Some critique needed

I want talk to my fellow content creators for a moment. I don't want this to sound like a whine post or anything. It probably will. I apologize in advance or if this is not the place to talk about this.  I am feeling a little down and out about creating stuff. And I know I do not have the experience like some. I am not selling anything. And I am just not sure why. Maybe I picked content that no one wants?  I am not looking for "good job pats" or "you can do it" but more like tips from my fellow content creators. Maybe some areas in the 3 packs I have up I can improve on, like formatting or quality. Or just general thoughts Or concerns. 

PM sent.

Can you please link me to your Marketplace creator page? It will have all your packs. Hope you feel better soon though. Every contributor is valuable. Someone is or will use your pieces and have a good game, and have fun, and that's important. Plus it sounds like you're a published artist and I think that is cool, to me.

I would like to see some discussion on this.  I'm not a marketplace creator and not likely to become one.  I run several games and spend a lot of time getting the graphics just the way I want them.  This includes cobbling images together, copying a photo and using an image editor to make it look like a drawing, changing colors, adding elf ears and removing a beard, turning a sword into a battle axe, and a million other details. My maps include medieval building plans and tile-by-tile dungeon constructs.  I would pay for what I want if I could find it, but I don't pay for what I don't want.  The thing is, I have no idea if anyone else wants what I want! Therefore it would be interesting to have some structured community input, both for creators to know what potential buyers might be hoping for, and for potential buyers like me to know if we represent the larger market or are crazy outliers.  The first step would be to get input from both sides as to what questions need to be in a survey. How can we communicate artistic styles?  I will only buy artwork in a style that matches my campaign, but I'm not sure how to describe that. I would experiment with isometric maps on a small scale, but not make a big investment since I don't know whether I will like them. I don't find animation value-added because it is distracting and causes lags, but there may be exceptions for environmental effects like shadows and fog. and so on... Anyone want to take on an information-gathering effort on this topic?

Your name on the forums doesn't match your store name so a link to your store like Gold said would help. I'll try to offer feedback -- heaven knows I've reached out to a number of Marketplace Creators on Twitter for advice before I jumped in. I'm not as well established as others and my sales are not going to compare to more popular artists, but I'll try to offer some tips that I've gleaned from those who've helped me. Some creators are better at marketing their packs. David Hemenway, DMS Creations, Gabriel Pickard, Darkwoulfe, Devin Night, Julien De Lucca, and Meditating Munky have hundreds or thousands of followers on Twitter. The official Roll20 Twitter has 45,000. When I post about a newly released pack and one of them Retweets me I can see a noticeable increase in my sales that day. I'd keep an eye on the hashtags and take the advice emailed to Marketplace Creators by Trivia & Jelisa. They advise on tags to use to get them to promote your work. The more work you release the more likely someone is to decide to work with your style. You could run entire campaigns with tokens made by Devin Night or Darkwoulfe. I do not have nearly as many packs available so I like to create tokens in similar styles to DMS Creations, Darkwoulfe, Ddraig, and Phillip "Lorien" Wright in the hopes that people will see my work and think it can compliment sets they already have from more established creators. If another charity pack comes up I'd suggest working to get into that as well. I was fortunate enough to get into the holiday charity pack and the day that was released was the best day I've ever had for sales of my other packs. My final piece of advice is to consider why you're in it. There's no chance of me making a career out of what I put up for sale on Roll20. I doubt I'll ever make a profit because I spend more on 3D assets to create my sets than I make selling them. But I enjoy creating these token sets and almost everything I have is because I used/use/may use them in the campaign I run. If you're doing this for fun, try to focus on that and think of money you make as a nice bonus. If you legitimately want to make this into a profitable business then you may need to look into marketing and promoting yourself more and making your work available to a wider audience than just Roll20. Chin up! It can be a slow start but this is a very diverse group of folks and there are going to be people who genuinely enjoy what you do, no matter how niche it is.

Id like to see a link also. to me the most important thing in a map isnt quality(thats a plus) but functions and provides me with something i cant find anywhere else. like if i have in mind for a wizard tower and cant find nothing but lil lighthouses with mage tables then ill scour till i find that one unique one that fits me. but cant say more with out looking at your stuff. edit i looked hard for your content but couldn't find anything under your name. That might be an issue in of itself

For those wondering, this is his marketplace offerings. It's listed under Dungeonworks. I've been thinking about this thread for a while, because I wanted to figure out the reason why I felt the way I did about the pack before I offered critique on it. Here's my thoughts. I've actually seen your stuff when searching for map assets before. I can't recall if I saw them early in the listings, or late in the listings, but I do specifically remember passing on them. In my personal opinion, when I'm browsing the marketplace offerings, I'm either looking for something specific, or something to supplement the visual presentation of my games. In my opinion, there are two main issues with the packs that led me to passing on it. One is something that's a little out of your control, but it's the fact that the pixelated artstyle isn't done any justice being shrunk to a smaller size for the thumbnail. The thumbnail makes it look like I'm seeing a completed dungeon, rather than individual assets. One browsing through the marketplace may not realize they're seeing individual tiles arranged in such a way that it forms a dungeon, but they may assume it's just a pre assembled dungeon room. Fair warning, I don't really make map assets, so I can't say what I'm providing for advice is best practice, but let me tell you what I think works from other thumbnails and compare them to yours. The Thumbnail for Battle Terrains Mountain Trails, by Peter's Forge  makes it's modularity obvious from the thumbnail, because I can see the individual pieces. Furthermore, clicking on the listing shows additional thumbnails that shows the packs linked together and boundaries to separate them. My eyes are brought to the title because it's front and center in the middle of the thumbnail. I can tell the function of the marketplace offering from the Thumbnail alone. I know it's something I should take a look at if I want to run mountain combat.  Your first art pack, The Basic Dungeon , does show some individual tiles amongst the complete dungeon, but not seeing the name of the pack anywhere in the thumbnail doesn't give me context for what I'm looking for. Wild Encounters V11 Jungle Camps and Ruins by Mr Valor  is an information dense thumbnail that shows a lot of the offerings of the pack from a simple glance. 2 premade jungle maps, and a bunch of individual assets. Nobody is going to buy a pack if they don't know what it is, so it may be worth re-evaluating how you form your thumbnails. I'm sure if you posted a thread asking for feedback on thumbnails, people would be willing to offer their opinions. (Just be mindful to make example thumbnails for something already released, as posting thumbnails for an upcoming release may be against the rules according to Roll20's stickied post.) Second, Artstyle. Personal taste for it aside, I have to be honest and say that I would never end up buying these packs simply because I don't have a pixelated artstyle in my games. If I'm on the marketplace to buy assets to improve the visual presentation of my tabletop, I want packs that are visually consistent. However, the only offerings I can choose from are 3 different dungeon packs in your artstyle. Even though I personally do like the spritework, especially in The Basic Dungeon , I can't use them because I can't keep visual consistency, which I consider important if I'm looking to buy an asset pack. Unfortunately, this isn't gonna be easy to hear, but I can only think of two ways out of the slump you're in right now. One, is that you need more offerings. Plain and simple, I'm not going to use your artstyle if it only applies to three dungeons. Now, if I had a pixelated town I could make using your tiles, maybe some pixelated terrain to work with, I'd have a more consistent pack of assets to work with. Suddenly, I'm not just interested in buying one pack, but I might be interested in buying several packs. However, making a ton of assets for every situation and hoping someone buys into them takes time, and it can be risky if people aren't willing to switch to your artstyle. What I think would probably be a better idea is to create Modules or One-Shot adventures with preassembled dungeons in this artstyle. If I had confidence that I could run an adventure start to finish in a consistent artstyle, I'd be more willing to pay for it. To me, a module seems like the easiest way to provide that experience. However, that is just my personal opinion. Others may differ and have qualms with the artstyle, but technical skill aside, I wanted to provide a perspective not on the creator's side, but on the side of a buyer and what I'm looking for when I want to spend my money. Hopefully this helps you think of your packs in a new way.

Rainy makes good points so wont re-cover what she said but agree with a lot. I do like that u can see the walls so that's unique and u can give a sense of whats on the walls  instead of standard birds eye. One major issue i have with it is too many tiles. If you ever had to build and run a game u know the more tiles u have  the more collisions  and overlaps can make game very laggy so you could never build giant maps with them  and would also take forever. having bigger selection of  tiles that covered multiple squares would help. Side note try to make sure they match art styles of other packs so like rainy put out they can easily add or use them to existing maps without detracting from that groups play style.

First, I’m no creator but hopefully the view of a potential customer is still useful.  Raimy’s post regarding marketing is pretty spot on.  I would add that your style combines two very niche elements:  a  bitmap appearance c.1990s and a top down view with visible walls.  I suspect this will appeal to a very specific audience.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but it will affect traction.  Just my 2p worth.

I  think your stuff has potential but you would probably neen more. You have a very clear style, which is good, but as a customer i would be worried about the limited range.  If I start using your art I want to be able to continue using it as the adventure continues. 

Hey All I did not want anyone to think I just abandoned this thread. I have read through it and as well as some private messages. I appreciate all the answers. And they have really helped. I am working on doing more!

My response won’t be as long winded or detailed as some but I hope it proves to be just as insightful. As a new creator myself, Ive has the same question as you. I started out not selling anything. I noticed that the more I have up, the more I sell. But what I’ve also boticed is that the thumbnail has got to pop to even get me foot in the door. And after that, I had better have something different than anyone else — better — and more worth that $4.99 price tag than anyone else if I’m going to sell. No one wants to spend $5 to be disappointed. I’d like the opposite effect. I think I’ve got a lot of return customers that way. I’m not a success story but I have 6 packs and make $30 a month on average. The more I lost, the more I make. 16 bit is a unique style. Not my preference particularly. Add more to these packs. Perhaps give a couple of formed dungeons as well as the tiles- something for people to throw up quickly if need be. Think about he difficulty and length of time a Gm spends preparing and minimize that for them. That’s what I do- that’s my best advice. im Risen tabletop on the market

Sorry for typos - sent from a phone