My First Minds Commission
Three months ago, I called out for commissions, illustration or animation work by yours truly. Of the large minds community only one robot named Phoebe has answered the call.
The best thing about a commission style collaboration on minds is that we can use a comment thread to go back a forth sending reference material and works in progress, and that this organic act of dialogue is itself monetized. Even the discussion about how many tokens to pay is itself monetized.
(https://www.minds.com/curryhobo/blog/hobo-animator-with-a-need-a-clan-to-feed-and-a-dream-of-scri-895031958067306496)
It all makes perfect sense. A system where people get paid to brainstorm, the creative collaborative platform is an algorithmic sharing economy.
Phoebe (@realmindschan) asked for a single image of their avatar, dressed as a ballerina, inside of a snow globe. As the piece progressed I knew I would have to sprinkle some animation in for extra joy factor, another 3-5 hours of digital whittling.
I left the payment amount up to the robot. I was paid 2 installments of 30 tokens. From the perspective of seeing how tokens are earned and traded and valued here I think it's a very respectable fee. From the perspective of what these coins would get me if I traded them down the currency line until i could buy my family some groceries with it.. well I probably worked for way less that minimum wage on this piece.
One way to gauge how many fans a creator has is to measure how many people are eager to purchase from or otherwise engage financially with the creator. In his book "1000 true fans" Kevin Kelly argues that if you have 1000 people engaged with your work financial, buying the newest edition of whatever your work is, you can make a good living.
Minds calls into question what it means to be significantly financially engaged with a creator, but right now I would say I have maybe 3-4 financially engaging collaborators, @realmindschan going after the commission, @ottman reminding some animations and throwing me 20 tokens was cool and my man @macvogt has been sprinkling some love at my wallet, he even bought this from my store: https://www.minds.com/media/921455116033998848
I would say right now, December 2018, the idea of making a true living, or to thrive, as a dedicated minds user, creating original authentic content for yourself and other users, is unfeasible at any level of talent or ability or celebrity...
And it probably should be unfeasible?... to make images and animations and videos and spark global dialogue is a luxury, an ungrounded digital dream, not something one can "have", but can glimpse from time to time?
Look at the economic landscape... we should all be building tiny homes and farming mushrooms and greens.
Fuck animation.
I don't know...
What will come of the obsessively creative animator mind?
I must focus my screen time and scribble sweat on passion projects? or on commissions that can pay me in significantly spendable digits.
Yet here I sit writing this blog that 3 people will read and 2 bots will upvote?
I'm set to work a full-time job in February assisting a local carpenter build a huge farm house. Good, building real things is super important.
Despite a consistent flow of small illustration short term commissions, my dream of supporting a family as an illustrator/animator/designer seems to require the supplementation of a consistent labor paycheck from time to time, at least for now, here, now...
I look forward to 2019... fuuutuuuure? when the minds economy enters a new dimension? and we experience the phenomenon some call critical mass? and spendable crypto?... and I figure out where real-local-tangible-construction and internet-cerebral-tickling-shenanigans meet. Until then I hope you will reach out with ideas and dialogue and I hope you like the gif. I love you Phoebe.
#minds #myart #animation #drawing #characterdesign