16 Patreon Rewards for Illustrators To Provide Patrons

What makes prime illustrators on Patreon so profitable? These creators succeed on many fronts to obtain the assist they do (reminiscent of constructing their viewers, establishing rapport with that viewers, and so forth.). A part of that success comes from having a robust mixture of rewards.

In case you’re seeking to discover your individual success on Patreon, this text will assist you resolve what rewards to supply your patrons in trade for his or her recurring pledges. To that finish, we’ve included sixteen of the most well-liked (and most profitable) rewards supplied by illustrators on Patreon.

That mentioned, this text is meant to place helpful data at your fingertips. However it’s as much as you to resolve which rewards are proper to your creator enterprise. These rewards drive the majority of prime Patreon illustrators’ pledges (not so as — choose those which can be best for you).

1. Excessive-quality/Full-size Photos & Wallpaper

You make lovely artwork; your followers love to understand lovely artwork. So releasing full dimension, high-quality photos tends to make them fairly completely happy. Even higher? Excessive-quality photos which can be neatly formatted for his or her desktops and laptops.

Many artists, just like the unstoppable Sakimi Chan and WLOP, give full high quality photos or wallpapers on the $1 tier to encourage first-time patrons. These are sometimes photos they had been going to attract anyway; not often are there ‘patron solely,’ full-size photos supplied for $1 or $Three tiers. For instance, the photographs WLOP shares as wallpapers are adjusted photos from the comedian.

Different artists use wallpapers and different high-quality photos to push worth to increased tiers. For instance, excessive res photos don’t seem till the $20 tier for ALICE IN DISSONANCE, and Vicki Tsai pushes worth to her $5 tier.

What can give you the results you want depends upon what worth your viewers is prepared to pay to assist you, how a lot further time you’re spending on reward supply, and which tiers you wish to emphasize for patrons.

2. Early Updates

Early updates take advantage of sense for comedian and animation artists whose audiences eagerly await the subsequent story improvement. Michelle Czcajowski of Ava’s Demon, for instance, arrange her reward tiers virtually fully round rising early entry:  $3/mo supporters get some sneak peaks, $5/mo patrons get “some sketches and previews,” and $10/mo patrons get to see previews plus “secret artwork stuff” for the comedian earlier than it’s delivered to life.

However you actually don’t need to be producing serial content material to make early entry rewards successful. Hannah Alexander, who creates artwork and costume designs, consists of early entry in her rewards combine. Or, contemplate MissMonster’s method: not solely does she launch sneak peeks of in-progress works, however she publicizes new store choices to her patrons earlier than launch to most of the people.

3. Group Entry

Entry to a non-public neighborhood—Discord is a well-liked selection made even simpler with our integration—may be incentive sufficient to your most loyal followers to ship a number of {dollars} per 30 days your approach. Some creators supply it for any degree of membership, and a few reserve it for increased tiers.

Peter Mohrbacher, for instance, provides Discord entry to all of his patrons. Not solely has it served as a spot for his neighborhood to develop, it additionally gave him extra concepts: providing prizes exterior of Patreon to encourage fan artwork (which, by the way, would drive extra visitors to his venture). He had seen so many nice reimaginings of his Watchers that he simply needed to share.

That’s to not say {that a} Discord channel is the one place you may develop a neighborhood: some use their very own web sites, Fb teams, boards, and different corners of the web.

4. Digital Bonuses

Take a look at-renders. Brush packs. Sketches. PSD or Lineart information. There are such a lot of ‘extras’ which you can share with an viewers serious about studying the way you do what you do daily.

For instance, Ty Carter shares PSD information and brushes as a part of his $5/mo tier. Artist Kawacy pushes PSD information and brushes to the $10/mo tier, however provides accompanying explanations to extend their worth.

In case your viewers consists of different artists who wish to be taught, these bonuses are a terrific addition to your rewards combine.

5. Voice-over Tutorials/Course of Movies

Since we’re on the subject of followers who wish to be taught, one other fashionable reward that caters to artists in your viewers are voice-over tutorials/course of movies.

Wildlife artist Jason Morgan provides voice-over portray movies for all $4+ patrons. His total Patreon web page is constructed round educating others the abilities he’s constructed.

A clip promoting one in every of Jason Morgan’s tutorial voice-over movies.

Some creators keep on with explaining artwork they’d produce anyway; some additionally present topical tutorials that dive into a selected method they use when making their artwork.

One strategy to drive visitors to your tutorials is to submit teasers like Jason does, or submit full-length course of movies with out commentary on Youtube. Some artists will submit the movies with out commentary free of charge, then cost for a similar video however with voice-over commentary.

You probably have tutorials or portray movies that you simply suppose your patrons would love, try Patreon’s Vimeo integration. With this integration, Professional and Premium creators can supply entry to unique Vimeo movies as a tier profit. And the perfect half is, when you arrange your permisions on Vimeo, you gained’t have to depart your Patreon web page to add and share the movies along with your patrons.

Right here’s what Patreon creator Epic Rap Battle needed to say concerning the integration:

“The Vimeo integration is each safe and seamless – the way in which issues must be. It provides a sleeker interface for each creators and patrons to make use of and opens up potentialities for utilizing extra video content material on Patreon.” — Epic Rap Battles Of Historical past.

For extra data, try the weblog submit titled, A New Strategy to Share Unique Video on Patreon with Vimeo.

Or, when you’re prepared to begin utilizing the Vimeo integration to share unique video along with your patrons right now, subscribe to any paid plan at Vimeo. In case you don’t have a paid subscription to Vimeo, join their free 30-day trial for the Plus or Professional plans and take a look at it out. Join now.

When you join Vimeo, try this assist article for detailed directions on methods to arrange the mixing.

6. Fan Options

In case you make a comic book (or one thing comparable that you simply distribute to your viewers regularly), you can provide patrons the choice of showing in your comedian as one in every of your minor characters.

Typically, as within the case of Jason Porath’s Rejected Princesses sequence, meaning a once-per-year look within the background of a comic book. Different artists, reminiscent of Peritian, supply a number of appearances (with patronage for that tier capped at manageable ranges). Artist Colour-LES places patron-characters on a month-to-month rotation.

This reward is very useful for artists who’ve some traction with their viewers—however need a particular reward to attract consideration to their Patreon campaigns.

7. Bonus Artwork, Fanart, & Alternate Endings

Scenes that by no means made it to the general public comedian. Relationships that your characters don’t (and gained’t) have within the official comedian. NSFW variations of your drawings (see our neighborhood pointers for extra on what you are able to do with NSFW content material).

Bonus choices like these let cater to your fanbase with out compromising what you wish to do in your canon artwork and comics. Some artists even do a specific amount of fan artwork every month (whereas providing patrons voting privileges on which characters to do).

All these rewards are supplied by illustrators at each stage of success on Patreon, from well-established creators like Sakimi Chan to smaller, rising creators like Rachta Lin.

Word: To be taught extra about Patreon’s insurance policies for grownup content material, please learn the neighborhood pointers. Grownup content material can’t be displayed publicly in your Patreon; it should be behind the paywall and accessible by patrons of 18 years or older.

8. Coloring Pages

Sure, this reward is strictly what it feels like. Some creators supply black-and-white variations of their artwork for patrons to paint! Jasmine Becket-Griffith does this successfully by together with the pages in her $5/mo tier.

Amy Brown, a watercolor artist, provides coloring pages at a number of tiers, additionally beginning on the $5/mo degree of assist. It’s a technique that works for comedian artists as properly: the Namesake Workforce provides coloring pages from their comedian, Namesake, beginning on the $1/mo tier.

9. Classes & Artwork Critiques

Tutorials aren’t the one academic software you may leverage when rewarding patrons: for the fitting worth, many creators supply group and/or non-public artwork classes. Irshad Karim constructed his Reddit neighborhood and Patreon round providing critiques and drawing up classes for his followers to comply with.

Or, contemplate Trendy Day James: he provides critiques, group classes, and personal classes (with every changing into progressively costlier as extra worth is added). In case you’re unsure methods to cost, contemplate how a lot you would possibly pay (or cost) for in-person classes, then worth accordingly.

10. Entry to the Archives

If what you create is “evergreen”—i.e, it ages properly (this shall be true for many artists)—you can even make an archive of creations that patrons can entry. It might be course of movies, patron-only paintings, bonuses from the previous, and even livestream recordings (which Trendy Day James provides his patrons on the $5/mo tier). Peter Mohrbacher opens up his Dropbox archive to $30/portray supporters.

The creators talked about above grant quick entry to all archived content material; others launch previous content material to new patrons over an extended span of time. For instance, let’s say you may have ten in-depth tutorials you’ve launched to your viewers over time. As an alternative of exhibiting them unexpectedly to new patrons, you could possibly let patrons choose one previous tutorial per 30 days to get along with the present month’s choices. (Word that, at the moment, this should be carried out manually—however relying in your viewers and reward ranges, it could be price the additional work to have this type of personalised possibility accessible).

All of it depends upon what you need to supply and which methodology of providing it should entice sustainable patronage.

11. Behind the Scenes Content material

If somebody begins providing ‘behind the scenes’ content material, it’s normally one of many following: both it’s informative and academic, it’s largely private, or it’s a mixture of each.

Illustrator Fran Meneses makes use of Patreon Lens to offer her patrons a slice-of-life expertise, plus posts a podcast each two weeks speaking about stuff she’s doing and what’s inspiring her. Her behind the scenes is generally private; increased tier supporters get entry to a month-to-month Q&A the place they’ll ask extra severe questions on making it as a freelancer, changing into a greater illustrator, and extra.

You can additionally use Lens like Shayla Maddox does: as a automobile to doc her artistic course of for all her patrons to view and revel in.

A video of her work in progress that Shayla shared to Lens.

Efficiently leveraging behind the scenes content material is all about understanding your viewers—and understanding what you, as an individual, are comfy sharing.

12. Bodily Merchandise

It’s common for creators to forgo bodily merchandise as a result of success is tough—and time-consuming. However for a lot of illustrators, printed works can push important worth to increased tiers.

In reality, a number of devoted patrons can present constant assist in a approach that one-off print gross sales can by no means do. Plus, your patrons usually tend to pay prime greenback for unique works. The way you construction tiers relies upon fully on how you like to be compensated to your labor and inventive genius.

Some creators, like Skirtzzz, go for month-to-month packages with (largely) predictable contents. Alternatively, you may supply bodily merchandise solely after your patrons have been round for some time (reminiscent of sending a print or small unique work after your 6-monthiversary collectively).

Lastly, you may all the time depend on reductions: when you’ve got a retailer, however don’t wish to arrange your patreon with bodily merch rewards, you may supply patrons a reduction in your current stock.

13. Commissions

Talking of issues that take work, however have higher worth… it’s all the time price contemplating commissions. Some artists use Patreon in order that they’ll reduce out commissions altogether, and a few use it to chop down on who may even request commissions (i.e., ‘when you’re not a patron at X tier, I gained’t do commissions for you’).

Manaberry, for instance, provides patrons first dibs every time she has open slots for commissions (which doesn’t all the time occur). Others give patrons reductions on commissions.

However, providing commissions as a reward encourages recurring work when priced on the proper tier. Too low, and commissions will eat up the time you needed to spend by yourself tasks. Too excessive, and nobody will purchase. It could take some trial and error earlier than you discover the extent that’s best for you! In case you’re nonetheless unsure, contemplate discovering different creators such as you and learning their pricing.

14. Polling & Strategies Packing containers

Followers like to be those you hearken to whenever you’re evaluating concepts and deciding what to do subsequent. Whether or not it’s entry to a patrons-only “strategies” field or voting on which fanart you’ll draw this month, provides patrons a voice in your work (however solely to the extent that you simply permit).

Many creators use polls as an early-tier reward to say ‘thanks’ and provides slightly push to followers who’re on the fence about changing into patrons. Others reserve it as a higher-tier reward mixed with different choices. For instance, Vivienne Medrano pushes polling to the $20/mo tier.

15. Q&A Classes & Livestreams

Q&A can work very well for creators prepared to interact with their followers. Discord is one strategy to host a Q&A, however some artists do livestreams or pre-recorded movies to reply followers’ questions as properly. You’ll be able to reply questions on your individual life, about being an illustrator, about freelancing, or about every other subject you are feeling comfy participating.

Robin Sealark, for instance, mixes up Q&A’s with group portray classes, video games, and challenges for her $5 tier supporters. You’ll be able to even stream your artistic course of reside… when you dare.

16. Fan Recognition

Saying ‘Thank You’ goes a good distance. And when it’s a public shout-out to the followers who hold you fed? Even higher! Easy recognition rewards—like a listing of patrons in your web site—are a pleasant strategy to reward decrease tier donations.

And to your extra beneficiant patrons, you may supply issues like…

• Getting their names within the print version of your comedian,
• Recognition in a printed information for an exhibition (see Sam and Sadhbh),
• Getting a particular star or shade to mark them as high-level donors on Discord or within the feedback in your web site,

… or every other approach that matches along with your artwork and medium.

These sixteen rewards are sufficient to get you began, however they’re not complete. Hopefully, you may choose and select the rewards that blend properly with your enterprise fashion — whereas developing with some distinctive choices that fit your artwork and fanbase.

As you select, you’ll must hold pricing in thoughts. Is the trouble in creating the reward well worth the time? Which tiers do you have to think about?

Given what you already know about your enterprise and viewers, which of those rewards and tiers can be most profitable for you?

Know what you wish to supply to your followers in trade for month-to-month membership? Join Patreon right here.