Here's the link Toon Vector Icon Pack by PathTrove (itch.io)
Looking for feedback or thoughts on the page and what I'm offering, I'm new to releasing assets here and any tips would be helpful, thank you!
A common way to prevent art theft is to add a watermark to display images. This can be a simple grid of text that says "display" or your user name at low opacity. For example:
You can make your watermark as simple or complex as you want. You can also make the watermark more visible. So long as the watermark would be obvious if someone tried using the art from the display image, you're good.
With or without a watermark, if someone were to download a display image and use it in their own project it would look blurry and unpolished.
Also, projects with stolen art are at risk of having their project taken down or, at worst, hearing from my lawyer.
At the end of the day though, watermarks are just a simple way to ward off lazy thieves. If someone really want to steal art, they will find a way to do so. There's no absolute fool proof way to prevent it
The way you do it is fine, it's just too much I guess 😅I suggest trying a less steeper angle and zooming in a bit more. Then add some watermark. The angled distortion itself will significantly reduce the quality of the assets (making the edges blurry) at least from my experience, so it'll be hard for someone to just copy paste it 100%.
Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my post and for sharing your advice. Your work has been a huge inspiration for me, and I really admire the quality and creativity in your asset packs. I agree the name isn't a great choice but I haven't thought of a better one yet, I might change the name so the style isn't so pigeonholed. If you have time, I've love to know more about how it was for you when you started out on itch.io.
Thanks again for the advice!
sure man! There were two things that were like cheat codes for me, although they're pretty common sense:
Having a niche is great because it's difficult to be the best overall, but it's pretty easy to be the best in a smaller community (as long as you have at least some skill, which you definitely do).
By way of example, I started by making Minecraft logos. I wasn't great, but I was good enough to make 20 bucks here and there. Gradually my skills improved, and I had to charge more because I didn't have enough time to meet demand.
Doesn't have to be Minecraft, obviously. Find a community you like, see what graphics they need - which is not necessarily what you want to make, or what other people are making - and become the best at it.
Marketing is a bit of a "no duh", but I feel like people on itch ignore it, instead assuming that they're going to get "discovered" and suddenly start raking in the cash. Goes for games and assets alike.
When I started, Twitter was great for marketing. That's still true, but if I were to start again today, Tiktok is the far better choice. The trick is to post visual content regularly. For me, that's twice a week.
Luckily, our content is necessarily visual, so that gives great options for content: finished products, WIPs, timelapses, etc. When you get a bit more established, updates and releases get good engagement, and you can of course interact with your community.
All in all, I'd recommend spending 40-50% of your time on marketing and general business tasks, and the rest on actually creating stuff.
Hope that helps!