I want to hear from those of you that chose art as a means of making a living. Im wondering wether you think the negatives outweigh the positives. Wether youre actually happy with what youre doing.
Gonna keep bumping till someone answers
>>2494971
Bump
Most NEET losers populating this board dream of making $1000 on patreon and living from making porn commissions and spending 10h/day drawing.
Ask yourself how mentally limited they are and then try imagine those guys and their lives in next 5, 10 and 15 years.
Oh and btw, main reason why most people here won't "git gut" is exactly this - living shit, unremarkable existences where they don't even get the basics because all they see is shit and struggle. I mean, how can you appreciate forms of human body when ultimately you hate people and don't want to interact with them?
>>2494982
Sup tdawg how you been?
>>2495010
Oh, thanks, I'm alright. Lots of work lately, but I like it and feel better thanks to it.
>>2494982
it doesn't feel good to be talked about like this anon
>>2494971
welp, you make good friends, i have made many in the last years.
You need to stay away from drugs for real.
Don´t go to art school unless you are rich. Study business or engineering.
About cash I do weddings on the weekends and also draw a lot, but my main income is from administering family business, and traveling to meet clients.
>>2494982
I feel like this guy got shat on in past threads.
sorry anon. :(
I've been freelancing for a few years, and just recently started getting work in my desired industry - editorial illustration. The covers I've done have been well received, but they've been for smaller publications, paying about ~$300-400. Mid-to-high range magazines and journals can pay out $1000 minimum per color cover, with the largest magazines paying out $2500+ for covers.
I've been very, very happy to have broken into this field and am thankful to have the opportunity to start climbing the ladder to higher paying and more rewarding work.
However, it is soul-crushingly difficult. It's been 2.5 months since my last gig, and I've been scraping by on royalties from prints & tees. This is the longest I've gone without work since I started getting gigs. It sucks so much to not know whether or not your promotional efforts are resonating with AD's, and it feels like I'm often headed for a dead end. As with any field of illustration, competition is fierce. AD's get swarmed with so, so many submissions, that it's very hard to get on their radar.
I'm still happy with what I'm doing, but the looming fear of failure gets worse with each passing week that I don't get work.
>>2495099
Nope, I just lurked board for quite a while. It's really baffling not even how anons here are booty bothered by Sakimi, but even by some nameless fuck who now has whole thread dedicated to himself (the one with Morty fucking his mother in OP). Oh or those Patreon threads where some even lie (!) about having $500 patreons and other guys getting envious.
Really, lots of really primitive people here.
>>2495156
Uhhh pretty sure I make over 500 no lies.
it fucking hurts how close this is to hitting home
>>2495156
>not knowing the shad meme
I like drawing but there is so much drama from salty artists.
Sometimes it makes me want to quit and choose another career option.
>>2495396
Are you serious? Is this a joke?
You're doing something wrong here if you're getting into so many dumb arguments with other people. There is no one to fault but yourself for engaging in any sort of drama.
>>2494982
Who hurt you?
>>2495156
Why are you here? How do you not even know Shad? Are you Dobson?
>>2495419
Not the same anon but, people post stupid shit to ruin your reputation.
>>2494982
I agree with the premise, but this part is bullshit:
>I mean, how can you appreciate forms of human body when ultimately you hate people and don't want to interact with them?
You can draw things you don't interact with just fine, people do it all the fucking time. People even draw things that don't exist.
>>2494971
honestly? id rather be doing this than anything else, but happy is pushing it. if i got more popular id be happier i think, but at the moment.......
>>2494971
Right now, I'd say I'm on the line between happy and unhappy. I'm complacent, partially due to a lack of initiative or drive to shake things up and find a better situation for myself and partially due to the fact that I'm not in a place where I can't find the time to do the things I enjoy.
I'm not making much money, infact I've only recently started to actually make money rather than have to slowly dig into my savings. I guess, to say again, I'm feeling kindof neutral toward my living status. Working at home doing freelance gives you certain benefits but what you gain in freedom you lose in stability. I find myself waking up very late, browsing the internet too much and just generally wasting time, but i feel like I should be doing more work so rather than condensing work time into an 8 or so hour period of time each day I spread that same work-load out over the course of the ENTIRE day which results in a feeling like I wasted 16 whole hours to only do 8 hours worth of work... or worse.
It just leads to a feeling like time is slipping away very fast. THis last year has felt like the shortest year of my life.
On the positive side though If you can maintain some personal discipline, get up early, go to bed at a reasonable hour, work hard for a long while and then have the rest of the day to relax I think working from home would be very rewarding.
Also, though it is distracting from my freelance work, I do have basically unlimited time to work on my own ideas. I'm constantly thinking of new pictures I want to do, stories I want to tell and books I want to make in the future and at the end of the day that's what really matters to me so all in all. It's not so bad.
It's no secret that if your intentions since the beginning have been to make a living solely off art alone you're going full retard.
>>2495117
>largest magazines paying out $2500+ for covers
magazines like new york times pays 15-20k.
>>2496087
Source?
From all my research, large national magazines pay around $2500-6000 for front covers. Perhaps more if you're very famous, but I've never once read anything close to 15-20k.
I'm not happy where I am at right now, no. What kills me is I haven't tried hard enough to pursue this. No excuses other than laziness.
>>2494971
Yes, I'm happier than I've been with any job before this.
I don't do the typical /ic/ shit, I do commercial/editorial illustration, publishing, graphic novels, art prints/zines, murals, prints/posters, t-shirts + a lot of other random shit.
I'm trying to find an agent right now because I hate doing all the administrative shit like finding new clients, following up, communicating, negotiating prices, invoicing, my taxes, etc. That shit really sucks. The one thing I miss about working regular jobs is showing up for 8 hours and turning off and going home..my taxes already pulled out of my paycheck and filing a simple tax return. I also miss the steady guaranteed paychecks. Some weeks are fucking amazing, then I'll have a dry spell for a couple weeks and work on my personal projects to keep busy.
My advice is to study professional, actual careers, not the whole "commission, patrion" weeb stuff. That's not really a career, that's like having candy money when you live with your parents - I guess that's cool to be internet famous.
I also don't necessarily agree with everyone that shits on art school here, I would still be folding t-shirts at Target if I never went to ArtCenter.. the school provided me with professional training/standards and put me in my first jobs. I think anyone should do it if it's right for them. I got good scholarship money though, I recommend working for that. Don't be an idiot paying a ton out of pocket.
>>2496087
No they don't, the biggest publications pay like $2,500-$7,500 for a big name color cover like that. Maybe in the old days they paid 15-20k, but not now.
I make 50% of my money doing art, and 50% working retail. I am much happier doing art. It also pays better per hour.
Based on several months of data, I calculated the correlation between my percieved emotional well being and hours spent doing various activities. Doing art for money is quite satisfying.
But I am not happy, mostly due to isolation that hos nothing to with art.
