We recently connected with Romeyruu and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Romeyruu, thanks for joining us today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?
Being someone with a relatively small following it was hard to actually have people find my work and want to commission me. A lot of my first clients were friends and family but they would share the work I did for them to others which helped me get commissions. Even though the amount of commissions I get have now are lower than before there was a time I got so many I actually had to turn down or waitlist people because I wasn’t able to handle that many at a time. Though the money I made wasn’t enough to live on it’s very exhilarating to know there are people out there who I’ll probably never know or meet in person who want art from me!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I’m been making fan art on my romeyruu instagram account since 2016, but I’ve actually been sharing my art online since probably around 2013-2014, though you won’t be able to find them now. It started are purely a thing I did for fun, and it still is, but as I got older I realized people are actually able to do this for a living which was really eye opening for me. After that I’ve opened commissions and have slowly been working towards participating in my first artist alley! But in the meantime I’ve been focusing on trying to get my name out there more in the fandom space through doing panels at anime conventions and even handing out free stickers in hope people will look me up and like what I create!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
You don’t have to be perfect. This is something I still struggle with today. The idea that every art piece has to be the best I can do and if it isn’t it shouldn’t be share, but in reality just making something is enough. Nothing in this world is perfect so why should I put these standards on myself? I fee like I was always told to work towards perfection but I think striving for perfection will only stunt your growth because you’ll be too scared to experiment. Just focus on making things that’ll make you happy and the rest will follow.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
There was a point in my life where I realized I can’t please everyone. No matter what I do or say there will always be someone out there who won’t like me, and that’s okay, but I believe and important skill to have is still being able to work with them. Or vice versa, if I don’t get along with someone I don’t let that get in the way of what I need to do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ko-fi.com/romeyruu34706
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/romeyruu?igsh=MWJ3OGdlaWlhdGw3bA==
- Other: Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/romeyruu.bsky.social
Image Credits
Romeyruu