One of the Best Pieces of Art on the Site- Aiming for the Top with 'Decline Payout' Post
Artists will do a lot of things to get their work noticed, won't they?
To begin with, how would I so audaciously presume that this post contains one of the best pieces of art on the entire site?
Because it's on the 'Trending' page.
How did it get on the trending page?
According to my hypothesis, the very topmost posts on the site seem to have one thing in common: they are the Decline Payout posts. Everybody loves a Decline Payout post, apparently. The Trending page is full of examples of these Decline Payout posts, and I had started to consider that the option could be a sure way to the top of the page at Steemit.
For example, there's this one poster called 'ned' who uses the Decline Payout all the time. The user seems to be pretty popular and well-liked, and while I never really know what 'ned's talking about, I think I may have figured out his secret to success. Simply: 'Decline Payout'. Posters like ned dominate the top of the Trending page, and their awesome posts are seen and enjoyed by everyone. That, is where it's at. Thank you ned, whoever you are, for showing me the way to the top here with this simple formula. I believe that this little stunt is worth a try.
The Self-Promotion Trick
In order to make my artwork visible to the most people, I will use this Decline Rewards formula with this post, and I'll simply write off the lost rewards as promotion costs. It's a business thing. Not sure why I only just thought of it, but it's clearly an investment to decline posts just for attention and to be popular, and I like to show my work to the world, like most artists do.
Why 'upvote' on a 'No Rewards' post?
There's a good reason to up-vote a post which has declined rewards. The vote shows that you liked or appreciated the post enough to let the author know it, even though views and comments are more valuable than votes to many creators. Up-votes quickly give encouragement to the artists, poets, musicians and writers who make the place as beautiful as possible with their work.
This brings us to the art. Since technically every post is on the Trending page somewhere if one scrolls down far enough, we will then direct the focus onto the work itself instead of the post's status for a moment.
The Art-- T-Rex Sculpture, 1989
This sculpture was made by packing modeling clay over a hard foam mount for a trophy deer head. Shaping the clay over the form, I carved in the teeth, and used glass eyes from a taxidermist as a guide during the construction. Finally, a couple of 'scales' templates were crafted to mash into the modeling clay, while the beaded skin around the snout and eyes was achieved by rolling a golf ball around on the soft clay.
The details completed, a fiberglass mold was laid over the clay, hardening into two halves. The original sculpture was destroyed when the mold was removed, but it had captured every detail. The mold can then be fitted with glass eyes and then filled with yellowish foam which hardens into the finished replica.
Painting the Sculpture
At this point the teeth are painted with a high-gloss ivory paint, while the skin goes jungle green, and is then 'antiqued' with a wash of charcoal dye, then quickly wiped dry, leaving the darker paint wash behind to accent the details in the scales. The result is in the above image.
The Sculptor
A taxidermist commissioned me to do the sculpture and then the painting of most of the copies. At one time there were about forty of these in my house in various stages of production. He sold them at a booth in the mall around the holidays that year.
@therealpaul
This concludes this blatant promotional stunt. If you'd like to see other artwork that I share here, click any @therealpaul and there's a gallery of oddities there which are varied and colorful-- little parables and book reports about books that I never bother to write, and even a bit of music, with more on the way.
As a further promotional gimmick, I will send 5 STEEM to my first new follower after this post, just for fun. Click @therealpaul to play.
Thanks for looking at the art, If you 'like' it, please boost it with a big fat up-vote, and help me test my hypothesis that the secret to getting to the top is to go with 'Decline Rewards' as the option. I'll see you 'up there' soon!
[Edit} Dammit, forgot to hit 'Decline Payout', the whole point ruined.]
These doggone keyboard keys are always pushing themselves before we are ready. Stupid keys. But classic T-Rex head. Can imagine getting up to go to the loo at 3:00 am, forgetting they are all about the house, and scaring the bejeemers out of yourself when the eyes catch the light of the moon just right.
And this post is even MORE classic, since you did forget the whole intent from which it was born. Love it. Now I have a new shameless self promotion vehicle to try, as the old moldy vegetable didn't work well in the past.
(Is that head still hanging in your house? )
The T rex is at a friends, but I do plan to go pick it up soon. Yeah it's a great time for adverts, with a couple of pennies as the cost with the decline. I'm still trying to think of a way to redeem this one with another angle on the same thing. HINT: If you reload the page, it defaults back to regular Payout-- the 'Decline Payout' is in yellow. I hit 'POST' and nothing happened, and I've found that reloading page will allow me to post sometimes, so I reloaded and hit it. DOH. I found out it's not that easy to decline payout! I very nearly made it a 'Deleted' post in edit, but screw it.
The complications are more than abundant. I think I get all that. If I miss some, I'll just say I did. The Decline is not something I've tried before...then again, about 25% the time I have no clue what I'm doing on here. So nothing new... But I think it does have postential for some other application for humorous effect.
We have a winner! My 364th follower has been sent the 5 STEEM reward for being the next to follow my page after this post.
Hahaha, that is something that I would do...or was it intentional? Because I would definitely do it unintentionally. I don't know how many times I've either meant to do the 50/50 and forgot, or go back to the 100 and forgot. One thing I have not tried though, is the declined payouts method. It is certainly something to think about.
(And let's be honest, if there was ever a time to do the decline payouts method, it would be now when the payouts amount to what we can dig out of our couches ;)
It wasn't intentional! It would almost be funny if it had been, but i'm still mad at myself for ruining this post like that. It was embarrassing enough to try it. I went from thinking how cool it would be if it actually had received a bunch of votes, to instantly hoping it sank into the brine quickly before anyone could see it. My heart sank though, in a click!
I would be willing to bet that pretty much everyone on here has done something like this. I've seen "Deleted posts" and "Sorry, repeat" (which I did before). I've been a part of dragosroua's experiment- if you're interested, check out the fuck up files...actually I helped inspire him to take a certain direction with it (pats herself on back lol) Anyway, in one of this which are entirely based on declining payouts, he did the same thing. I think it was his first follow up post, which he meant to do the same thing with as the files.
Don't worry, I'm sure most people were remembering their own similar whoopsies and feeling sympathy!
That actually feels better, that a "I hereby decline payout" and then not do it has happened before-- man it's good to know I'm not the only one. And yea the whole premise of the post was that. I thought about deleting it, rewriting it quickly, or flagging it, finally I just left the edit at the the end. I'd reloaded the page, and the doo-dad reset to 100%.
Hey, actually SOS did this exact thing with his last post, I kid you not, LOL!!!
You know, I read that post a couple of days ago, and up-voted! I'd forgotten, or ignored his edit about the decline payout mistake ;)
There now, you see? We are our own worse critics, we always think that stuff is much more embarassing than it actually is, because most kerfuffles are made by everyone. I have no idea why I just used the word kerfuffle, but I think I like it, LOL
O it was the kerfluffle from hell- the very title claimed that I would dare do it, then DOH! And with the penny payouts, would have been a classic. I may try to think of another promo 'decline' while the price is right. I sent the promised 5 STEEM to the winner of my little contest there at least, so post was successful in that way. That's the last contest I can afford to host right now, or I'd do it again.
I upvote even with the missing "decline payout". ;)
My artworks got the Trending a couple of times. Now, not anymore: the most active users know my art already. No wonder anymore. (Online art needs to create wonder) ;)
Frustrating, I reloaded the page before I hit post, and it reset back to 100% payout. Grrr