/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>4180353
>the current trends in art
These niche, flavor-of-the-month subjects matters and themes on Twitter are not at the same thing as "current trends in art"

>>4173693
>/ic/ whines about /r/art celeb portraits
Oh nice, it's this thread again

I am a professional illustrator (ie. I make my entire income off of freelance illustration). I don't work in fantasy / sci-fi illustration, but more branding, advertising, editorial, etc.

There are two 'secrets' I think are really important to understand but I find that a lot of people on /ic/ don't value these things.

1.) Stylistic cohesion of your portfolio: Having a singular look & feel to your body of work is absolutely crucial. If your portfolio has work that looks like it could have been made by different artists, then you've got a problem with your stylistic identity and you need to address it. This really matters, and it will make your life so much easier to have a singular style represented in all your work.

2.) You need to practice your business & freelance skills as you would your drawing & design fundamentals. The difference between two good artists - one working and one not - is that the working one actually bothered to treat their artwork as a business and acted accordingly, while the other just sat on their ass and thought that once they were good enough, success would somehow just follow. If you've ever seen work out in the world and thought "This is awful, how are these people getting work and I'm not?", then the answer is those people actually bothered to push their work in front of art / creative directors and you didn't.

You NEED to be proactive in your career as an artist. Just having good work is not enough, you have to do something to promote your work to the right people. The most simplified actions you can take boil down to this: create your portfolio, look for businesses that you think could use it, and then reach out to them directly and pitch your work. The more you do this, the better. Occasionally throwing your work on social media and waiting to be discovered is a terrible plan and is not going to be sustainable. Don't neglect hitting up smaller businesses - they're great for getting your foot in the door.

>>3467775
I don't recommend working hard to build up yourself professionally as a freelance illustrator to work for big businesses and get paid thousands per project. I highly recommend focusing on your 'bara furry' career instead.

>>3435571
>Why do you believe that /ic/ always believe that the world of professional art revolves around fantasy / scif- / concept art?
You actually serious? Just take a good hard look at this board. It has been like this for ages. People here have such fierce tunnel vision in regards to what it means to be a 'professional artist'. It seems that most people here think that the only way to make a living via any medium of art are:

>fantasy & sci-fi illustration
>concept art
>tumblr character commissions (often with those fast-food style commission charts)
>porn patreons
>furry commissions

Most people here can't think of any ways to monetize creative skills beyond this because they're so ignorant, inexperienced & naive, so they just refer to the above as "the industry" and pretend that the world of ALL professional art revolves around it.

>Especially when artstation has shit tons of illustrations instead of concept art
What's your point here? Yeah - there are illustrations on ArtStation, and they're all fantasy & sci-fi illustrations. Bonus points for all the generic weeb art and/or digital painting of a sexy woman, from artists trying to build their Patreons. Just look at the front page of artstation right now and see if it isn't exactly what I just described.

>>3429601
I'm not seeing the connection OP is making between doing pipeline, run-of-the-mill concept art, and harboring a soul crushing lack of fulfillment.

Why do you think these people are miserable? I think you're incorrectly assuming that tracing 3D models & photobashing leads to depression, or that these artists hate what they're doing. I don't think its reasonable to jump to that conclusion, and there's no real reason to do so.. These artists are most likely very happy, as most people are when working in a successful creative career.

It sounds like OP is one of those delusional /ic/ purist who thinks that your process matters and that you're not a REAL artist if you do X, Y & Z.

Oh look. It's another thread where OP thinks 'digital art' = fantasy / sci-fi / concept art only.

One of the comments on that thread sums it up perfectly:

>"There is no art police coming for people who trace photos, photobash, use references, or any other "cheats"."

Tracing isn't cheating. Tracing isn't dishonorable. To suggest that one particular process is better than another is utterly laughable. Nobody gives a fuck. Nobody cares about your process. All that matters is the final result. The amount of ass blasted art 'purist' in that thread who think Jakub is breaking some sort of unspoken artist code of honor is astounding.

The only credible criticism in this entire discussion is whether or not he is tracing copyrighted photos. However, there is a vast amount of free, royalty-free, public domain images online for personal AND commercial use. Tracing those is no problem and completely fair game.

Freelance illustration can be an reliable source of totally solid income.

However, get it out of your head that freelance illustration ONLY means sci-fi / fantasy illustration, or drawing finished works for video games and movies. Stylistically, too many folks here think that illustration also only means 'digital painting' work. The worst I've seen is that some people can't think of opportunities beyond that of furry porn and tumblr-style commission sheets.

There are so, so, so many different types of opportunities for freelance illustrators beyond that, and it's sad to see people here have such tunnel vision regarding what it means to do freelance illustration. The variety of different businesses and industries that can utilize a good illustrator reaches far beyond sci-fi + fantasy illustration. It's essentially unlimited, as the very nature of freelance illustration is entreprenuial, and you can work towards creating your own opportunities in any industry. However, since a lot of illustration work isn't necessarily some Ruan-Ji, 'god-tier' digitial painting technique, dillusionally elitist /ic/ users dismiss anything else as being illigitimate and not REAL illustration.