Hi all. I know this is not really game development-related, but GD is my home and I love you guys! A while ago I posted in the lounge to get feedback on whether a tool for line-art had potential, with a demo video. I also posted the same topic on a more art-centric forum, and I received moderately-encouraging feedback. Well I've decided to go ahead and try to finish it and hope for the best, then move on to something else.

My question this time is about the best way to make money out if it. Some points to consider for this case are:

• It is still in working-concept stage, and at its current stage, it's not ready for public consumption.
• I feel I could benefit greatly from user feedback (most importantly ideas), the earlier the better.
• I've decided to avoid aiming for an all-in-one package, and instead focus on one particular task: intuitively and quickly creating clean line-art, using a minimal GUI. It will be priced accordingly.

First impressions tend to stick, so I'm hoping for the first public release to be impressive enough to avoid losing lots of interested people from the get-go, yet I can't hope for good user feedback without a public release.

Someone suggested crowd funding. There is also the freemium model, or "pay as much as you want". Or maybe freeware with ads. What do you think would be the most suitable choice in this case? Thanks in advance.