Hello everyone. I was curious about what the community of online artists thought about the subject of becoming a successful artist without becoming a YouTube or Twitch personality. I understand people need to promote themselves to be seen in the deep sea of online content, but bass boosted intros and over the top acting isn't my cup of tea personally.
TLDR: Can you find success with minimal social media interaction?
Thank you as always!
-PixelatedThunder
Hi. Depends. If you want to sell games then I don't know, might me close to impossible.
On the other hand, if you would like to do commissions for money, that sort of stuff, then that is more possible. I have very little social media stuff besides maintaining some portfolios and I have been working as a full tile freelance artist for around 9 years on boardgames, books, computer games and such. Not saying it's easy, or that it's even a good idea, but it is somewhat in the realm of doable, if you really want to focus on art. Because it takes me much more effort and time to make money drawing comapared to, let's say, working in construction like i did before, haha. It is a much more interesting job to draw and design stuff for living of course
Blue collar family! Thank you very much for your insight. I'm working as full time auto mechanic of 10 years now (not sure how much longer the body can do it).
The dream, I'm sure I share with almost every artist, is to work from home with time and freedom to create. I feel like I have found my space on the animation side, but not being a developer definitely hurts, because I don't know what they are looking for.
P.S. your art and style look great, I enjoyed looking through your work. Thank you again!
Being a mechanic doesn't sound like a bad job, to me at least.
When this sort of freelance job is going good, it's really good, in my experience. I live in a slightly cheaper country than USA, for example, so I can manage to work maybe two weeks out of the month and to make enough money and to have plenty of free time. However, because of the randomness involved, sometimes I make no money in a month at all and I still need to work on finding projects etc. Basically it's a good gig, but still often stressful and definitely not easy.
Also I worked from home for two years and noticed it's really not my thing. So I've been renting a desk at one of those coworking places and I think that's a good way go for a lot of people.
Glad you liked my artwork by the way
It's a cool job and I appreciate having it. I have always wanted to try working from home, I may end up disliking it too. It's good to know those kind of places exist. I wasn't aware you could rent a desk space with others, sounds pretty cool.
I'm not sure how I feel about commission. How does that work if they do not agree with your presentation? Do they get so many re-draws before they have to start paying again? I could have the wrong mindset about this, but commission sounds like having a boss again. I apologize for my ignorance in this space.
Yeah, I think they call those desk renting offices "coworking offices" in English. I work with a lot of random programmers and architects and such which is kinda interesting.
Well in my experience it depends a lot on the client and the project, but often there is a fair amount of freedom about the details drawing left to me. Usually we agree to something like the client can choose from the sketches i make and ask for changes if needed and this allows to keep the changes to the final illustration or what have you fairly minimal. It's usually understood that if the client requests a lot of redraws, especially something they didn't mention from the start than that requires extra payment. I even had some rare projects where I was given a hundred percent of freedom about what to draw because i simply needed to draw something cool looking to use as a victory screen in a game. Those were fun.
I mean, there is some boss feeling still, but much less than in a normal job. Also if I was trying to sell artwork or such and to survive of it then it's almost certain i would need to follow the trends, what sells and i don't like drawing fanart, for example. There's always something, basically. Think about it like this: Michelangelo did commissions, haha
Take this with a grain of salt, as I’m just a hobbyist and haven’t done any professional work. But from what I’ve heard from other artists, social media success is not really necessary to be a successful artist unless you want to get all of your work / do all of your advertising from social media. For instance, I know there are a good number of artists who make their money from selling pieces irl rather than online–in that space, being big on social media isn’t gonna be a major boost.
With that said, art is a tough career in general. I know a lot of newer artists who have difficulty finding consistent work. I nevertheless wish you the best of luck!
I appreciate all advice in this space. It is just a hobby for me now, and possibly for the foreseeable future. I didn't expect to gain any traction in the three months that I have put myself out there.
But, honestly I expected something, anything. I have definitely done the research (a little too much). It's hard to get a direction or path with zero feedback. Maybe I need to contact some indie devs or something. Break down and learn code and a game engine.
Thank you again for your time and advice.
The field of art is a competitive one, but it is rewarding in spite of that.
To answer your question, yes it is possible to be an artist and have the bear minimum use of social media and not have to interact with your fanbase. It might help you get exposure in the long run but you have to bear in mind that, as Hugues said it is a very tough career. You could probably get by on instagram if you don't want to get into the nonsense that is youtube which I wouldn't take seriously as a platform for a number of reasons.
That's acknowledging that Instagram is, in a sense pay to play. If you want to get a massive amount of followers you're likely going to have to boost your posts. Either that or make art based on dumb memes which... In my honest opinion is limiting to that respect.
My work with freelance has been more of a side thing as of late. As much as I would love to make it big I'm just not at that point where I feel that I can yet, but I can still do what I can to get whatever exposure and opportunities that can help me build my resume and skills while working a full time job. Not everyone is in a position to do this so it really depends on the amount of time you're able to have in order to focus on what you do to build up your artistic passions into a full time career.
Hi! You know what, I have similar dilemmas. I also think about it a lot, because such things are not my cup of tea either. On the other hand, in our industry, online visibility is crucial. I think YouTube or Twitch are one option - great if someone likes this format, but not the only one. On the other hand, any interaction with social media seems to be necessary today. To be successful and earn money, you need to be visible. So it's probably best to find your own channels, the one whose format suits you best, and run there regularly.
