/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

I quit full timing my art at the end of spring after working my ass off running private commissions for all my bills for a year. I burned out hard, stopped drawing all summer and got a retail job. I think I made about 170-200 finished pieces over the course of a year, mostly off of portraits. The burnout was inevitable.
Just moved states and currently taking a very selective amount of orders from clients I know very well- made about $400 off two clients since I got here. It's not a lot but it's making rent until I pick up work again.
I don't regret quitting freelancing full-time when I did. Taking 5-7 active clients at a time with a backlog of 10+ on a waitlist was destroying me and my skill level wasn't high enough to charge more and still have a sustained influx of interested clients.
I've come back from my break feeling better about my art and didn't feel like my skills atrophied too much over the summer. You don't have to be too awesome to make some revenue if you dedicate time every day, really throw yourself out to fanbases that love commissioning their OCs (DnD nerds/WoW etc.), have a generic anime-ish style and post regularly, but man, having a realistic sense of your own limits and abilities gets you a long way.