I recently read that most concept artists these days spend hours a day shitting out vast quantities of art for extremely minor components of movies and tv shows for extremely low pay and difficult hours
how true is this statement?
Watch Maciej Kuciara's Art Cafe on Youtube. He and guests talk a lot about the concept art industry there, so you might be interested.
>>2280363
wrong. most don't get any work.
those that do, yes, applies.
it's either inhouse or something else for me (traditional illustration for whoever the fuck hires me).
something to chew on: look at the extent with which software has replaced actual skill in this field. look at the absolutely utterly retarded amount of tools, software packages and plugins concept artists nowadays use. there's no need to know ANYTHING other than software. the worfklow looks something like this:
download dragonstudio 3.5
download royalty free dragon model
place it in a scene in maya
create random barbarian model in poser
place random barbarian model in scene
add cliffs with worldmax-cliffstudio
add textures with vue-texturecreator
add fog with marmoset fogplugin
add god rays with godrayplugin
add trees with pixologic treemachine extended
add grass with modo greeble pllugin
add giant sun in the sky with vue sunstudio-max
choose an interesting angle
load that shit into keyshot
render
bring it into photoshop to paint over....
...no wait we have a tool for that too...
bring it into akvis to apply stupid brushwork filter
okay NOW we can bring it into photoshop...
TO ADD OUR SIGNATURE LOL!
at no point in that workflow do you need to know ANYTHING other than software. And no there's no need to have ideas or make design decisions. Products aimed at the commercial garbage market NEED commercial garbage assets. Everything important that takes design decisions is done by the inhoue artists.
Furry porn is a more lucrative of a field atm. And probably takes more skill. Funnily all these conceptart clowns who can't draw to save their life couldn't even compete in that market.
>>2280382
Thats so fucking disgusting i blame the consumer and the clients who demand PHOTO realism because for some reason looks like a photo = good i really hope this stupid shit will die eventually
>>2280363
"art industry" goes beyond concept art. Sad to see so many on /ic/ completely tunnelvisioning on this one thing in the entire art industry. Those who made it, great! Those thinking of suicide because they couldn't make the concept art dream? THERE IS MORE TO ART THAN CONCEPT ART. Diversify.
>>2280382
Not really, mate. Most concept artists paint.
Source: I work in a concept art outsourcing studio.
>>2280363
Im about to go to Art Center to study Entertainment Design... this scares me.
>>2280400
You are going to get the best education available for the field. No worries mate. Just work your ass off and take professionalism seriously from term 1 (be a total bro to everyone, hand everyone your business card, and keep an eye open for opportunities to network etc)
>>2280402
Thanks senpai, I needed to hear this. I'm super excited.
>>2280418
Don't forget to, you know, make friends (not just "network"). Those are important too in "the industry".
>>2280363
Almost all professionals keep saying how they make a very comfortable living with their art
Almost all amateurs who have never worked in the industry keep saying how it's impossible to find work and make a living
What do you think is more likely? That every single professional in this industry is in on some huge cover-up conspiracy to ruse even MORE competition to come in, or a bunch of foxes who can't reach the grapes are constantly whining about how bitter they are and that there is no way to survive on those bitter grapes?
This is my favorite topic in /ic/.
>>2280426
Exactly what I see going on here every week.
Except that really are some artists having a hard time here and there, you can find that too. Anyway it's kinda hard to figure out what to do because some artists and DA's say to diversify while others say to focus on a particular style and field. hehe
>>2280426
>That every single professional in this industry is in on some huge cover-up conspiracy to ruse even MORE competition to come in
No, the issue is that you lose professional street cred if you openly talk about how you struggle and how fucked the industry is.
>>2280431
>Except that really are some artists having a hard time here and there, you can find that too
Well, naturally that's true. The entertainment industry is not a charity organization, artists who don't have anything valuable to offer to the client obviously won't go very far, even if they do manage to break into the industry.
I think the main problem this industry has is simply the sheer amount of delusional wannabes who completely suck at art and have no valuable skill whatsoever, yet are under the impression that because they've "studied" for a couple of years, they are somehow owed a proper yearly salary. Other industries have the university education system to weed out those people.
In a way, it's great that as artist, you can be self-taught and successful, but it also opens up the industry to hordes of Dunning Kruger suffering idiots who constantly get rejected, yet don't understand that their rejection is not because it's such a harsh, oversaturated industry, but because they simply have nothing of worth to offer to this industry. These people make up about 90% of the whiners who need to believe that it's not their fault, but it's all the industry.
>>2280426 it's a small community, if you complain => no more work. And all of the experts are trying to rape your dreams by having you buy their workshops and online videos. Speaking as someone who freelances and has a ton of contacts inside the industry(and because this shit is anonymous), unless you're top tier and network like a sociopath, you're going to have a lot of days where you'll feel completely depressed about not being able to pay the bills or not finding enough freelance work.
It is miserable, find literally any other job and it'll pay more while giving you less depression.
You're essentially going against rich kids who don't even need the cash. Same for writers, actors, singers, all of them.
Visited a school in Western Europe yesterday where they teach conceptart and gamedesign, was hilariously bad quality material, students were literally begging for advice. And I had to sit there and tell them "you'll make it, no worries, just git gud." because that's what the school owners paid for. Makes you feel like an utter scumbag, but I don't have a lot of choices. Money is money.
>>2280363
it is easier to become a fine artist these days op fuck the corporate slo mo jobs just paint what you really want.
also fine art gets you way more respect from people and bitches.
>>2280664 this is true. Just suck up to the cockmanglers at artrenewal and you'll get an easy ride.
These threads are why I come to /ic/. Anybody seen the one fantastic week salary survey? Things aren't looking so great my friends. It makes sense why all the established pros are selling tutorials nowadays
>>2280940
Post source? I had a feeling this was all bullshit faux positivity and vain desperate self promotion.
>>2280940
>Anybody seen the one fantastic week salary survey?
Can't find it. Link?
>>2280940
please ?
>>2280940
As much as I think the industry that survey is pretty flawed , ever look at the peoples art who post in there group? only 10 percent of them are even at a professional level, and a good 50 percent are complete shit.
>>2280986
Its not letting me post the link, but just search facebook for one fantastic week and go to the group, should be one the first 5 posts.
>>2281120
>>2281130
interesting. thanks for sharing. i think the poll results deserve being discussed on /ic/. but maybe we should wait for that more indepth poll he plants to make soon.
truth is the poll should have been promoted and he should have attempted to get it to go viral and spread into every nook and crevice of the art community. with a STRONG disclaimer that total scrubs with zero experience refrain from posting.
would be super interesting seeing real numbers coming from a large sample size once and for all.
>>2280400
If you can survive the school you'll be fine. By the time you get to your later terms the payoff will be noticeable.
If you're one of those people who's struggling just to pay for one term though I wouldn't recommend it since the education starts to pay off after at least a year or two unless you're one of those entering already a monster
>>2280421
This is very important. Be friendly. Don't be that guy who only talks to "worthy people," but also don't be the annoying first termer
Also don't be that guy who everyone hates. There is one person in the department who's burned so many bridges it's not funny. And word spreads fast.
>>2281353
I should say that you'll also be fine from a pay standpoint.
When you come here the end goal isn't doing commissions for $100 a pop. You're looking to get into a proper studio that can pay you because normal people looking for commissions can't pay your rates.
Git gud then look to get into a small-medium-sized studio that takes its craft seriously.
AAA places like Pixar, Sony Santa Monica, Blizzard, etc will use their name to lower the pay for entry-level mooks. Fuck that. Get paid.
>>2280432
They would just need not to talk about it, especially when they don't have much of an online presence, and still take their time to say that the industry is fine.
No need for them to lie, unless you believe in a conspiracy.
>>2280647
> And all of the experts are trying to rape your dreams by having you buy their workshops and online videos.
Most succesfull artists talking about this shit don't have any such material for you to buy. In fact, those who do have this material (like Noa) are the ones who shittalk the industry. Incidentally, they also tend to suck comparatively.
>was hilariously bad quality material
I wonder what will happen to those students. Oh right, they will go on the internet and tell everybody how the industry sucks and you can never make it and everyone lies when they say that there's work. You don't even realize you didn't lie, and the cause of them not finding work is that they're bad. How stupid can you be?
>>2280664
>it is easier to become a fine artist
Top kek. This fucking thread.
>>2280647
this is the truth. i had a feeling this was the case. all those fuckfaces sweettalking this bullshit encouraging naive fuckers like me to throw their life away. what a fucking joke.
i'm so fucking angry.
>>2280363
what makes you think this has ever been different?
>>2280385
I've never heard about photorealism being demanded in concept art
also
> newer tools allow people to create better art faster? Disgusting, the only true art is created using the tools that count as being more traditional for this time-period!
>>2281377
photorealism is demanded in a lot of studios
It really depends on the studio culture and the final product
anyone complaining about the loss of "artistic value" or "integrity" clearly knows nothing about production environments. they don't care how true you are to your art, only that you're true to the art direction and get your work in on time
Must watch for all you wannabe concept artists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGar7KC6Wiw
>>2281371
You were perhaps a bit to naive when you thought that the art market was flourishing with lucrative opportunities to be taken by anyone that can hold a stick and draw from observation.
The art field has always been competetive, this is because its use is recreational and decorative,
>>2281396
ps.
You basiclly compete for peoples attention. So you have to be top of the game, skill wise, all the time or have loyal contacts.
>>2281389
dude but this is more poking fun at the 18 year old gamerfukboi's that have a great idea, lol.
i think every serious aspiring concept artist is all about art, not about games or game ideas.
concept art was only attractive to me because it seemed like an actual 'career'.
>>2281324
Yeah, read all of it. It's really interesting but has some major flaws, as the obvious public of those type of art related content(one amazing week and such) are beginners. Anyway is kinda alarming to read about Peter personal experience with artists struggling to make a living... At the same time I see SO MUCH artists with a low level portfolio complaining about the industry, it's really hard to get an overall look on the real situation.
>>2281409
>At the same time I see SO MUCH artists with a low level portfolio complaining about the industry
That's very much true as well. But some things are undeniable:
- gumroad shilling
- A SHITTON of people jumping ship from doing concept art to selling delusions/tutorials/workshops/etc
- artists just spamming 20 minute garbage sketches that are absolutely horrible in attempts to 'stay ontop' of the exposure game
- mullins says rates are at 33% of their early 2000's level
- mullins gently starts transitioning out of the trenches into the teachers lounge
- 'make your own ip, the money is in making your own ip guys!'
- shit is just too fucking easy. watch some tutorials to see how literally any moron with the right software knowledge can click together anything given enough time. zero skills necessary.
- a lot of the pros i contacted directly, sort of asking aobut this as politely as i could did not bother replying. i got the feeling they were hoping i get the message without them having to risk looking vulnerable and unsexy infront of a fan.
i don't know about other serious students on here but i'm building up something much more profitable on the side, in hopes of that eventually running on its own. once you get a taste for entrepeneurship you realize ANYTHING other than your art service, is more valuable and more of an accessible market. LITERALLY FUCKING ANYTHING.
>>2281409
>read about Peter personal experience
Where?
>>2281412
>'make your own ip, the money is in making your own ip guys!'
I'd have more confidence in this statement if more of these artists had good taste. Some IP's even from high profile artists are rubbish
>>2281414
Haha that is absolutely true. Most artists, just like most people desu, have shit taste. Then again... maybe they are precisely aware of this and make a product that appeals to the common pleb rather than the tastefulpatrician.
>>2281409
> It's really interesting but has some major flaws
More like it's total bullshit.
>35% of people started working 1 year ago (that would be at the end of 2014) or less
>next question asks how much they earned in 2014
Fucking geniuses. Artists surveys, not even once.
>>2281413
http://www.vandalhigh.com/blog/
>>2281430
You're kinda right, it don't show a bigger picture, but you can relate it with how hard it is to make a steady income in this industry on an entry level.(but that is kinda obvious since ever)
Also, when you pair it up with some artists personal opinions on the subject you start noticing kinda of a trend.
>>2281414
I think this is a fair statement. I mean, if you can profit directly from your ideas without having to be a working hand on another person project, you probably can benefit way more that way if you're successful than the other way around where you won't be sharing any profit with the company.
>>2281412
Conceptart is satured for a long time now. You can find info about that from 2010. There is not too many studios hiring for the amount of people wanting to do conceptart. But the art industry isn't just concept.
I also think it's a natural trend to switch into education as a side thing or even full time as it's really easy to make money out of it even without you being a really good artist, you just need to be a good teacher or charismatic. Everyone and their mother want to be an professional artist and some pros are just capitalizing on that.
>>2281445
>http://www.vandalhigh.com/blog/2015/11/9/charts
>A freelance artist's success seems to have much more to do with one's ability to fulfill the specific tastes of the commercial industry more than anything else.
Holy shit he means this industry is not fine art? STOP THE PRESSES.
>>2281430
Wait let me go full-autistic on this survey.
145 people answered 0-5k$ for their total 2014 income. That resulted in 45.60% for the original survey.
Now, we know that everyone who started 1 year ago would have had roughly 2 month worth of 2014 income. Surely these people all selected the 0-5k$ answer. So let's remove them (That's 44 less).
Of course we should also remove all those who started LESS than one year ago. These people would have had 1 month at best worth of income. If they started less than 10 months ago, they would necessarily have had no income at all in 2014. Since they started in 2015. Let's remove them as well (That's fucking 69 less).
So how many are left? 76. What does the graph look like now?
50% of artists make 10k-20k$ or more, compared to 38% in the fucked up graph.
20% make more than 30k-40k$, compared to 16%.
14% make more than 50k, compared to 11%.
But let's take this one step further. What does the graph look like for artists who are in the industry for more than 1 year (That is, those for whom this survey wasn't about their very first year of work)? To calculate that, we can simply remove the artists who said they have been working for 2 years (remember, the income is calculated on 2014, so the ones who started 2 years ago would have been in the inustry for only 1 year and 2 months as far as the survey is concerned). If we assume these people are the ones with the lowest incomes, the graph suddenly looks kind of what you probably expected it to look like, unless you are one of /ic/ resident domsayers.
63% of artists make 10k-20k$ or more.
25% of artists make more than 30k-40k$.
17.5% make more than 50k$.
Cont'd.
>>2281482
If you want to enter more speculative territory (that is, continuosly assuming that the lower income equals a lower time spent being in the industry), and remove even the ones who have been working for 2 years, we get:
Roughly 80% of artists make 10k-20k$ or more.
30% make 30-40k$ or more.
22.3% make 50k$ or more.
Etc. You see where this is going hopefully, and how screwed the original survey is.
To this, you have to add that while the survey asked how much income came from secondary sources, it never asked whether these artists even tried using secondary sources to begin with. Many of the artists who answered 0$ might very well never have heard about said secondary sources, thus somewhat crippling their income. Just a small addendum.
Have in mind that the survey is exclusively about fantasy and sci-fi art.
>>2281482
I think the survey is about people who had a full year worth working as an artist, not from 2014 until 2015, but from January till December of 2014.
>>2281494
Yep, exclusively FREELANCE fantasy and sci-fi artists even.
The whole Survey is skewed/useless. If anyone here listens to one fantastic week with Pete and Sam you'd know that one of the recurring themes with all these artists they have is it can take 5 years to get your business "going". Meaning, seeing a decent regular return.
Most of the people he polled are at less than 4. We don't have access to what their work looks like, how far along they are at getting work, etc. To me the poll doesn't show anything more than, If you're new to the games and fantasy industries you won't be making much.
That's not new information, you're not going to be breaking into a lot of jobs making 40K+ after one year starting at entry level. Freelance is about building clients and reputation, it's not like working inhouse. If you're not also pushing towards the style or quality of work used by the jobs at those high levels, you also aren't going to be getting that higher paying work.
The study is too flawed/generic to get any real data that speaks to the industry as a whole, it'd need to be more targeted.
>>2281353
Not already a monster, but I've spread myself pretty thin experience-wise. The last 4 years I kinda slacked off and didn't improve vastly since HS. I got a AA in studio art which is mostly useless. But I am pretty hard headed and competitive so I'm hoping going to the school will getme motivated again. I can definently do a year, second will be hardest finding aid and 3-4 will be easier but at the cost taking out more loans. All 4 years will cost me about 45k in loans so I'm debating if it's worth it.
>>2281620
If you can afford the first year I'd consider it. It's enough to see if the program's for you and if you wash out at least you're not in debt.
Motivation will depend on your term. Most terms are all-around solid but occasionally there are weaker terms where people don't get the work done. Chances of this are low.
Don't be too competitive. Of course you want to do well but these people are your peers and friends, not your enemies. They might compete with you for similar jobs in the future but there's a bigger chance they'll connect you with opportunities if they like you.
