Topic: 90 / 10 Theory of Furry Art

Posted under Art Talk

I have a bit of a theory. Around 90% of the furry NSFW drawn ever are only made by the upper 10% of popufur artists.

I honestly wish that there was a lot more appreciation for smaller artists in the community. Like I cannot find any furry artist out there that’s under 10K followers on Twitter at this point.

Well there's me, I'm even under two digits!

But yeah, you'll have a hard time finding the ones who actually have E6-worthy talent but also don't have high numbers of followers.

foxofgrey said:
I have a bit of a theory. Around 90% of the furry NSFW drawn ever are only made by the upper 10% of popufur artists.

I honestly wish that there was a lot more appreciation for smaller artists in the community. Like I cannot find any furry artist out there that’s under 10K followers on Twitter at this point.

I find fault with this theory because it requires the 10% more popular artists to have obscene amounts of productivity, more so than their less popular counterparts. This is absurd.

Now, if you mean 90% of the art uploaded on this site, then that would probably be truer.

(also, well, the problem is that you're on Twitter. That service by nature already promotes the already popular. You're not going to find more obscure artists there.)

lonelylupine said:
I find fault with this theory because it requires the 10% more popular artists to have obscene amounts of productivity, more so than their less popular counterparts. This is absurd.

Now, if you mean 90% of the art uploaded on this site, then that would probably be truer.

(also, well, the problem is that you're on Twitter. That service by nature already promotes the already popular. You're not going to find more obscure artists there.)

Yeah I was more meaning the NSFW furry art created, I’d say within the last two decades. It’s a shame that there’s no sort of event to celebrate smaller artists on E621 or anywhere else. Closest you can get is VR Chat’s Furality convention, as they have some really great artists within the art booths that don’t have a super high following.

And it’s not a total diss on popufur artists, it’s more so a preference of mine to favor smaller artists for the more chill vibe they have when it comes to their art. No sort of “I just do this fully as a business” deal, just some furry who likes to create art and hang out with others.

foxofgrey said:
Interesting that the quantity of art from those artists follows Zipf’s Law.

It makes perfect sense to me. The frequency is usually that way because there's underlying factors to what got someone in that position in the rankings in the first place, and the little differences add up. Online presence. Commission demand. Personal confidence. Efficiency in technique. Etc., etc.

foxofgrey said:
Interesting that the quantity of art from those artists follows Zipf’s Law.

I'm no expert on Zipf's law, but looking it up, it doesn't really seem to apply? I tried a couple of variations on it and graphed it to do a quick analysis of the residuals and... it didn't actually work out.

lance_armstrong said:
Maybe 90% of the attention, not posts.

https://e621.net/tags?commit=Search&search%5Bcategory%5D=1&search%5Bhide_empty%5D=yes&search%5Border%5D=count

Now THAT I can believe. They get the most posts AND consistently high scores.
Meanwhile I upload lesser artists' stuff I like. Scraps by comparison, you could say. None rejected so far, but only a couple of those pics were home runs (200+ score) while most of the rest (like <-- that one) are grounders.

Updated

foxofgrey said:
I have a bit of a theory. Around 90% of the furry NSFW drawn ever are only made by the upper 10% of popufur artists.

I honestly wish that there was a lot more appreciation for smaller artists in the community. Like I cannot find any furry artist out there that’s under 10K followers on Twitter at this point.

Hard disagree here, it isn't that hard to find smaller/niche artists. You just gotta improve your searching skills more.

leotheairwolf said:
Hard disagree here, it isn't that hard to find smaller/niche artists. You just gotta improve your searching skills more.

So why are the majority of furry nsfw artists on Twitter popular as fuck? Where are all the indie furry artists that you’re bringing up here?

This whole argument is running on some weird biases.
You're only seeing big artists on Twitter because the bigger they are the more likely you are to see them. Try FurAffinity's browse page for a less-filtered sample.

I'm also not sure I agree with your definition of "indie." Any artist not directly employed for their art is indie but you seem to be conflating it with viewerbase/popularity.
I've gotta assume you're talking about the threshold between artists who can support themselves on their art and those who can't, which isn't something you can really judge from followcount anyway.

Updated

magnuseffect said:
This whole argument is running on some weird biases.
You're only seeing big artists on Twitter because the bigger they are the more likely you are to see them. Try FurAffinity's browse page for a less-filtered sample.

I'm also not sure I agree with your definition of "indie." Any artist not directly employed for their art is indie but you seem to be conflating it with viewerbase/popularity.
I've gotta assume you're talking about the threshold between artists who can support themselves on their art and those who can't, which isn't something you can really judge from followcount anyway.

Elaborate on why follower count isn’t directly correlated with how well off the artist is. Shouldn’t more followers mean that they’d have a direct positive correlation with how much income they earn through various revenue streams?

Also my sort of hard cut off between popular and non-popular is around 10K followers on Twitter. Anyone around or above that count seem to be well off. I’m mainly concerning myself with Twitter for finding indie artists.

foxofgrey said:
Elaborate on why follower count isn’t directly correlated with how well off the artist is. Shouldn’t more followers mean that they’d have a direct positive correlation with how much income they earn through various revenue streams?

Following someone isn't an indicator of being willing to pay them for art. I like to go to SylvaneDaDeer as an example. I'd say they got most of their followers from fanart and dad-centred incest comics. Fanart brings in people more interested in the content the artist is deriving from than the art on its own merits, and a lot of the time people are sticking around comics more for the narrative. So they wound up posting this comic about being unsatisfied with their art-based income relative to their 4k followcount. I don't keep an eye on their commission work but they've gone up to nearly 7k since then and their Patreon funding has gone down.
Meanwhile trout_(artist) has been supporting himself on commissions below 4k for years.

Keep in mind that a lot of followers are themselves following a large number of other artists, and there's no differentiation between a this is an artist I'd commission/pay to see exclusive content from follow and a yeah they're okay, I want to see what they're doing now and then follow.

foxofgrey said:
I’m mainly concerning myself with Twitter for finding indie artists.

Well you're mostly going to be finding artists who are already doing fairly well by your standards then. People are going to keep telling you you're wrong when your thesis statement uses 90% of the furry NSFW drawn ever to mean 90% of the furry NSFW I've personally seen on Twitter.

Updated

Super interesting topic I'd be happy to throw my cents at, m8!.◠‿◠)
When it comes to Twitter and furry art, Your only gonna see the popular peeps since
the whole retweeting system has their work spreading like wildfire whenever they post.

Completely overshadowing less popular peeps since
theirs essentially one or two copies (Retweets) of their
work floating around in the tides of the 1000+ copies (Retwonks)
of the popstar peeps work per piece! Given that, super understandable
how you came to your theory! Finding new artists in that system
is certainly a rarity! ╹‿╹)

Though, if you ask me it's more like an optical illusion, a sexy one! T‿T)~★
There are tons of artists out there rather than the big names making
the NSFW biz too, Dood! Twitter is just a terrible place to find them
because of the whole retweeting system, ya know?

If you're craving some original content, Give e621, Furaffinity,
or Deviant Art a spin! Muuuuuch more likely to find peeps
you've never heard of making a name for their selves, Dood!
╹‿╹)

Also just because a lot of peeps follow an artist doesn't exactly mean they have a bakery
(Maken the dough, Dood) I can tell you from personal experience that life is sadly a heck
of a lot more complex than that. Found out many times that numbers are just numbers,
nothing you should base any financial biz on unless it is financial numbers, m8
=‿=; )

MagnusEffect Dood's Got a point, Peeps could be sticking around for completely different reasons
and just because people follow doesn't mean they're going to commission you, It's more like them
saying "Hey I like your art, Got any more?" ya know?

notkastar said:
If you're craving some original content, Give e621, Furaffinity,
or Deviant Art a spin! Muuuuuch more likely to find peeps
you've never heard of making a name for their selves, Dood!
╹‿╹)

Hold on, I'd argue that e6 has this inherent bias as well. Not quite as much as Twitter, but well-established and experienced artists are much, much less likely to have their work rejected under the quality standards. Oh what I'd give to be one of those artists good enough to not have to worry about that...

That's not a complaint about said standards (or calling the nods biased, don't get me wrong!), it's just a natural consequence. More popular artists are generally more popular because their work is better.

lendrimujina said:
Hold on, I'd argue that e6 has this inherent bias as well. Not quite as much as Twitter, but well-established and experienced artists are much, much less likely to have their work rejected under the quality standards. Oh what I'd give to be one of those artists good enough to not have to worry about that...

That's not a complaint about said standards (or calling the nods biased, don't get me wrong!), it's just a natural consequence. More popular artists are generally more popular because their work is better.

Eh, Better is subject my well-informed Dood! =‿=)
Though Ya got me haha ◠‿◠)

621 isn't the best place to find budding artist but,
it's certainly not the worst. Just check out the newest post
and you're bound to find peeps ready and willing to put it all
on the line, ya know? ╹‿╹)

notkastar said:
Eh, Better is subject my well-informed Dood! =‿=)
Though Ya got me haha ◠‿◠)

621 isn't the best place to find budding artist but,
it's certainly not the worst. Just check out the newest post
and you're bound to find peeps ready and willing to put it all
on the line, ya know? ╹‿╹)

Off topic, though do you have a Discord by any chance, legit you seem pretty chill to hang with.

foxofgrey said:
Off topic, though do you have a Discord by any chance, legit you seem pretty chill to hang with.

Can't tell ya how happy this comment made me ◠‿◠)
Thanks soo much for brightening up my day like that, Dood!

Super flattering you'd want to hand out with a peep like me
and You seem like a super neat dood to chat it up with too!
(This threads proof of that fact ◠‿╹)

But it just wouldn't be fair to ya since I'm gone
9 outta 10 working on one project or another~!
and I know we just met but I still wish the best for ya
and the best would be a peep who would be there for
ya 10 outta 10 times, even if that peep isn't me, Dood!
╹‿╹)

foxofgrey said:
So why are the majority of furry nsfw artists on Twitter popular as fuck? Where are all the indie furry artists that you’re bringing up here?

I mean, if you're looking for 4 digit or less follower count nsfw furry twitter artists,
sarcoph, kaepotassium, MiloDesty, and GoldieScales are a few I follow that fit the bill.

Follower count is a super subjective number honestly. How many "followers" is a lot? At what point does the number mean you're popular?

It isn't as hard to find new or "smaller" artists in the scene as you make it out. Especially if you're looking around at very niche scenes, scenarios, fandoms, or kinks.

A simple browse on FA kinda proves this theory wrong. The amount of low effort NSFW churned out by sub-1000 and even sub-100 follower counts is astounding.

I suggest looking at specific tags for shows/movies/games/fetishes on e6 and other art sites and just browsing the art to find some artists you enjoy

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