of those commissions come from this website, because there are many lurkers trying to learn to make maps, some of whom will give up and hire a pro. There are many people who are recommended the Cartographer's Guild as the first place to begin to find a map artist.
There are other forums I participate on, and my connections have thus resulted in commissions. So I put my map making information in my forum information EVERYWHERE. The forum about UFOs, the forum about webcomics, the forum about drugs... really, it doesn't matter as long as there's the potential that someone who runs RPGs or wrote a book might come across my info. I have active accounts on several other RPG related forums.
I'm pretty bad at remembering to actually post my art; I have posted my artwork on Reddit, DeviantArt, and ArtStation. ArtStation looks particularly promising as a superior version of the first two. There's a lot of really good jobs posted there for people who are more skilled and have professional experience in game dev. I could almost cry over one post, from Cyan Games, for a 3D environmental artist. I'm just not there yet, I've been doing 3D for about a week, and 3D environments in World Creator for half a year. I have the vision for it, I truly believe my environmental eye is worthy of Myst, Riven, Obduction, and would be a great addition to Firmament, but... I just don't have their 3 years of Unreal Engine game experience and all of the knowhow to take over as a project primary environment developer. Still, I think Artstation will have a place in my future direction, even if I only package and sell resources in the marketplace. Seriously though, I could cry, I have to comfort myself with the knowledge that they will make other games in the future and if I keep spending a few hours a day trying to learn 3D I'll be good e anough eventually. Man, though, they even will work with remote artists for the right one. At least I have a vague direction now. A month ago I didn't know what I was doing with myself, just floating on the top of the stream and grabbing commissions and wondering if the river will ever hit the sea.
Now let's move on to social media.
Instagram: too much of a pain in my butt to get maps onto.
Twitter: People are nasty argumentative souls. I have got a commission from Twitter, so I ignore it unless I feel like it's a right time to go on Twitter.
Facebook: I have got commissions from Facebook. Also very bitter people, not as good as forums.
Discord: I don't do Discord because I don't like realtime chatting, however, I almost got a commission one time I tried going in there and talking about myself in a strange place. Might be worth your while if you have a good spiel.
DeviantArt: I totally got commissions from DeviantArt. They kinda ruined the look of the site, ruined it for tutorials and writers, and it's impossible now to follow your comments, so I have mixed feelings, but I got a lot of earlier recognition because I had a brush set and tutorial there with a link to my site and info on how to commission me.
Reddit: i have not gotten commissions here but i share art occasionally.
Real life: I find "oh, I draw fantasy maps" is a great icebreaker which has led to SEVERAL non-fantasy map commissions via my connections. Tell people you do this, seriously. I'm thinking of making a card. If I didn't ramble about my art, I never would have gotten a $1000 museum commission for a historical map restoration. I'm not the only fantasy map maker in Winnipeg, there's one other on this forum, but I'm the only professional who's making my living off of it, so it does tend to be a great conversation piece that people remember about me. Man, I just realized I could've been Cartogra-Ti. Oh well. Fun fact, my name is actually Tiffany, but back when I made my account, my primary roleplaying game character was Tiana.
My Website: A crucial piece. Undoubtedly most of my commissions have come from having this. I don't keep secrets, I wrote a tutorial about the basic things I use to make my website show up on Google. https://cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=44675
In short, though, make the art side art focused. I see a ton of people going writing first on their portfolios. Don't. Art out, writing in the blog posts, pump with good keywords and do some research on current trends relating to fantasy maps. Make a few good sharable posts that you could link from other sites. I have a list of fantasy map generators, for example. Anything you can use to teach search engine spiders to associate you with desired search results.
I have never bought ads, but I might choose to do targeted facebook ads if I did. At the moment, sufficient business seems to come to me to keep me occupied, so I don't have to pay, just periodically go and talk about myself a bit and someone will show up.
So, I make most of my commissions via hustle, talking myself up, and making sure that search engines pick me up and associate my link with fantasy mapping and how you can hire someone to draw a fantasy map. It's not easy but it's not hard either. I do spend unpaid hours doing this side work to promote myself into the right places and I account for that in my fee for map production.
If you don't have a portfolio, I'd start by making one on ArtStation, it does seem like a very good contemporary option and having one and shoving it in front of eyes has been the main source of my commissions.
Honorable Mention: job market freelancer sites that take a commission from the amount you make.
Upwork. Would've suggested it but they charge you to be able to send a job application now. Pay 15+ cents to get ghosted? No thanks!
Fiverr. Meat market. Try if you're desperate though and do cheap work. I did get some commissions there before I got overwhelmed.
ArtistsnClients. Small customer base and everything I ever tried to do for a commissioner there somehow ended up falling through the cracks. Your mileage may vary.
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