I’ve always wanted to try and become a youtuber, but never gave it a proper shot. I was inconsistent and would often drop it only to come back months or years later to try again only to repeat what I did before. I also didn’t do really intense research about being successful on YouTube. Well, that all changed around two months ago. I decided I wanted to give it an actual shot and started posting on a semi-new channel 4 weeks ago. I thought I’d document my journey so far.

Background#

Before I go into my results after a month let me give a brief overview of my experience and background on YouTube. When I was kid I had a channel where I posted random things occassionally - nerf war videos (which are sadly lost to time 😔), let’s plays and the occassional art video. Of course it never really went anywhere, I got about 50 subscribers. I eventually revived that old channel by posting some vlogs, kpop album unboxings and more art videos but I never stuck to one niche so my subscriber base was fragmented. Despite that, I DID actually make it to 500 subs on that channel, and would actually like to go back to it and make it a dedicated vlogging channel, but this isn’t about that channel.

Almost a year ago I had decided to not to continue to split my viewerbase on what was then my main channel, so I created two new channels: one for art and one for game development. The game development one is dead currently as I’m not doing anything with it at the moment. But the art one I had posted about 5 videos, all ASMR iPad videos, before quitting. I had gotten 12 subscribers from that. But it never continued to grow since I stopped posting, when I decided to give YouTube a serious shot I ended up reviving that channel to keep up my art-tube dreams.

Picking a Niche#

The hardest thing I’ve had with YouTube is picking and sticking to a niche. I just have so many interests. I feel like I could make dozens of channels for all the different interests I have. That being said I realized if I wanted to be successful I was going to have to pick a niche and be consistent in it, so that’s what I did. I gave it a real thought to what I wanted to focus on the most and eventually decided to do art-tube. It was something I always came back to so it made sense but there were also some other reasons:

1. I wanted to carve out time to improve my art, and running an art channel was a good way to kill two birds with one stone
2. A lot of the youtubers I was watching at the time I made the decision was art-tubers, so I had that on my mind a lot at the time already
3. Out of many niches, I think art-tube has more branches to grow from as you become successful
4. I have a webcomic I really want to finally finish and post, so I thought I could make videos about it and thus build an interested fanbase before the comic comes out

After reading my reasons you may be wondering more about reason #3, so let me elaborate on that one.

Most of the time, youtubers have a few pretty standard branching paths to make money from (since just relying on youtube adsense isn’t the smartest or most possible path for most). These paths are things like Patreon (and/or YouTube memberships now), channel merch and sponsorships. However I think art-tube has some unique strengths in the branching paths it offers.

For starters, an art shop is very common for art-tubers to do eventually. Unlike a channel merch shop which is 100% reliant on the channel doing well, an art shop can do well without the channel. Having a fanbase from your channel just gives it a nice boost of views, but an art shop can be expanded upon even if the channel dies out or something happens to it.

You can also offer commissions, which again, can stand on it’s own. Of course traditional commissions (where someones commissioning you for often something like fanart because they like you’re style) are still pretty reliant on a fanbase, but it is another revenue path to help support yourself with. If you do more commissions like character design or something for people, then it can even expand to stand on it’s own without the need for a fanbase to continue.

Lastly, there are courses. This is something that a lot of niches can offer and art-tube is just one of them. I enjoy teaching (hence my blog where I mainly teach about programming for games) so creating an art course one day sounds really cool!

So, as you can see, the possibility for continued growth was something I definitely considered. If I want to make YouTube a career one day, I wanted to make sure I’d think it through. Most can’t last on YouTube forever, so being able to further expand my reach with all these other paths that I also have an interest in just felt like art-tube was the right choice to go with. (Although I’d like to keep going on YouTube as a career path for as long as possible :))

Initial Planning#

Alright, background for everything is over, let’s get to how I actually decided to start.

I had watched a lot of Kelsey’s art youtube advice videos, and as I watched art channels I enjoyed I started to make mental notes of things I liked and noticed. I started to then come up with art videos that I thought would be good for some starting videos. Initially, I wanted to edit 3 weeks ahead. This would give me plenty of wiggle room in case something came up in life and it wasn’t like these were set in stone, I could replace a video with a different one if I wanted to follow a trend, and simply save that video for a different day. Now, based on how I worded that you can probably tell that’s not what happened.

So, technically, I actually did do that. When I was planning my channel I had decided that I would upload twice a week (I wanted to do three but that felt too hard to keep up realistically). So I had made 5 videos ready to go, but then I reread an old message I had seen before where the famous YouTuber MatPat from the Game Theory channel recommended uploading a small handful of videos all together on day one. I think some people have misunderstood the purpose of this. I never understood it as you need videos for people to decide to subscribe or something, I think it was meant more to give your channel an initial boost in engagement/watchtime. If someone watches one video and likes it, great! But imagine how good it is if you already have multiple other videos that they can then binge watch? YouTube will see this and take note that it’s a good sign, and continue to push your video out more. I think it can also allow you to get feedback quicker without worrying about “overwhelming” your current audience since you have none. So with that in mind I decided to just upload my videos I had premade all together. It did mean I didn’t have my backlog anymore but I thought it was the better choice (after all I could always work on making a backlog after).

Deciding on the First Videos#

When I was deciding on my first videos to post, I wanted to divide it in 3 chunks:

1. 2 videos dedicated to a current trend
2. 2 videos that are evergreen videos
3. 1 video for a personal project

NOTE

Evergreen videos are videos that don’t usually die out like following a trend, they’re videos that are almost always looked for as time goes on. In the art world this includes things like sketchbook tours which have been popular for years.

Why did I do this? Well I thought it was a good spread of video types. Two videos were hopping on a trend, hopefully helping to give an initial push to my channel. Two videos were evergreen videos so hopefully they’d continue to steadily grow as I keep posting. And lastly one video that was of my own OC (original character). So realistically most wouldn’t be interseted, these types of videos usually do well after you have a fanbase who are then more interested in you and your projects as a whole, but I really wanted to make one and I was curious to see how it’d do at the start and how it’d do as I grew.

So the videos I decided to post were:

1. Sketchbook Tour #1
2. Starting a New Sketchbook
3. Kpop Demon Hunters Saja Boys Soda Pop Fanart
4. Kpop Demon Hunters Saja Boys Your Idol Fanart
5. Designing a Magical Boy OC

NOTE

The names I use for my videos in this post isn’t the actual title of the video for typing and reading convenience!

How the First Five Videos Went#

Now you must be wondering… well, how did they do?

As you can see, soda pop was by far the most popular. I semi-expected it. After all kpop demon hunters had basically just came out and EVEYRONE was talking about it online. So I was hopping those videos would do well. Now, in case you didn’t notice, what came as a surprise was that the your idol video did the second worst. I thought they’d be the top 2 videos. I honestly don’t know why it wasn’t as successful but I have two guesses:

1. The soda pop thumbnail has more color in the thumbnail (nice blue and pink) compared to your idol which is very much just black and pink, mainly pencil
2. The soda pop was discussing kpop demon hunters theories, while your idol was just abut my thoughts on the movie, so maybe the theories was more interesting to a wider audience

Besides that the other videos did surprisingly well, besides my OC video. It wasn’t a huge surprise honestly, but of course I wish it had broke the double digits 😅

In terms of subscribers, I had started with 12 (I assume “dead” since they were from my old ASMR videos) subscribers. By the end of the week I had hit an extra +6 subs, for a total of 18 subs. After all my videos had been mainly in the 50-100 range of views, so all considering I thought okay this is an okay start for how much effort I had put in (which I’ll get into more later).

Where I Am After 1 Month#

Okay, those were the stats for the first 5 videos after a week, but how about after 1 month of posting twice a week? Well here are the stats:

As we can see my views range from ~20s to ~100+. For the last two videos they’ve been up for less than a week, so it’ll be a bit before we get a better idea, altough I believe the Mixing Watercolor and Acrylic Markers video won’t really grow that much.

Here are some things I noticed so far:

1. The soda pop video did real well the first few days but quickly stopped growing
2. My starting a new sketchbook video has gotten really popular a lot quicker than I expected
3. I thought the XLOV video would be more popular, considering the kpop group was trending at the time and I think the thumbnail is OK, but it really hasn’t done that well
4. The jusart review video grew fast, then stabilized, but randomly gained another wind recently. I think this is due to a limited amount of longform videos on the markers, as I’ve mainly seen them only on shorts/tiktok
5. My OC video has grown slowly as my subscribers have grown, I think this is a sign as people subscibe they’re viewing more “personal” videos like I expected
6. My Pokemon 3DS video did better than I thought it would, thought it’d be on the lower end of performance but it’s actually on the higher end
7. My art goals 2025 video did well at the start, although the views have basically stopped

Oh right, subscribers! I started with 12 subs and I’m now at 45! I saw I had “lost” 2 subs, but I suspect these might’ve been from the original 12 subs who had subbed to a channel doing ASMR art videos and not chatty art videos like I am now.

Big Achievements So Far#

Okay we’ve gone over some basic stats, but here are some things I’m proud of so far:

1. I’ve got my first loyal subscriber! They’ve posted a comment on every single one of my new videos ever since they subbed and even went back to watch my OC video! They often watch a new upload within 3 hours of it being live, always leave a like and a comment. Not only that but I use community posts to post before a video and after once it’s live, and they’ve liked/commented on almost everyone of them! It feels great to have someone that clearly enjoys my content :)

2. On all of my videos the comments have really just been that one person and myself (I did get one comment from someone else on my new sketchbook video too), but I recently got a new comment on my latest video from someone else, so that’s exciting to see!

3. Like I said, I’m really close to 50 subs! It’s not much, but it’s encouraging to see and gives me motivvation to work harder and make better videos to grow faster

4. Multiple of my videos have passed 100 views, and my new sketchbook video is already past 500 which is crazy to see already. I’m curious to see if it’ll end up hitting 1k first

Things To Work On#

Alright, some of you may be unimpressed by numbers so far and some may be impressed depending on your experience so far. Even though I’m actually happy with my initial start, I know there’s PLENTY of space for improvement. So for some context, let me tell you that while I think my videos are OK, I could spend more effort on each video. Considering this is why I’m more content with my growth so far. On average the art takes about 1 - 1.5 hours to film, scripting takes maybe ~30 minutes or a bit more, editing (video + voiceover) takes maybe 30 min combined and thumbnails take around 10 minutes so each video only takes around ~2.5 - 3 hours to make. But here are some things I plan on working on:

1. Thumbnails… thumbnails thumbnails thumbnails my god are they hard. I think I’ve gotten better (I redid the thumbnails of my first five videos which I think has helped in the longrun) but it’s still pretty hard. I don’t think they’re AMAZING, just mediocore. I have a list of thumbnails from other creators I really like, but it’s really hard to replicate that quality level. So this is something I want to continue to experiment with to try to get better.

2. Mixing scripiting and editing… currently my editing is very lazy. I edit the voiceover, plop it in, speed up the video so it takes up the duration of the video, add an end card, some simple color grading and call it a day. This can work for something like my art goals video where the art is more the background of the topic, but for things where I’m talking about the literal art I think editing my script and editing the video so the voiceover matches what I’m currently doing will result in a better video. I’ve already done this a little for my Pokemon 3DS video and my latest Derpy video which I think has helped make it feel more cohesive. I think doing this will make the video as a whole feel more polished.

3. Video length, right now they’re generally short. Around ~5 - 7 min on average. Part of this is just because of wanting to post twice a week, I can’t spend forever on art pieces but also, writing scripts is hard for me. I also talk fast, so that doesn’t help. But I’d like to make my videos be 10 minutes or more if I could. That being said I won’t lower the quality just to stretch it to 10 minutes.

4. Create a backlog, I have no backlog currently so I want to work hard the next two weeks to bulk create videos so I’m at least a week ahead, and ideally slowly move that to 2 weeks ahead and if possible make it to 3 weeks ahead. If I can be a whole month out I’d be really happy with that level of a backlog.

Overall, I think just improving thumbnails will do a big boost to my channel, so I plan on working on that the most.

Analytics#

If you’ve made it this far you’re dedicated, so I hope my experience has been helpful somehow so far! But now… let’s get to detailed analytics 😈

(Ordered from most views to least)

Looking at my top performing video by far, almost 60% are still watching by the 30 second mark but by the halfway mark only 21% are watching still. I plan to study from this video and see why the intro seemed to work so well in this video. Aside that the CTR is high! At 6.7%, I think that’s a sign this thumbnail isn’t bad compared to my other thumbnails. I do actually quite like it so I’m glad my eyes were right.

Let’s look at another popular video, the sketchbook tour. Despite continuing to grow in views, the retention seems to balance out at around ~13% for most of the video. However my CTR is actually quite high like the new sketchbook video!

Now let’s look at how my least viewed videos have done. Firstly, my XLOV video actually has really good retention for my channel. It stays around 37% - 42% retention for the bulk of the video after the intro. However, it has a low view count. I’m honestly not too sure why, I guess maybe the thumbnail isn’t as good as I think? I feel like it’s a stronger one but maybe not. It does look like a decent chunk of views are coming from people who have already watched one of my videos, which is interesting. It could show that my videos are working for the core audience that is subscribing considering a lot views seem to be from people at least already interested in my channel from watching another video first.

Let’s look at another video, my OC video. This video also has good retention considering my usual retention. However, most views are from non-subscribers BUT a decent chunk are coming from my new sketchbook video. So I suspect many are not yet subscribed but have had their interest piqued from the prior video. Also, that video includes this OC so I think that made people interested in learning more about him (I was also hoping it would have this effect and it seems it has!).

Overall I’ve noticed a few things based on this info:

1. My top videos have good CTR (generally) which tells me part of why they succeeded was cuz I managed to make decent thumbnails for them so I plan on using them as reference for any future thumbnails

2. HOWEVER, depsite my top videos having good CTR, it’s actually my least viewed videos with the better AVD despite low CTRs. I suspect this is cuz the popular videoa are pushed to a wider general audience, while my least popular videos seem to be primarly watched by casual/subscribed viewers which already like my content so they’re more likely to watch all the way through.

3. My evergreen videos have continued to grow as I suspected, albeit faster than I expected based on their original first week metrics.

4. While not obvious in what I’ve written, the amount of views I get in the first 24 hours has risen drastically from when I first posted. A video would often take 3 - 5 days before the numbers moved a lot but now I’m getting decent (20 - 30) views in the first 24 - 48 hours for the most part. I think these initial views are partially from my increasing subscriber base so I hope to continue this trend into the next month.

5. Even older videos that seemed dead in the water can have a second life purely from channel overall growth as new subscribers seem more likely to watch other videos even if they wouldn’t have clicked on it if it was their first intro to the channel. Especially my OC video, which since it’s tied more towards my own projects, I suspect this videos views will continue to slowly grow as my fanbase grows.

Steps Moving Forward#

So let’s recap, after my first month on youtube:

(Avg video length ~5 - 7m)

Looking at everything so far here are my next steps I plan to take:

1. Study More Art-tubers: Currently I’ve mainly referenced Static Wool this month but I plan on analyzing a few more art-tubers and seeing what I can take and apply to my own videos. I plan to look into pateseich, Sketches with Shay, theLastCoffeebean and NIRO.

2. Improve My Thumbnails: While I think I’ve gotten a lot better at thumbnails, I still have a long way to go. They just don’t hit like I want them to. So I plan on continuing to analyze others tubers thumbnails I like and contiuing to work towards learning how to replicate it.

3. Experiment with Editing Styles: Currently I simply have a voiceover and sped-up video, but I want to mess more with editing this month. Editing my scripts to match what the video, maybe not always doing the whole spedup video and show bits and pieces like some artist do as well as work on intros!! I really want to find a cool intro style that I can reuse across videos. Currently I have a one to two liner that shows the end product before playing an intro animation (lasts about 1 - 2 seconds) and getting into the video. I watched one of pateseiches recently and the intro was really eye catching! So I plan on studying those from them :)

4. Work on a Backlog: Ideally I want to get at least a 1 week backlog but a nice stretch goal would be to produce a 2 week backlog. I already have this weeks videos planned and plan to make them today and tomorrow, so hopefully I can get ahead during the week with the following week.

5. Reach 100 Subs: I know reaching 50 subs is right around the corner, but I’m hoping I may be able to get to 100 by the end of the month, or at least close to 100. I think I can get close as long as the videos I make don’t all perform terribly 😅 I’d like to reach 1k subs by the end of the year, and I know the first 100 is often the hardest, so I’m hoping once I hit 100 I’ll start to have a small fanbase to help boost the videos and grow a little quicker.

6. Keeping Making Community Posts: I’ve started making a community post the day before the video and a few hours after a video goes live. I think it helps build up a community and builds excitement, so I’d like to continue doing these. Posting posts on off days to give sneak peaks to personal/far ahead videos I think would also be neat to do. They don’t take long to make either, so I think working on this a little to grow a tighter community would be a good idea.

Conclusion#

Okay, this was super long oh my gosh. If you made it this far I’m impressed but I hope my experience is useful in some way! I plan to make a post every month, so take a peek here again a month later for a follow-up 👀