/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>autistic hermit
>lurking on an art community for a long time
>feeling confident one day
>talk a little
>eventually say something highly questionable
>people are offended
>try to defend myself
>>try
>end up saying something worse still
>at this point it has become clear to me that I am the dumbest person alive
>leave forever

I saw people mock me the day after that and I cried and listened to Jackson C. Frank for most of the day, but it's better now
Worst thing is that I still feel so bad about it that I haven't been productive since then

>>4806362
>>4807292
These both are very amateur looking and very poorly composed. Your biggest issues are stylistic inconsistency, and poor composition due to bad values & colors, not to mention thoughtless lighting.

Stylistically, these pieces are both all over the place. It's especially jarring in >>4807292. You have minimalisticlly rendered trees, then a crazy amount of noise/detail on the foliage at the bottom. This does not look good at all because the level of detail is jarringly all over the place (even within the figures). The background trees are a mess and arguably the worst part of the poster. They are extremely wonky and the blur effect looks terrible (and stylistically inconsistent to the vector look you're going for). Also - they have a a weird green halo around them - why? To top it off, you've decided to make the very back this orange/purply gradient, creating a large amount of contrast that is hard to read and becomes the focal point (when it should obviously be on the figures). And then - on TOP of all that background noise - you've decided to add a very tiny, extremely detailed typeface, adding even more clutter and making the words very hard to read (especially "Be wary of the..."). This was a terrible call on your part.

The Oxenfurt Forest one is better, but still suffers from most of the same problems. You have absolutely no sense of composition and you need to practice thumbnailing your compositions out first before you go in to thoughtlessly plotting things out. You need to think about how a piece all fits together. You need to learn what contrast really is and how it can be used to compose your drawing.

>>4597569
I've left /ic/ 5 or 6 times now

>>4539274
>The best way to achieve that is to give shitposters no leeway or attention.
>>4539255
>It would be great to actually create a culture where we have each other’s backs.

This has never worked on any board, ever.

Abandon all hope of improving /ic/. It is what it is. If you're going to expect better of the people here, then you're just setting yourself up for disappointment & frustration.

>>4530089
yes, anon. yes you can. you can do anything if you set your mind to it.

>>4414192
>Retarded people typically aren't good at anything.
this, desu.

>>4403399
>>4403491
Do you really have to call people 'chinks' anon? I'm sure you're perfectly capable of asking your questions without being needlessly racist

>>4384073
Portfolio sites are generally used to show off your best work in a cohesive & consistent presentation. They are most useful when pitching your work to potential clients. Sure - you can just throw your social media sites at them, but those are usually populated with all sorts of random stuff, including personal posts, random experimentation, shitty sketches, unfinished work, etc. A portfolio site however is generally a curated gallery of your best work, like "This is what I do". A good portfolio site will be consistent in quality & style, and will generally include a bio page and contact information.

For anyone looking to freelance professionally, you should have a curated portfolio site in addition to your social media sites.

Incoming rant: Who here has been on Instagram for 2+ years?

For those who have - has your engagement rate just plummeted recently? Has the reach of your post been smaller and smaller? The amount of likes & comments I used to get in previous years absolutely dwarfs what I get now (even though I had fewer followers in the past). The past few months in particular have been inexplicably stunted.

The average engagement rate is currently supposed to be around 3-5%, in that 3-5% of your followers will like/comment on your post. For example, if you had 2000 followers, you could rely on ~60-100 likes per post on average. The average used to be much higher for everyone but it's slowed in the past 1-2 years (people scroll through their feed less and watch more stories), though some people still have higher averages and they really seem to be thriving. It's just so, so frustrating to see that your account - for reasons you will never know - seems to be less favored by Instagram's home feed algorithm than other accounts. I often see accounts with less followers have more engagement than I currently do.

The real kicker is this - While likes and attention are nice and all, that wasn't my primary goal of using IG. My primary goal was to get on the radar of certain art/creative directors for freelance gigs, and to stay on their radar. I had a few that followed me and it was great to see whenever they liked my work - it was an important confirmation that they knew who I was and that they enjoyed my work, and on a few occasions it lead to an opportunity. However, since getting fucked by the algorithm, I've inexplicably stopped seeing their specific likes come in. Because the reach of my posts has been diminished, I fear that IG is just not serving up my posts to these important individuals even though they still follow me.

>>4287513
To clarify - Printful does all your fulfillment. In other words, they both produce AND ship products in your name.

To summarize, these are your options when it comes to selling prints & other merch online:

1.) Use a print-on-demand site like Redbubble. They will fulfill all parts of the process (production, customer service, shipping, inventory, etc.) and you just collect royalties. It carries the lowest margins, but passive sales are the name of the game here. With a high volume of passive sales, you can collect a great passive monthly income from this. Low risk, low effort, low reward.


2.) Use a drop shipper (I recommend Printful) and set up your own shop. A dropshipper will fulfill your orders and ship them out, but you do customer service and you relay the information to them so they can fulfill the order. Better margins than PoD sites. Do this in combination with a store, either Etsy (part of a larger marketplace) or a site like StoreEnvy, Shopify, Bigcartel, etc (your own standalone site). If you don't use Etsy, you'll have to rely entirely on driving your own traffic and sales which is difficult to do. Still - you don't have to put anything on the line to get it started besides time (no or little money upfront). Low risk, medium effort, medium reward.

3.) Produce all your own products and do everything yourself, again using sites like Etsy, Shopify, Bigcartel, etc.) You'll have to put down time, money & effort to get it going (ie. an investment), and you'll have keep inventory and ship it all yourself. If you don't sell much, you could see a disastrous return on your investment. However, you get the best margins per sale and can make more money with less sales. If you have a means of driving regular sales (perhaps a strong online fanbase), then this is a great option. High risk, high effort, high reward.

>>4209015
>>4209034
Thanks! So the texture is a mix of different textures layered on top of each other. I basically have a folder I drag and drop of some curated textures that I can tweak to fit the piece. The key is to get a good mix of several textures layered on top of each other in a way that don't over-do it. Textures like you posted can definitely work - try combining it with another.

Try and look up free texture packs. In addition to your base textures, consider using some supplemental detail textures, such as https://graphicburger.com/dust-noise-overlay-textures/ . The grey-ish stuff around the border is actually a pretty simple canvas texture. However, I used a nice, streaky, directional brush to erase large chunks of it so that only a few bits remain to make it seem like canvas is popping through, or to give it a faded look.

It's pretty fun to mix-and-match different textures you find, and it's highly personal/subjective to find ones you like and that work well with your work. I'd just recommend to avoid using only one texture and instead focus on creating a blend of them and to implement them in a subtle and synergistic manner.

>>4176895
>>4176896
>tfw i recognize a few d/ic/kheads from the social media thread but i'm not included in the list