How to grow a community as an artist?

if you wanna grow an audience, it's a good idea (although exhausting) to start posting on multiple platforms, because different people get successfull in different places and you can't really predict which one will be the best for you, which algorithm will favor your posting style

at the end of the day what gets your art noticed is the quality of it, but i've noticed that all successful artists have a niche, all their works are done in the same established style and look good together, and that makes sense, someone sees your art, likes it, goes to your page, sees tons of similar art, they'll definitely subscribe, and if you do lots of different stuff and the pic they liked was sort of a one-off, they'll leave

consistency is key I'd say, which is a bit unfortunate if you like to draw all kinds of things! And fanart, of course... Unfortunately a lot of people online are more interested in fanart than original work. You can make original work related to a fandom, but purely original stories rarely take off, no matter how nice your art is or how well you elaborate who everyone is. creators who get seen for their original work are just very lucky! It's possible, but very difficult to achieve!

I've been posting on Tumblr for about 9 years now and only recently has my fanart been getting a good amount of notes, because it's all about Doctor Who and nothing else! It's sad to think about the inevitable decline in likes again once I get back to original stories, but that's just how the internet works these days, I guess!