April Showers Bring More Hours

Hello, everyone. AreKayHen here.

Starting this month of May, I will be creating new strategies on how to handle art trades/requests and art raffles.

Speaking of raffles... 

Part One: A New Strategy For Art Raffles (And My Response To The Previous Art Raffle This Year)

...just know that I am completely OK with having no bids for the 200 Newgrounds Fans Art Raffle.

I really am.

In fact, it needed to be that way for a couple of reasons. 

Firstly, I was working on so many public and (mostly) private art requests that I needed more focus on that than getting a lot of raffle bids.

Secondly, how I was able to obtain raffle bids before was through voluntary invitations to random people/clients/friends on the internet I know/like/love. Although it felt good, it now feels unearned. Nowadays, it feels like less of a celebration of my birthday or milestone and more about boasting about how many online clients/friends I know. Even when I said it was all optional, it now feels like I was coercing them to join, which was never my end goal in the slightest.

To all those I invited to my art raffles, just know I only did it because I like what you do and wanted to draw something for you as a gift to commemorate that for my birthday, that's all. I meant no ill intentions.

From here on, I am making a new strategy on how to do art raffles. I'll simply post an announcement for the art raffle and then post 2-4 reminders for said raffle. That's it. No more voluntary invitations. Adding a bid is entirely optional and all up to you. If you want to place your bid, thank you so much.

At the end of the day, as much as I really do enjoy creating art for other clients in these raffles, that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. What truly matters is the moment. (To reflect this, I will only allow up to six winners.)

Being in the moment, however, is a different story when it comes to Art Trades/Requests.

Part Two: A New Strategy For Art Trades/Requests

Although I do feel the same euphoria when making art trades/requests for other clients, that feeling can become drowned out by the feeling of crunch time when finishing these requests and the feeling of missing out on new opportunities.

So, to counteract that, I will be making limits on how many trades/requests I will accept. I'd say up to 3 would suffice, specifically one request per client every month, when trades/requests are available. 

This also might help with my dream of being a freelancer in the future, who knows?

With all that said, thank you for taking the time to read this.

See you later (hopefully today)!