Author: Peter

Categories
Publishing

Smallest Viable Audience

Why Shrimp Cult Press Doesn’t Use On-Demand Publishing

At Vancouver Fan Expo this past February, a woman and her daughter came up to our booth and started talking with us. Like a lot of people, they had questions about the company, what we do, how we work, etc. This particular person, however, got started talking about on-demand book publishing. She was very passionate about it, and seemed to think it was the only sensible way for a publisher to make money and gain visibility.

In the moment, this advice felt wrong to me, especially since Shrimp Cult Press publishes to a particular niche: people who like off the wall, silly humour and graphic novels or TTRPGs. Those people aren’t buying their D&D books at Indigo or Barnes and Noble. I know this because I’m one of them, and so are many of my friends. We buy from the local game shop, or Kickstarter, or even a small independent publisher, if we can. But I’ve spent some time thinking about why this advice felt just so wrong for my company and mission and in the days that followed, it was hard to articulate to myself exactly why. In a blog post published today, Seth Godin lays out exactly why the print-on-demand model isn’t what Shrimp Cult Press is after. As usual, Seth Godin cuts straight to the point.

I recommend you read his blog post here. It will only take a minute.

In the long-tail business model he describes, there are three categories of successful parties: people who migrate leftward from the long tail to the height of popularity, people who are fine staying in the long tail and not making much money, and the company operating the business as a whole.

Migrating leftward is hard. It takes time, dedication, broad appeal, and a lot of luck. You’re taking on the task of becoming Mr. Beast or Markiplier*. Being a money maker in a long-tail business means being popular or betting that something you make will become a viral sensation. In a sensational world, it’s getting harder and harder to be a sensation. And is that even what you want to do? Going viral doesn’t just mean making something that people love, it means making something that people are rabid about for a short period of time. Harnessing that success means keeping the hits coming.

Then there are people who are happy to get a few hundred views on YouTube or sell fifty-ish books to friends and friends-of-friends. That’s a fine and noble goal. But these people aren’t trying to run a business.

A graph comparing number of views or sales by ranking in popularity. Sales are high for the most popular few, but drop off quickly.
Ranking Versus Views

Shrimp Cult Press isn’t running a long-tail business model like Amazon. I do want it to be a successful business, but I also have no interest in turning my company into a hits machine with influencer-like appeal.

Printing on-demand would mean struggling to migrate leftward, pushing and fighting through the crowd to reach the front of the line. Yes, there’s an immediate cost savings to printing on-demand, but the low margins mean that you have to go even farther to escape the long-tail. If you’re only making a few bucks per book, the number you have to sell to be profitable is in the thousands. per month. Our most recent book, Pizza Pigeon: The Search for the Lost Parm, has almost paid for its printing in the first month since it’s been out. And everything from here is clear profit. You don’t get that from on-demand printing.

With the low margins of on-demand printing, you also can’t afford distribution outside of whatever printer you’re working with. Distributors take 30 to 40 percent off the cover price of your book. If you print on-demand, you’re locked into the printer’s audience. No small bookstores for you.

Printing the old fashion way has its downsides, but it’s easier to make more money once your audience reaches a certain (much smaller) size. It’s easier to be proud of the things you’re making, too.

It’s also worth noting that there are multiple ways to do just about anything. And it’s a wise to be suspicious of anyone who tells you that their way is the only way to be successful.

* I feel like I’ve just aged myself by referring to YouTubers, and that’s wild to me.

Categories
General

Between the Terms: Spring Break Artwork

I’ll admit: between the first two terms of the 2D Animation and Digital Art program at the Centre for Arts and Technology, the global pandemic, and just the rigours of being in a city that still doesn’t quite feel like home, I went into our spring break very much burnt out. It has become clear to me over the years that one of the tricks for dealing with burn-out is making the most of the free time you have, and for me, that often means letting go of all schedule and letting the spirit move me as it will. If that means working on a project, great! If it means sitting on the couch and binging Critical Role while I eat take-out pho, also great. My break ended up being a mix of all those things, although I tried to keep the pencil moving whenever I could.

So here’s a round-up of projects I worked on during our week-and-a-half-long break. Some are finished, some are still in progress, and some are being put aside, fun had and lessons learned.

A quick, one page comic about a cult of gummy bears raising a giant gummy bear from hell. Born from an inside joke, this comic was fun to make. It was an exercise in getting something finished quickly, and this page – from conception and planning to final image – took less than ten hours. There are narrative problems that I recognize (e.g. the icing has no purpose, there is a third candy head in the middle of the pentagram that isn’t explained) and intend to fix at some point, but I needed to have it finished, so I settled for “good enough for now.”
In-progress of the gummy bears comic. Once I had thumbnailed the panels separately, I drew in my construction lines with non-photo blue pencil, and then drew final lines with regular 2B pencil. I largely followed a technique laid out in a YouTube video by animator and comic artist Tony Cliff, whose work I absolutely loved in the graphic novel “Bubble”. This image was cleaned up and coloured in Photoshop to produce the final result.
The result of an off-hand joke in the web series Critical Role, I felt compelled to illustrate the Fantasy Uggs of Sneaking. My goal here was to practice rendering the focal point of the image to a higher level of detail than the background, and to experiment with loose brush strokes to imply texture.
These occurred to me right after I finished the Fantasy Uggs of Sneaking. Another experiment in loosely rendered backgrounds. I wanted the flops to have the curved, misshapen look that leather flip flops get after several seasons of use, right when they’re at their coziest.
A friend of mine is starting a game and IP development studio, and needed a website in a hurry. This was a fun opportunity to dip a toe back in the software world, and keep my engineering skills polished. Even though the work I did previously was mostly back-end, many of the same principles apply to front-end development. Over a period of 24 hours, with my friends mocks, I was able to get the site up, running, and fully responsive and mobile friendly. I used SASS for the first time, and loved it. You can see the finished page (and find out more about the studio!) at Ottodork.com.
Categories
General

Second Term of Animation School: Finished!

It’s hard to believe, but my second of five terms at the Centre for Arts and Technology’s 2D Animation and Digital Art program is complete! This term, it felt like we really started applying the fundamentals of animation that we learned in quarter one. I felt a massive improvement in my ability to draw human characters from my imagination, which has always been difficult to do to my satisfaction. Our character design class really pushed those skills and cemented the practice we’ve been doing in life drawing. Finally, our Drawing for Animation class gave me a chance to take a crack at drawing animation layouts.

Toward the end of this term, I realized that I need to focus on improving the timing in my animation. The motion in the last two assignments bothered me – it felt too rigid and unnatural. After a conversation with a contact in the industry, I now understand that my drawings were spaced too evenly. So one of my focuses for next term will be on achieving snappy, natural movement.

Next term, I’m looking forward to beginning digital animation in Adobe Animate/Flash, and learning more about storyboarding. I’m also hoping to work on adding more rhythm, flow, and spontaneity to my drawing in our life drawing class, in which we’ll be focusing on animal drawing.

Action analysis from a clip of a baseball player hitting a home run.
Action analysis from various reference videos of curling. The settle could be a little slower, and it would help to see some background elements moving to really sell the idea of motion.
Walk with a heavy weight. Alright, so the bucket should move less. That said, I’m proud of the slow in to the top that makes it look like the character is throwing their weight into moving the bucket, and of the asymmetrical, perspective foot slip.
This, our second to last assignment of the term, illustrates the point I made earlier about unnatural timing. The clue (which I not see) is in the timing charts at the side: they’re all symmetrical! Not the best mime-acting assignment even done, but after all, school is a safe place to learn from your mistakes.
Final project for Character Design. Gary Sutherland (aka “The Envitalator” is a character I came up with for the class.)
I love the idea of the chainsaw paint roller or “power roller”. It looks mean, but it would in no way help you paint faster. In fact, it would mostly spray paint everywhere, except for a small, streaky patch on the wall, and that’s what I find so amusing about it.
Our first project for Character Design was for a character named Even, from a provided story about survivors of a near-future apocalypse. This was a landmark for me: the first character design I’ve done that I’m truly proud of.
A set design and value study for the same provided story as the Even character above. Drawn and rendered on 12-field animation paper with pencil.
Categories
General

First Term of Animation School Complete

My first term at the Centre for Arts and Technology just finished today! Even though there are four more quarters to go, I’m thrilled with what I’ve learned so far, excited for what I’ll learn in terms to come, and proud of myself for all the work I did during the term and to get here. It’s hard to believe that we’ve already finished 20% of the program!

Here are some of the highlights from the term.

Rudolph running for almost four cycles, then jumping.
I tried something with the seams on the front of the sack that didn’t really work. Rather than making it look like the mass is rotating, they just look wrong. Unfortunately I realized this too late, but I’ve learned for next time.
First shot at effects animation.
Only the colour is my work. The original ink is by Zach Howard, and appears on the cover of Star Trek Alien Spotlight: Orions, issue 1A. Fun fact, I didn’t know what comic this was from when I began painting. My Star Trek senses are alive and well, apparently. (In Star Trek, Orions are aliens that look just like humans, except green.)
Our assignment was to do a painting of an eye. I’d like to continue working on getting the fine details in the skin texture right, but overall I’m pretty proud of how it turned out.

Next term, I’m looking forward to improving my life drawing skills, diving into acting in animation, and learning more about character design. We’re also taking a perspective class, and while I’ve already taken perspective, you can never practice it too much, and I’m excited to learn about organic perspective for the first time.

Categories
School

Presentation at CAT by Todd Ramsay

Today, Yeti Farm Creative owner and CCO Todd Ramsay came to speak to the first term students of the 2D Animation and Digital Art program at CAT. This was the first chance we’ve gotten to hear from a representative of an animation studio, and it was illuminating in a lot of ways. Todd took us through his history as an artist and how Yeti Farm was founded, and showed us several projects that he and his company have worked on.

It was reassuring to hear that, like me, Todd didn’t go straight into animation right out of school. He gave us some tips for success, and told us about a few things that had and hadn’t worked in his career. I especially appreciated that he took the time to answer all of our questions about the industry and about Yeti Farm candidly and directly.

Sometimes in school, a future career can feel a bit abstract and far away, and listening to Todd’s presentation made working as an animator feel a bit more real and tangible, bringing up (and answering) questions I didn’t know I had, relieving concerns, and giving me things to focus on as I continue to learn. I’m glad we had this presentation so early on in our program, and I appreciate Todd taking the time to speak to us.

Categories
General

Hello!

My name is Peter Davoust. I’m an animation and illustration student at the Centre for Arts and Technology. I like visual storytelling, cartoon animals, and art that makes the world a better place. When I graduate from CAT, I hope to make all three.