How are things standing for Life to Legend?
Well, as mentioned before, not bad, not bad at all! I’m happy to say that especially this website is doing really well, taking into consideration that in the blogging-world, this one is still pretty small.
Throughout time, I have been seeing a slight increase in organic visitors (people that find me through search engines and not through social media or direct links). This is a good thing as it’s like, a proof of concept. I can share the links endlessly, but when a blog is not receiving any organic visitors, there is something seriously wrong with it, because search machines either don’t like it, or your titles or subjects are not interesting enough.
There are of course more factors, which are easier to control, like the frequency someone posts, and if you do that every time on the same day, the length of your posts, and more such things. They affect the results as well, but hey, you’re not here to get a course in blogging! Fact is: I’m proud to say that LtL is flourishing the way it is! And best of all is that last week we hit 45 blog articles and the organic searches jumped up quite significantly compared to before. Something that’s not generally happening before a blog hits 50 articles.
What does this mean for the community?
Well, Life to Legend does have a community of artists on Facebook. But the way Facebook is being managed for the past year or so, it’s very clear that groups can’t really hold up anymore. This sadly means that the Facebook group is not really holding up either, and might not survive these changes, like many other groups that cater to a niche. But no fear, the group will stay, and maybe someday it will start flourishing again.
But in the meantime, LtL now also has a Discord channel. It’s still young, but it’s there to connect you with other artists and to provide you with boatloads of information about art, creature, and character design. There are large collections of Youtube videos available on the subjects, and there are chat and voice chat channels available for all kinds of chats. And don’t forget the screen sharing option!
The demise of Facebook is a sad thing, but there are many alternatives. Discord is one of them. LtL by nature is a community-based platform. It will continue being that, and grow over time to be even more. The fact that the LtL website has been doing as well as it does is comforting and promising. And LtL won’t be anything without you! To me, the community is the number 1 priority! And so you are here to stay :p.
What does the future of LtL hold?
I mentioned before that there would be some changes. Well, there are changes about the changes! Something called life, you know the drill. But let me list them for you!
The less fun changes
- Facebook prompts ~ We tried to re-start the prompts, but sadly nobody of the members, except one person joined. Considering the time it takes to come up with prompts and have them listed, I decided to, at least for now, not make new ones. This might change though when either the Discord channel or Facebook get more momentum!
- This also means that our new instagram channel is now on pause. It was built to share fully rendered prompt related illustrations. But again, maybe this will change in time!
- I also mentioned a Life to Legend lightbox before. The winning monthly prompt illustration, chosen by the community, would get its place in the lightbox. But I will only start doing so when there’s a considerable amount of people joining the prompt challenges.
So, what didn’t change, or change for the better?
- I continue writing blog articles the way I do now, on a weekly basis. This will help to keep the website and the community growing. This is the main goal after all!
- There are courses planned, but they are still way ahead. Think 2024/2025.
- Ryan Holt, our creature generator creator, was so kind to allow me to copy the existing one, and build it for character design as well! You can expect to see it in January of 2022!
As my reader, what do you want?
You, as a reader, or a community member, what do you want? What would you like to see in the future of Life to Legend? Would you like me to elaborate on specific subjects more? Or would you like to see breakdowns of my artworks? Maybe you have other ideas I didn’t think of before. So let me know what you think and what you’d like to see (more of). I can’t guarantee I will implement everything, but the ideas that fit the future goals of LtL might just get through!
Life to Legend vs Tez Art & Design
I’m frequently asked what Tez Art & Design is in relation to Life to Legend. So, let me cover this one quickly.
Tez Art & Design is not really of interest to readers of Life to Legend, this is also why you won’t see it pop up that much. Tez Art & Design is the umbrella company of Life to Legend and the Spudnik and Knofje project. The last is a co-owned project with Jade Zivanovic from Steampower Studios, Tez Art & Design is also the first company I owned and is thé place where my customers go to. This is where I offer my services as an artist and display my projects like Life to Legend and Spudnik and Knofje. I hope this answers the question, if not, feel free to ask!
