/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>4541523
>wasting your time typing this blogpost instead of just drawing
NGMI

>>4541557
My point is that I need to focus on one specific thing to get good at it in a reasonable amount of time. If I don't take the time of taking a step back and asking myself what do I really want and need to do, I will be mindlessly working on things until I start hating them.

If I decide to stick with something, I'll stick with it but such a decision can't be made right on the spot. How many people here talk about not enjoying drawing? It's because they do something without asking themselves if it's something they really want to do or should do. I strongly consider being an artist as a career choice but I am not sure if it pays well enough, that's why I am asking.

>>4541523
>>4541565
No. Stick with programming.

>>4541565
I'll add that for me it's a choice whether to push further or just abandon it all and focus completely on something else. I realize that all my choices are risky so I can't juggle between them, it's either this or that.

>I don't enjoy programming
How do you know?

>>4541565
>If I decide to stick with something, I'll stick with i
I don't think people who actually live up to those words exist. If you enjoy art as a hobby, try drawing full-time for a while, see if you enjoy it, whether you feel like you're improving at a reasonable rate and so on. Give it 1-2 months of commitment.

>>4541565
You’re gonna need a degree if you’re going to get a job anywhere. It’s useful to go to college these days, even if it’s for the arts.

Usually the degree of choice doesn’t always end up being your career. Art majors sometimes end up in various company positions or even management and are valued for their soft skills.

>>4541565
It's doesn't pay well, unless you're in the top 1% with business and marketing abilities to pull it off.

Art is highly subjective, so you're at the beck and call of your clients' whims. They're often irrational and they're also your boss. Most of them are kids or (wo)man-children.

You can improve your art the more time you spend on practicing it, but you're not guaranteed to reach the level of Ruan-Jia or whatever artist is in that 1%. Knowledge improves your skill, but the biggest difference is your sensibility and the choices you make, which is highly subjective and volatile.

And on top of it all, every artist is your enemy and they will shit talk you and give bad reviews, because you're stealing their clients. If you're sensitive (and you should be, as an artists), you'll get demoralized quite easily, because once again, every client is your boss and you're supposed to listen to them.

>>4541582
>going into debt just so you can read shit that's already posted for free on libgen and spend hours sitting in a room full of sjws complaining about "trans invisibility"

>>4541599
noones forcing you to major in gender studies, political science, sociology or literature, and in most other disciplines you're only going to run into socialist ideology every once in a blue moon, though I won't deny that it still exists.

>>4541565
>If I decide to stick with something, I'll stick with it
>If I don't take the time of taking a step back and asking myself what do I really want and need to do, I will be mindlessly working on things until I start hating them
I know your kind all too well. You are just rationalizing being a lazy uncommited fuck. What is gonna happen is that you will avoid making a decision for 10 years and by the time you realize about all the time you lost and try to pick your life up all the chances will be past long gone. You don't need to prove me right or wrong as time will do so naturally, you're a self fullfilling prophecy of failure.

>>4541577
I tried that years ago, it's boring. I am a type of a person who is more interested about visual design and aesthetics more than how something actually works. It would be counter-intuitive for me to pursue something I am not wired for. I enjoy showing my art piece to my friends x1000 more than programming a calculator or something.

>>4541581
I think there's no point in doing art if I am not going to pursue it full-time. You have mentioned that I should pursue it for a while but it will be wasted time if I don't take it any further. One thing that I noticed with artists is that there are very few good artists (which probably means it's really hard to get to the top) and everyone below that level is fighting for scraps. It's like with Chads and Tinder, only a small percentage of people is actually getting anything worthwile while the rest get very little. My observation might be wrong to some degree but I still think amateur artists get paid much, much less than let's say amateur plumbers. The difference is overwhelming actually.

>>4541582
I'll get some tradesman degree so I don't have to work minimum wage jobs, that won't be a problem. Art education in my country is very limited, it's much better to be either self-taught or not bother with art at all.

>>4541617
and /thread

I think most artists can earn a half-decent amount of money by doing commissions, tabeling at conventions, etc. But the actual industry is EXTREMELY competitive, there is a lot of artists and not a lot of jobs out there. so if you want to make a living wage you'll have to work really, really hard for it, and to be honest it doesn't sound like your all that committed.

>>4541612
get real. college art departments are full of sjw professors and students

>>4541617
If that's what you think, that's fine. I don't want to waste my or anyone else's time, it's a simple question whether art is worth committing to or not. I can do other things.

>>4541636
>It's a simple question whether art is worth committing to or not
The answer is yes. Now go for it.

>>4541634
They're full of hippie/left-wing "spirituality" idiots, but those guys aren't that bad. They don't talk about politics all day, nor do they expect you to.

>>4541523
Nice blog fag, but no, stop thinking that you're gonna make more money with art than with any other career. Art is only for people how truly enjoys it, if is just for money better get a job at a McDonald's.

>>4541565
>>4541523
If you're trying to achieve financial success via art, you need to realize that it's much more entreprenuial than you may think. You need to operate like an independent one man business. Getting good, in itself, is not going to equal financial success, just like a small business isnt going to succeed simply because they have a good product. There's a whole lot of other things a business needs to juggle, marketing & promotion being one of them.

You do not need to be really really good to make money. You need to be really good at selling yourself and your work to the right audiences. And no, simply tossing up your work on social media is going to cut it. Promoting your work to 50 targeted targeted individuals who are likely to buy your work/services is much more effective than amassing 5000 random, unrelated social media fans.

Most people here will not make a living financially off their art because they completely neglect to practice their business skills and instead only focus on their art skills. They completely neglect it and then complain about how they're not getting anywhere. Don't be one of those people.

>>4541523
40k+ is doable, but you gotta love the process to get there, and accept the fact that you might not.

>I like drawing itself (not obsessed about it but I like it)
Well, time to get obsessed. Art involves years of unpaid, unappreciated work, so you have to be extremely self-driven.

Also ruling out stuff like NSFW will put you at an economic disadvantage, which will make your climb even harder.

>>4541652
>Art is only for people how truly enjoys it
This is an important point. It doesn't mean looking and appreciating art, and it doesn't mean making a great looking piece. What it means is enjoying the process of making art (we're not just talking about drawings here, are we?) Only those people who find joy and interest in simply moving the pencil or whatever, not for an end-goal like studying anatomy or perspective or working on a commission. Those people who were hard-wired with inclination to drawing from a young age. Those people are going to make it.

>>4541621
>I tried that years ago, it's boring. I am a type of a person who is more interested about visual design and aesthetics more than how something actually works. It would be counter-intuitive for me to pursue something I am not wired for. I enjoy showing my art piece to my friends x1000 more than programming a calculator or something.
Have you tried front-end web development? Graphic design? UX design?
You might not like programming now, but it's far more concrete and objective. Aside syntactical nuances, it's very paint-by-numbers and you know when you do something wrong, as opposed to asking for opinions from autistic mouth breathers.
It's your choice.

>>4541523
Historically drawing never was something to make bank from. Only a few individuals ever grow rich or even monetarily high up with art.
Art is a difficult field, with a lot of problems, uncertain employment, and a very big gap from when you start training until you are good enough to earn a decent living.

It is also crucial to note what kind of art you want to do and what job. Saying you want to draw is like saying you want to do mathematics, what kind of job do you want drawing? concept art? design? animation? even in those there are a million and a half jobs included

the bottom line is do what you love and find a way to make money off of it.

OP here, I guess my indecisiveness comes from me not being obsessed about anything in particular. Like I said, I can enjoy drawing, I can enjoy fiddling with music, I can enjoy writing something but I am not obsessed about any of these things. Drawing is something I've been doing since my childhood but it was very, very amateurish, I would say ugly even. Now that I think about it, I enjoyed it more when it was just scribbling lines. Last year I spent some time on actually getting better at art, improving, focused studies and all that. Still I treated it as a hobby, I didn't spend that much time on it but the time I spent was about improvement. If I were really obsessed about it, I wouldn't have to ask any of these questions.

Now I am at a point in my life where I have to choose a career. Minimum wage jobs in my country are very underpaid compared to renting prices so I have to really think about what I should do going forward. I have a plan involving learning a trade skill (not sure which one yet) but I can tell it's not going to be as exciting as creating a peice of art (be it visual thing, music or writing). From my observation there also comes a certain amount of status with doing good art, people ascribe that to talent. You are perceived as a person having a gift or a rare skill. That's much more attractive than being a fucking forklift driver.

But if being an artist means I am going to be underpaid while busting my ass off even more than learning how to flip burgers in McDonalds, that's what scares me. I don't really know the art market, maybe most artists actually don't get paid almost at all and that's what I want to know. Imagine spending even a year of your time of really hard work just to be forced to do something else anyway. Commitment is a scarce resource.

Nice blog post yadda yadda but I was hoping to get some answers to my questions, since this is an art board and all that. It's better to do something interesting (like art) if possible. If it pays

>>4541711
Post your art and we'll tell you if you have the "spark" to make it.

>>4541711
>now that I'm at a point in my life where I have to choose
Not really. the life expectancy today in most first world is starting to go into the 90s. people change careers and hobbies until they die, some folks pick up art way into their later years. If you have the luxury, take a few years to study your passions, see what you love, see what you want to do, things like that.
In the end you only have one life, just use your time to do things that make you happy
>>4541717
Yeah bro, YOU can tell him ifhe's got the spark, sure
go swim with amoebas

>>4541717
Unfortunately I've been focusing too much on doing studies, and those don't really count but that is all I have really (that looks presentable). Pic rel is from last year.

Imagination work is what counts the most, so think of me as a beginner in that regard.

>>4541523
You’d have to be kinda dumb to go into art for the money. You could definitely end up with a stable career but are you okay being broke for like 10-15 years while you build that career ?

>>4541732
This is more recent, a portrait of Neo. Random shit with no market value

>>4541738
So yeah just studies. I enjoyed doing them but that's not the hard part of learning art.

>>4541732
>>4541738
>>4541769
run OP, run!
you just posted good art for a post your work ask
run before the crabs get you!!!

>>4541711
Being an artist does mean you're going to be underpaid and working a different job. You're not going to start as an artist, you'll likely need to train for a few years before you even get money equivalent to McDonalds wages.

This is not true if you choose to do NSFW art though/

>>4541732
>>4541738
>>4541769
you're gonna make it.
look up some pro artists you like and see if they have mentorships. it would help you a lot to have some guidance.

>>4541732
Good work anon. Continue to work on your art, learning more from online tutorials and books on the way. You'll probably need a day job for now while taking commissions on the side.

Refusing NSFW might out you at a disadvantage, but with your style I can picture you doing YouTube vids, tutorials, and maybe some product like a how-to book. Have fun!

Why the fuck is the art field so competitive and filled with talented, neglected people when being a good artist is fucking hard as balls? I guess just a lot of people that started young and never stopped drawing?

>>4541732
>Imagination work is what counts the most
Oh well done Anon, Proko heard you and now he's crying in the corner. I hope you are proud of yourself.

>>4541523
>is learning to draw worth it when it comes to monetary compensation?
Entirely depends on how good you are. If you become as good as Kim Jung Gi you'll be rich, literally so good that you can't be denied.

The potential for money is there, but for me, the real question is: will I regret having chosen (or not chosen) this career when I'm 80 years old?

Good luck

>>4541732
Nooo you filthy hack, how could you post some trace shit that you did. You must draw from imagination! You hear me? IMAGINATION!!! That's how you make it.

>>4541738
>>4541732
Wtf is that nigger, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE THIS GOOD. I am jealous

>>4541732
To be honest, I expected much worse (there are a lot of dunning-krugers around here). But you're right, copying studies doesn't mean you're going to make it.

>>4541523
Commercial illustration is pretty available and lucrative. A top tier draftsman can make 80+k without a heavy workload doing illustrations for card games, video games, marketing and promo art.

The problem is the very high industry standard in that field.

>>4541996
I know, that's why full commitment is needed. Imagination work is learning to recreate real thing in any given angle, infinitely harder than just doing a study. But this thread made me thinking, if I come back to drawing so often even after long hiatuses, it has to mean something to me on a subconscious level.

>>4542023
I was in a similar boat not too long ago. I've done lots of studies, both digital and traditional. I even did some imagination work which was very uninspired and lackluster. In the end I settled on IT support and now studying for web development. I still enjoy art, that's why I came to /ic/ after a long break. That's why I took out my old dusty Intuos 4 large. I just don't think we're going to make if we do it so seldom and without seeing any improvement. I also don't want anything to do with business side of things or run my own business, which is what freelancing essentially is.

You're going to become the next Firez.

>>4541658

this op. This. I make a living doing art.

>>4541523
It’s not. Only the top .01% make 6 figures. Most artists will be making below $40k. And then they compete with 3rd world artists who can live comfortably sub $20k. Pursue art as a hobby, make whatever money you can, but making a living off of solely your own art is like winning the lottery. Even highly exposed artists have to shill for companies or teach and mentor people to get by.

>>4541711
Shit, OP. I had the same question, thanks for thread.

>>4541523
Art is one of those skills where its like icing on the cake. being a designer is universal to almost every field but treated like a side shtick universally too. real money comes when you can fuse art skills with other skills. you might not make big big money but you can make a living if you learn design and 3d. you don't have to be a god at art to really do it for a living contrary to what /ic/ might tell you. but /ic/ is right about fundamentals and the learning process at least.

>>4541854
> I guess just a lot of people that started young and never stopped drawing?
In part yes, but people who work extremely hard on this everyday are usually the ones who post amazing art online. There's really no way around it.

>>4541523

Drawing pictures doesn't make good money, not because there aren't good paying jobs that pay you to draw, it is more because there aren't that many jobs to draw pictures especially with the competition. Get a career in something that is in demand and you're also interested in learning that can make you six figures or close in a few years (you will have to work for it and push your art on the side from time to time), become financially stable, and draw on your free time. This will be harder than working at Mcdoo's, but the investment of a few years into a more difficult job will pay off in the long run. Otherwise, you can NEET off your parents for a few years (not recommended because you can end up in a dead end with no job prospects). Then from there, you can transition into a career as a part time artist or Patreon artist, build a network online, popularize your work, then find real art job, and if that fails, you can fall back on your old career or NEETing.

I followed the initial part of this path and don't regret it (I'm not an artist). Went to college for computer science and working as a programmer. Safe from Rona because I can work from home. After I graduated high school, thought about skipping college and working at mcdoo while trying to make it drawing pictures, but decided against it last second. Now I live on my own in an affluent neighborhood. I didn't neglect my art while in college, I attended local life drawing classes and etc, and also have the art gains. Personally, this was the route most suited for me because I realized I don't care for drawing for other people. I started drawing because I wanted to express my own ideas, not someone else's.

>>4541523
For you? I don't have a choice but to draw. I am addicted to it. This is a pathology for me. If you are doubting it at all just stop. Go learn Java or something.

>>4542296
What this guy said. If money is your primary driver, dont go into art/graphic design. the industries, it its many forms, have internal mechanisms to weed certain criteria like half-assing it. You do just enough to get by? Great, you’ll make that go-getter throwing 110% look all that much better. Your major contribution is going to be someone else’s stepping stone.

Yes yes, the trolls will bring up exceptions. Usually those are upper middle class cuss who’s dad paid their way into upper level industry (ei Calarts-to-Cartoon Network).

If you were to spend 4 years, doing something for 6+ hours everday, you would most likely get far further with programming and develop a career much easier than you would with art. From a career perspective.

>>4541523
>is learning to draw worth it when it comes to monetary compensation?
No, you'll bust your ass less by pursuing an engineering degree.

>>4541738
and as for this... congrats, on a value study. Unless you are applying to be a high school art teacher or identify an art pleb in the wild, this is useless. I wouldnt put this in my portfolio.

Want a professional critique (aside from the obvious ‘why didnt you finish this piece?’)? Why did you choose a subject wearing shades? It looks like you are trying to hide some deficiency with drawing eyes or are lazy. Resubmit your portfolio with a different subject ... and finish it this time.

>>4541732
>>4541738
>>4541769
Start building a nice artstation portfolio, famalam.

>>4541523
no, a 40k job will likely take you 4-5 years of really hard work, studying, stress, 5+ hours daily of drawing, and it's not guaranteed, there's people I know that are 10+ years in and are no where close to professional. It would be a gamble that you're somehow a super genius, have people told you you're a super genius before? If not we can deduce it will likely be a bad idea to try & make money with art after a year.

>>4542440
>I know that are 10+ years in and are no where close to professional.
Have they always averaged more than 4 hours of daily drawing?

>>4542447
pffft are you a beg? More like 6~8 hours since they were kids just like everyone else, at least before they started working real jobs. Now there is a hate for the grind, they need hours or days away just to get the industry taste out of their mouths.

>>4541523
>Be honest with me: is learning to draw worth it when it comes to monetary compensation?
Have you really never heard the phrase "starving artist"?

>>4542440
>have people told you you're a super genius before?
my mom

>>4541523
>is learning to draw worth it when it comes to monetary compensation?

If you're looking to do art for monetary reasons you don't have the motivation that will allow you to make money off of art.

>>4541523
Fantastic artists don't make as much money as code monkeys, don't get as much pussy as a mediocre guitarist, it don't get as much respect as a shit doctor, it doesn't get any government aid of note either.

If you're a professional artist for ANY REASON AT ALL other than you love art so much that you'd draw with your own blood as you lie dying, you're a fucking retard.

>>4541523
When people ask this question the answer they deserve is the same than with any other career. You can spend 4-5 years studying physics and yet end up riding a taxi. You can code from home without a degree and make >200K a year. It always boils down to how the individual moves his cards,

>>4541769
>can draw some good tiddy
>doesn't want to draw porn
Draw more tiddy and you'll make it.

>>4541565
>My point is that I need to focus on one specific thing to get good at it in a reasonable amount of time
This is the right mindset, I didn't do this and now I am barely competent at 5 different skills, none of which are marketable at that stage.

>>4543785
He just said he isn't into drawing porn, retard.

>>4543867
no need to be rude

but yeah you can draw porn if you enjoy porn yourself, otherwise it's very hard and it feels like it's going against your instincts so to speak

>>4541854
>Why the fuck is the art field so competitive and filled with talented, neglected people when being a good artist is fucking hard as balls?
I honestly can't wrap my head around this either. Being good at art is definitely harder than getting a STEM masters degree and everyone around me seems ultra lazy. I don't know where all these artists come from.

>>4543915
The amount of people who want to make art is hugely disproportionate to the amount of people willing to pay for it

>>4543915
The world needs programmers and engineers way fucking more than it needs artists. How do people not understand that jobs work based on supply and demand? Just because something is hard doesn't mean you deserve to be paid for it...

>>4541582
>It’s useful to go to college these days, even if it’s for the arts.
90% of art school graduates do not have a job as artists
http://bfamfaphd.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/BFAMFAPhD_ArtistsReportBack2014-10.pdf
Ateliers are better than art schools.

>>4541711
I’ve lived my life like a faggot because I was so worried about this and all I’ve learned is that it’s better to have another skill rather than do nothing because you’re afraid of wasting your time on acquiring it. I make decent money in my field but wish every day that I’d at least tried to improve my art after taking life drawing years ago.

>>4541523
>is learning to draw worth it when it comes to monetary compensation?
No you retard

so what happened to winston

what the heck?
https://www.redbubble.com/es/i/poster/%C3%81guila-dorada-de-softwhiteroll1/43591679.LVTDI

>>4541523
If you're good at something, someone will pay you to do it.

>mfw too smart to create "good" art