/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>5088512
ouch

>>4943962
Do you really need to see someone's work to verify whether or not $60/week is not a lot of money?

>>4720653
I've heard mixed reviews. Some say it's marginally better than the 1, some say its a little bit of a different feel (for the worse). Overall it sounds like a solid yet overpriced protector.

I ordered one yesterday then canceled it when I saw that their shipping system is fucked due to Covid-19 and they seemingly had no estimated delivery date. I'm getting an iPad Pro 11" later today and wanted something now, so waiting on a Paperlike 2 is unrealistic.

>>4698359
Illustration for business / commercial clients encompasses a huge range of opportunities. Of course there's a market for it. It can pay very well and you can absolutely make a killer living and a lifelong career doing this. Focusing on personal/private commissions is a suckers game. Business/corporate commissions can pay much more for the same amount of work.

The catch is that it's much harder to do. People on this board focus on personal/private commissions because it's relatively easy. They think they have the basic blueprint needed to get started because it's so easy to understand: Build up a following on social media -> Open yourself up to commissions -> Get hired. That's all pretty straight forward and it is constantly touted as the go-to method on /ic/. But how do you land commercial commissions? It's not so simple. Posting on social media and waiting to be 'discovered' is not going to cut it. There is not an easy-to-follow blueprint perpetuated on this board, so a lot of folks here just come up with weak excuses of why commercial commissions are not even worth doing.

People like >>4698387 are retarded and have a poor understanding of how many different opportunities there are available for illustrators who want to focus on business/corporate clients on retail, promotional, editorial, branding, and many more types of projects. To reduce the entire industry of illustration down to being filled with cheapskates hiring SE Asians, etc. is just ignorant, especially to then suggest that childrens book illustrations are somehow a better, more realistic alternative.

>>4663276
I can't comprehend the level of mental retardation one must have to think that this is a good idea.

>>4637294
>people seem to be more helpless/clueless than ever about them
This is a problem largely found on /ic/. This board perpetuates a tunnel-vision perspective on how to make a living with art, which seems to only include
>fantasy / sci-fi illustration
>porn commissions / patreons
>concept art
>furry art
and that's it. To this board, the term 'digital art' is synonymous with a very narrow field of opportunities, when - like you said - there are many more ways to make a living as a digital artist than the above list. Are people lazy for being misinformed by /ic/? No, but this board is most definitely a whirlpool of delusional morons and misinformation when it comes to how people make a living with your art (specifically illustration). People here can't seem to fathom that any other opportunities exist outside of the above list, but there are a wide range of opportunities available that fall under the umbrella of illustration.

>>4568138
this, desu. /ic/ is by and large incapable of seeing a piece through to completion. The social media thread is full of blogs that have nothing to show but half-assed sketches, low effort studies and work-in-progress drawings that never follow through.

I'd take a polished turd over some low-effort "study" any day of the week.

>>4437367
>i gave up after 6 years trying.
Trying to do what, exactly?

>>4386509
I genuinely wonder what it's like to be this much of a weeb. Do you think they're happy? This honestly doesn't look like the room of a happy person to me. It makes me wonder if buying all this stuff is all just a way to hold off their sadness temporarily until they need to buy some new again. I mean, just look at all this shit - it seems like a shopping addiction.

>>4365360
No such thing as 'cheating' in art.

>>4356726
>Somehow that never happened.
As mentioned, it's because the copyright holders decided not to, for one reason or another. Plenty of people get away with it because it flies under the radar. Or maybe the holder is holding back from pursuing it for the time being***. Or maybe they don't want the bad rep of going after a particular project. Or maybe they don't care, and they enjoy the free advertisement.

My point was not so much that it's likely Sakimi is going to get in trouble - my point is that if the copyright holder wanted to, then they COULD take action and she could get into trouble, and she would have a poor legal defense to protect her.

***A good example of this is Nintendo. Nintendo, despite their tough nature on fan projects, have been well known to be relaxed on enforcing IP protection regarding fan art. For example, their lax nature was one of the reasons you might see so much Nintendo fan art on t-shirt websites, like Redbubble, Etsy, etc. Nintendo was considered "safe" for years and years because they never did anything about it. For reasons unknown, they recently dropped the hammer and issued mass takedowns on many of these sites. Folks entire accounts are getting wiped because they had so much Nintendo fan art and now it's all gone overnight. A lesson learned: just because you got away with something for a long time, doesn't mean that it's somehow okay or 'safe'.

>>4330148
Trying hard to carve a unique style out for yourself by putting more graphic & flat elements into the digital painting process. You confidently stylize your work because think this will help you stand out from others but the truth is that you don't actually feel like you have a strong handle on your own art - you're struggling big time with every piece you make. No one in your life really knows this though, and you enjoy how they think you're so talented. It's a nice ego boost, but it doesn't last long before you feel the dread of staring at another blank canvas, feeling the pressure to force yourself to create another similarly stylized work when, deep down, you're still conflicted about what type of art you want to be doing and really stressing you out.

You want to be a professional illustrator, but you've worked little to no professional gigs thus far. You toss your stuff up online in the hopes of being "discovered" because you thought that's how things work, but you're slowly realizing overtime that that's not actually how it works. You're slowly realizing there's a missing element to success that everyone seems to know except you. "Why are they successful, but not me?" The answer eludes you year after year, further pushing you into a state of panic, worrying about whether or not things are going to actually work out for you. The biggest nightmare in your life is the prospect that - someday - you might have to sit down and really evaluate your own personal situation, but you're terrified of confronting that immense personal guilt of accepting that you may have failed to achieve your dream.

>>4002889
hurr so deep my dude.

>>3775905
>you're also wrong faggot
Absolutely nothing I've said is wrong.

>>3775908
You are ridiculous and still saying nothing of substance beyond 'u dumb'. It's my best guess that English isn't your first language and that you don't realize that your posts don't make as much sense as you think they do in your head. Still - that's not an excuse for being so arrogant and stupid.

>i'm explaining how it works and you explaining how its done
You did not explain how it works - I did, by explaining that screen tones use different densities of dots (most commonly dots, but it can be lines & other simple patterns as well) to create a wide range of values from a single color. That's how it works. Your blurb about helping "your brain better separate the planes of the drawing" is irrelevant and useless.

Neither of us has touched upon how its done.

For the OP, and for any other reasonable person who is interested in actually learning more about this, screentones are done several ways:
1). When drawing for manga / comics, the effect is traditionally done using screen tone sheets transferred to your drawing via rubbing the back of them to apply the pattern (like a giant stamp).
2) The patterns can also be done by being burned onto screens, which are use in screen printing (often for art prints, shirts, etc.).
3.) They can be emulated digitally using digital halftone techniques, and printed as is.

Method #1 is extremely outdated and is rarely used today. It is all digitally done, and then digitally printed if need be.

>I'm using as a example to streamline your dumb way and primitive way of thinking
I don't understand why you did this. How was that my "dumb way and primitive way of thinking"? I never brought up the technique of filling in values with the paint bucket tool (though there's anything wrong with filling in values with the paint bucket tool either). You brought this up.

>>3627100
Anytime I need to draw realistically proportioned figures, I trace over a saved model in Design Doll that I pose, screenshot and draw over in Photoshop. Anytime I need to draw a realistic face (especially to capture someones likeness), I'll just trace the general proportions of their face from a photo.

I make a living as a freelance illustrator, and I do the above anytime a project calls for it. I value my time & a speedy workflow much, much more than creating everything from scratch. It's a win-win for both myself and the client, and there's honestly no reason not to do so because absolutely no one cares about your workflow.

>>3584818
>How do you do that and not sound like a creep?
You do so by not forcing yourself on others. A 'connection' is not necessarily a tight, friendly relationship - it can be (and often is) a simple relationship created from a successful linking of supply (you) & demand (a client).

The goals of reaching out to someone for business opportunities are to simply make your self known, share your portfolio and state your interest in working with them in the future. The aim is to make a lasting impression by having good work and being friendly, so that - in the future - if they have a project that needs illustrations that are in line with what you can provide, they will know that you can both get the job done, and are already interested in working with them. A simple, friendly introductory email to share your portfolio is all that's required to make a successful impression.

>>3561848
>There are so many jobs that would creatively fulfill a lot of people on /ic/, but for some reason people think there aren't many ways to make money with art.
If there's one thing I wish people on /ic/ would learn, its this. Instead, you have people here who seriously can't think of any way to make a living beyond making porn patreons or doing personal commissions via fast-food style commission charts on Tumblr.

>>3561946
Art agencies have websites. You can clearly check out what their artists do and verify that they're not a sham. You can even reach out to the artists and see how they like working with the agency.

Here are some examples of illustration agencies:
http://www.ba-reps.com/
http://snydernewyork.com
http://www.eyecandyillustration.com/
https://agentpekka.com/artist/

Illustration agencies take a cut of your pay (~20-30%), but they negotiate higher prices and essentially pay for themselves easily. In return, agencies promote your work to key decision makers at businesses that would normally be out of your reach to you. They can feed you a steady stream of high profile, high paying work. Though for the most part, you generally need to be an established artist for them to consider signing you.

>>3562039
Difficult, but the difficulty doesn't necessarily come from having to achieve strong fundamental skills, but rather from finding & making positive connections between you (an artist) and people who need your work (a commissioner). Remember that you can grind the fundamentals all you want, but the people who get jobs are the ones who actually try to get jobs. Sitting around doing nothing will get you nowhere. Aimlessly posting your work on social media and expecting people to 'discover' you will get you nowhere. The more proactive you are, the better. The world of professional art & design is much more entrepreneurial than it might seem.

>>3547852
What a bunch of generic fantasy trash. Everything is the same - this all looks like the work of 1 artist.

>>3521504
>That actually sounds like a neat exercise, which is: choose the keywords you want to use /before/ drawing the piece, and then design something that would fit all of those keywords.
It really wasn't suggested as an exercise - rather a necessity. It's exactly what I do. I have a list of my own researched and targeted keywords & themes to work through - it's currently about 200 entries long, organized in a simple spreadsheet. Designing for keywords just makes everything so, so much more efficient than just randomly tossing up stuff and hoping it sells. Designs should be made responsively (based on your best educated guess) to the perceived supply & demand of a keyword. In other words, a reliable seller will often be something that is standing out in a high search volume but low competition keyword. It might be fruitless to try and jump in on a super popular niche since they're over saturated.

Designing and thinking like this will put you ahead of a vast majority of users.

>>3522291
I think I'm the only one here, but I've been at it for a while.

>>3522759
That's so awesome - congratulations!

>>3522989
As the other anon mentioned - these are reviews that are on everyones page, as they're reviews for the product themselves and not your designs.

>>3523345
You can customize your margins on RB. I started making significantly more money when I increased my prices. It's easier to sell 1 thing and gain $10 than 4 things for $2.50. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that lower margins (thus lower retail cost) don't necessarily translate to more sales & more money for you.

Shirts usually net me around ~$5, other apparel $5-$15, prints are ~$10-$30, mugs ~$6, cases ~$5.

Make a a few sales of these a day and you've got an easy passive $25 (just an example - that's usually what I make). Times that by 30 days and you've made $750 passively that month just from RB alone - not including other sites you can upload all your work to as well.