/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

For the past 10 years of my life, I have been struggling to find myself as an artist. But I’m not really sure what kind of artist to define myself as. I feel like a Jack of All Trades, but a Master of None.

All my life, I loved drawing. I loved watching cartoons, anime and all kinds of animated movies. I loved reading comic books and manga. I loved playing video games. I knew I wanted to do something in any of these fields. I either wanted to go into animation, illustrate comic books, or do character design/concept art for video games.

After high school, I was accepted to the Joe Kubert School which at the time offered Animation and Comics as a focus. Of course, by the time I enrolled, the animation major was disbanded. So it was comics I guess.
I’ve discovered I hated drawing comics from a script. I enjoyed creating my own, but I sucked at coming up with my own stories.
Either way, my drawing skills improved, but by the time I graduated, I was told I still had room for improvement before working for any comic company.

I moved back home and had no idea what to do with my life. I didn’t know what other jobs I could get. I had a portfolio full of comic work that wasn’t good enough, but sitting at home all day to work on my art didn’t sit well with parents. I had a couple of freelance gigs but they were illustrations for perfume boxes or logo designs. I was desperate to find work.

Thankfully an alumni from my school got me a job at a slot game company, but it wasn’t really an art job. It was just helping with resizing graphics and stuff. I still did freelance art on the side though, and was even commissioned for a big storyboarding gig.

Cont

>>4228096
>Been drawing for 10 years
>Draws this
My god anon you're giving me so much anxiety
No offence, but I'm seriously terrified of ending up like (You)

>acquaintance of acquaintance gets in touch with me
>says he’s making a comic anthology and wants me to be a featured artist for one of its short comic stories
>comic is only 5 pages but pay rate is good and will be paid upfront

>find out comic anthology is typical super liberal social justice crap.
>shit to do with immigration and trans rights
>my political views have always been middle of the road so some aspects I like about it, but the story I will be working on is typical liberal cringe with a social commentary on illegal immigration and ICE.
>I kinda still want to work on the story because the pay is good and it could lead to other opportunities, but I’m worried it’ll affect my reputation.

What would you do?

So sometimes I take commissions on Upwork for spare money.

I was commissioned by someone who wants me to illustrate a children’s book. So far I haven’t been given any manuscript or even a plot for this book. I’ve only been told the characters and their personalities and the setting.

This project has been broken up into 5 milestones. The first was character designs, the next is supposed to be thumbnails/layouts of the pages. The third would be to start the final illustrations, the 4th is finishing up the illustrations, and the 5th and final milestone is compiling everything and delivering.

I haven’t done a children’s book before, but I’m pretty sure when creating a children’s book, there needs to be an editor, a book designer and ultimately, a publisher.

The guy has yet to give me a manuscript or even a plot for this book. I don’t know how many pages this book with be or how big the book/images will be. I’m worried he’ll expect me to design the book itself and as don’t know how to create the physical book itself.

What are some things I should ask from him before I start doing the second milestone? Should I ask him if he has a publisher? I’m guessing no, or else he wouldn’t be asking for artists on Upwork. Publishers usually find an artist for the writer.

Ultimately I’m doing this for the money, and to have some nice work in my portfolio, but I’m worried this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing and will drag me down.

Should I just ask him for the full manuscript before moving forward? If he doesn’t have one, then what do I do?