Here's some marketing advice, from a friend in marketing who I recently set up to do a call with some freelance artist friends:
#1 Find your super power.
Figure out what you do best, and focus 80% of your effort on that. Whether it's doing that, or doing things that support it (studies, business/sales, marketing, etc), and the other 20% for trying out other things to see if they may be part of your strength but you don't know it yet.
#2 Your Strength + Pop Culture + Relatable = Winning Strategy.
Take that super power, associate it with something pop culture (such as high fantasy, pets, nature/wild animals, synthwave music, whatever) and find a way to make it something that viewers will find an emotional attachment to. It may be making them cute animals like in Humblewood, or maybe injecting current political events into a high fantasy setting. The relatable part is hard, and most people don't figure it out!
Think up some examples of successful artists/products- how do they fit the formula?
#3 Better Together.
Find a group of peers to help each other out. Share your communities together. The more cross sharing, the more each community will grow. One example is shoutouts to other artists, or raiding/hosting on Twitch. Don't just focus on those with bigger followings than you in hopes that they will reciprocate- if they don't already know you it's unlikely. People with about the same size, or smaller, audiences will appreciate your shout out more anyway!
#4 Get Digital.
Find the places that talk about the types of things that you make and join those communities. Participate in the discussions, help them out, etc, and find the other places that they go to talk about these things. Then later they can see your work and be supportive of you as one-of-them rather than someone who is just coming in to peddle their wares.
#5 Make it shareable.
Put it on Twitter or somewhere else that can easily be shared with others rather than just on a portfolio site. Retweets and similar mechanics help spread your work. Being something people can link to is not enough!
#6 A great idea is better than a great opportunity.
Don't spend all of your energy chasing the most recent trending meme. Having a novel idea that kicks off something new can have a greater and longer lasting effect than the results of a flash in the pan moment.
#7 The Netflix model is real.
Make your art bingeable. It's better to share a bunch of related things at once than to post them out continuously over a longer period of time. If you plan to make a handful of mermaids for mermay, post them over a shorter timespan than stringing them out over the entire month. Let the people dive in and fall in love with your new concept. Diving deep is what lets them fall in love.
#8 Focus on what a few people love is better than what a lot of people like.
Your dedicated followers will be those who love your work, not those who just like it. Things that are super specific for your audience will speak directly to them, rather than something that may be broadly appealing to everyone a little bit.
#9 Communities are great at identifying problems, not solutions.
The people viewing the results of your effort will have opinions about it, and they can identify when something is off, but will be unlikely to tell you how to resolve it. You will have a much greater depth of knowledge for what goes into the production process, and what considerations need to be made throughout, than they will. Take their feedback, but ignore their proposed solutions.
#10 Learn from people you admire.
Look for videos/talks/presentations/blogs from creators that you admire, they often have already given advice out there. Maybe listen to GDC youtube talks while you're drawing, or Marc Brunet or Marco Bucci videos, or check out Twitch artists who talk about their careers or processes, etc while they stream (If you want suggestions I can provide some). Don’t be shy to ask them questions while they’re streaming, or on Twitter. Some will even have paid mentorships or workshops for you to take.