I feel like this point is an almost entirely different problem.
Sure, it might be something different, but I really wished to share it here as I wanted to relieve all my thoughts in one go.
I think that they do not have to pay mind to what the fans want them to draw, especially if they arent doing it for money.
I actually may question a little bit the "aren't doing it for money". From what I have seen (yeah, I did have to do some "research"), various captions for their art mention either the fac they were commissions, or art produced t be sold at Comiket (especially for the more lewd content, drawings or doujins).
Sometimes interest in a series can wane, and you will instead become interested in a different series.
Say, for instance, you in particular. You become big on posting topics on warhammer or something, and it gets a good amount of people to like you and follow you to see your discussion boards or videos you make on the series (i admit this point is a bit of a stretch but hear me out). Suddenly, warhammer has lost some of the luster it had before, and you see this bright shiny newer series called "touhou project". all of your attention shifts suddenly to tuhu lore and tuhuposting, making touhou videos instead of the previous warhammer ones. the fans can become confused by the change, but wouldnt you still be in your right to move to a different form of enjoyment, even if it disappointed other people? I definitly agree though it can be super annoying to find someone who suddenly stops doing touhou stuff ;-;
Fair enough. However, at least on a personal note, I would either gradually start to diversify what I am doing, maybe do something like cross-overs, or make the transition as smooth as possible from one series to another. I have seen people posting to their communities about wishing to take a break from x series or y subject and do something new, which is usually well received since people at least know clearly what is going on and what are the motivations of the artist. But again, that is just how I would personally do it.
i mean yeah kind of. a lot of them either genuinely enjoy the flavour of the week anime, or rely on commisions to gain income, and fortunately people enjoy seeing high quality art of the anime they enjoy.
Perhaps I am little more sarcastic or skeptic in my nature, so I may say the main driver for jumping into the bandwagon of the most recent trend would be caused simply by the income one could get from commissions. Since one series is very popular, that means there would also be a high demand for art depicting that series and people wishing to commission art of that thing (even if I have a strange fixation of pointing fingers towards those who are horny "in #general-chat" and commission lewd art, all I can say is that at the en of the day, i guess it is honest work on the side of the artist since they get paid for a service after all). But yeah, it is always nice to see high quality art of a series you enjoy. Maybe it would not have been so bad had gacha games not been, well, gacha games - predatory games that trick you into paying lots of money and draining your soul in the search for 2D waifu JPEGs in scanty clothes. It is just that you see these series everywhere, and nothing else. Just as if nothing else existend besides these titles. Are these games or series even any good? Or they are just average bait for horny fans and even hornier fan artists?
That is part of the issue with Touhou being less mainstream, is that by logic it should be getting much less than we have already gotten, but fans are just so miraculously dedicated and talented that we have already gotten a lot more high quality art than other niche fandoms.
This is probably the amazing part about Touhou. I don't know what is more amazing: the series still not having become mainstream after over 20 years despite the massive fandom it has, or the fact we have such a massive and dedicated (even with all the stereotypes regarding the "average Touhou fan") community that will drawn the internet in Touhou-related content based on a niche bullet hell game coming from just as niche of a game genre.
some of the problems with finding high quality art feels more like an issue on the western/english speaking side of the fandom personally, as most reddit posts dont really fall into the "high quality" style you brought up, yet every other pixiv post i come across from touhou has a TON of detail put into it, its insane.
In this instance, I really did not rely on r/touhou and "#OC-art". If there is one tool for me to look for Touhou fanart daily, that would be through Danbooru. But if you mean specifically only just fanart made in the western community, then yeah, probably Reddit is the place where I see most of the stuff I 100% am sure came from the west. However, given the nature of Pixiv, I can't really tell if an artist is from the west, or they are just another one from Japan. I would definitely love to see some of these examples you were talking about though.
I would have definitely like to write a longer reply. However, I am feeling very tired after a long day in college, so I think I may soon go to sleep. Good night, and see you tomorrow.
