Do any of you even make minimum wage with art?

[Anonymous No.6079892]

Can you actually make a living if you get decent at drawing, in the sfw or nsfw sector doing shit online?

Or are we all just coping?

[Anonymous No.6080016]

>>6079892
I make more than the minimum wage in Delhi.

[Anonymous No.6080028]

I live in third world, so, minimun wage in dlls is like king

[Anonymous No.6080036]

£1,000 total last year, on track to make no improvements at all.~£12,000 is min. wage but that's some shoddy living

[Anonymous No.6080044]

>>6079892
Don’t make me do it

[Anonymous No.6080047]

>>6080044
>>6080028
>>6080016
So, the begging artist meme is literally true and you can't even make a good living off this?

[Anonymous No.6080048]

>>6079892
i just want to get good enough to at the very least work at a mobile studio
thats possible right

[Anonymous No.6080051]

>>6080047
I make a living

[Anonymous No.6080052]

>>6080051
What do you do exactly? (Not asking for anything personal, general answers are fine).

Whats your advice to newbies trying to make it?

[Anonymous No.6080056]

>>6080052
I sell art, if you want to make a living get better at art and then sell it on eBay or Etsy.

[Anonymous No.6080092]

>>6080056
pyw

[Anonymous No.6080143]

>>6079892
>are we all just coping?
I draw for fun

[Anonymous No.6080165]

are we talking about only commissions, or are companies and freelance on the table? because i'd never make commissions my main income; shit is unreliable and energy-draining. at least companies give you easy work with better money and time off.

>>6080048
yeah for sure. my coworkers don't draw at the artstation pro levels and some of /ic/ can probably take on their position. the only thing is that you'd need to prove you're reliable and can follow instructions. that means building up a resume with some of your work history and a portfolio to show the skills the company is looking for. not always art skill related btw; sometimes it's about whether or not you understand how a the pipeline process works and if you can make the life of an employee from a different sector easier. (ex. drawing useful rotations for an animator position vs painting a bust of a character for the same position)

just look into your local listings and sign up on linkedin. some places will pay to relocate you if you're abroad or even offer remote work.

[Anonymous No.6080173]

>>6080165
very insightful post

[Anonymous No.6080184]

>>6080165
Thanks for sharing this, may I ask what kind of sector you're working in? Is it game industry, films or something else?

[Anonymous No.6080236]

>>6080173
>>6080184
no prob. i work in mobile gaming currently, but i've done some work for tv shows and cartoons. it's pretty cozy in mobile gaming since it's a hot market and they have enormous budgets so they're always hiring with great compensation and they pay you pretty generously.

the cartoon i got to work on was an "adult" oriented one (kind of like family guy) so it was super chill there too and no one expected da vinci level of art skill. you just needed to know how toonboom worked and not color on the wrong layers and follow their established style. that was a 3 month contract though, but i prefer full time cause i wanted something with a bit more stability.

tv gig was ok, i think those ones are kind of rare because artists were only hired on because they had a very short animated scene. the actress and her agent got to approve the likeness i had drawn of her but they have some very weird and niche requests like to make sure to include her 4 obscure moles or something. (which normally wouldn't be efficient for animation) but again, the skill bar wasn't super high so the animation wasn't that great either in the end. i wouldn't recommend these ones cause i got an offer like this again but the actresses and/or her agent are always picky and don't know exactly what they want.

[Anonymous No.6082139]

>>6080051
Nice going anon. Pyw? Are there any strats for ebay. Are you supposed to just make a lot of work so you end up in people's recommended feeds?

[Anonymous No.6082149]

I draw for fun and sometimes people ask for commissions. I take like 100€ for a 5 hour work (20€/h) so whenever I do have work I take more than minimum wage which would be around 12€/h.
But I have art friends who take art more seriously and make a comfortable living from Patreon + stream donations + commissions. But they all do NSFW art I’m pretty much sure that it’s impossible as sfw artist.

[Anonymous No.6082181]

>>6079892
I make about 4k EUR per month which is 4 times the average wage of my country. I draw NSFW and have a Patreon.

[Anonymous No.6082195]

>>6082181
That's 1k after taxes and -1k after paying rent and bills.
Unless you live in the 3rd world yurobean countries.

[Anonymous No.6082208]

>>6082195
The haters waking up early today I see

[Anonymous No.6082227]

>>6080051

How do you live off of 11k when the average minimum wagie makes 35k a year? Of course unless you live in a third world shithole like colombia.

[Anonymous No.6082242]

>>6082227
Its says 90 day total not yearly total.

[Anonymous No.6082279]

>>6082227
>retarded
You definitely should stay a wagie, for instance

[Anonymous No.6082312]

>>6082195
lol what is this post
Not him, but if you're making 4k for commissions which can generally be taxed as flat income, which in europe is taxed from 25% to 38% tops from my personal experience, rent and bills in a major city in a 1st world country is around 700€ if you're living in a bachelor pad comfortable enough to bring girls in. That's 150€ for elec (includes water heating), 500€ for rent + utilities and 50€ for cooking gas. Plus you pay around 500€ flat yearly for heating unless you're being ripped off. Food for 1 person is 150 per month if you're cooking on your own and know how to budget. (I cook as my first way to impress a girl.)
This means 4000 - 1500 - 700 - 50 - 150 = 1600 at the very priciest reasonable situation (you can go cheaper if you live in countrysides or cheaper countries), that means you're putting enough in the bank to get mortgages, upgrade your rent, eat out and entertain yourself, finance a fancy car, invest, etc. You're not a millionaire, but you're more than comfortable.

Realistically? With online income i have multiple bank accounts across different countries with different international data-sharing regulations, i have some commissions paid to a buddy of mine in a 3rd world country as if he made them in exchange for goods and services he provides to me, i require some work paid as "gift" which is taxed differently etc, so i hit much lower tax brackets and sometimes it looks like i'm living on savings alone and i pay 200€ in tax that year. Plus if you're working on a bigger project you aren't making money for months at a time, and you can delay payment until the next fiscal year. Then there's crypto.
I mean, for fuck's sake, you're supposed to be a "creative", so why not live creatively? If i weren't lazy i'd go live cross-border in a van so i never live more than a couple months in a given country and never pay tax again, just get shit wired to me to turn into gold and silver for a decade...

[Anonymous No.6082319]

>>6082312
mfw Mexico's income tax is as high as the highest euro countries tax kek
Earning the equivalent to $500 a month makes you pay the top bracket tax which is 35%.
we live in a dystopia

[Anonymous No.6082334]

>>6082319
Yeah but you get to eat authentic Mexican food, which is worth it I think! Mmmmm yummy tacos!

[Anonymous No.6082349]

>>6082312
Unrelated to your post, but 4K a montha seems to be everyone’s magic number. I definitely start noticing resistance to breaking through that average. I’ll find I’ll even have months where I make $1k, then a month where I make $7k. And even when I raise prices, I could have every painting on for $4k and only sell one that month.

Breaking out of the $4k a month stratosphere seems like the actual next level after you start making a living. And making it through the art not through secondary investments, which only 1% of people are even any good at. I break even on every investment, and only make a small amount every year on them. Almost all of my income is from art

[Anonymous No.6082366]

>>6079892
>minimum wage
>in a global market
not everyone is american or wants to live in LA

[Anonymous No.6082386]

>>6082208
>>6082312
can't even make one simple joke

[Anonymous No.6082394]

>>6079892
I don't know how you wouldn't. I'm not really learning art to make a living but it seems like there are so many options of things to do. Art is in constant demand for anything visual.

[Anonymous No.6082473]

>>6079892
>Can you actually make a living if you get decent at drawing?
Yes

>in the sfw
No, unless you have connections, nepotism

>nsfw
Yes, easily, the more fucked up, niche the better

[Anonymous No.6082481]

>>6079892
I'm not even good and I'm living off my art. And if all fail you can always go for the corporate art style

[Anonymous No.6082915]

>>6082473
Where do I find people to commission me for nsfw niche artwork? Wich place is most frequently used for shilling?

[Anonymous No.6082926]

>>6082195
It's 4k after taxes and contributions. I have my own house, so no rent. Monthly bills are around 400 EUR.

[Anonymous No.6082933]

>>6082181
I make $4800 a month which is not even 2x the national average wage in America. This country is honestly a trap, they teach you to stay here your whole life and keep fueling the dying economy that only benefits the top 0.01%.

Anywhere else in the world and $58k a year is wealthy, in America it’s enough to keep you off the streets unless you like in a tundra, a swamp, a desert, or the path of every tornado and hurricane that makes landfall.

[Anonymous No.6083905]

make 7k usd a month, am art director. used to be just an average retard here 5 years ago.

[Anonymous No.6084203]

SFW artists can make it, but you have to pander a fuck ton. Draw for the latest trends and do lots of fanart. Investigate communities too. Like that online final fantasy mmo has a big community of people wanting their avatars drawn iirc.

That or hit the jackpot on some OCs that people just love. But that's very hard to balance, especially when it's SFW only, but it IS doable.

When you are a SFW artist, your biggest goal is increasing the amount of eyes on your work and posting consistently. If you can manage to do that, and post as often as you can, you CAN make it. But it WILL take a lot longer than if you went the NSFW route.

[Anonymous No.6084236]

>>6080051
>>6080056
show your work then

[Anonymous No.6084255]

>>6084236

[Anonymous No.6084300]

>>6079892
I'm doing freelance and I live in a post soviet shithole. Made ~700$ a month for a few years, which is peanuts, but even this was more than the median income of ~400$ a month for people here, so I was pretty happy about it.
Recently things started to go uphill, I got better and started doing better freelance, so in the last year I consistently made around 4,5k$ a month, which as you could assume is just amazing money for where I live.
For the US and some of the EU this is probably not that much, since the taxes and rent will eat up a lot. I live in my own place, income taxes are 3% and my bills are around 70$ a month total, so I keep most of the money I make. Some of my friends from US pay 2-2,5k$ for the rent alone, which to me is fucking ridiculous. At times life in the US really does sound like a scam.
So yeah, for freelance art life you better off moving to a cheap place and then just travel as a tourist to see good things. Unless you're really benefiting from your location in some way. But I got all my clients through my portfolio online and they never cared about where I live. Of course, I'm missing out on a lot of types of job which require you to be on-site or have a certain legal status, but it doesn't matter to me all that much, I'm busy enough as is.

Also, even the top tier artist don't make hundreds of thousand just from doing art. You kind of have to exploit your audience and start your own thing to make more, but this goes beyond becoming good at painting.

[Anonymous No.6086022]

>>6079892
Is NSFW a permanent choice? It seems like focusing on NSFW art at all will completely eclipse your SFW art thus only being able to do NSFW forever. Plus you can't go into the industry if you want to because you're basically blacklisted (unless you live in Japan).

[Anonymous No.6086471]

>>6082933
>This country is honestly a trap, they teach you to stay here your whole life and keep fueling the dying economy
Hate to break it to you Anon but this is how it is everywhere. Welcome to life

[Compas Pee Anon No.6086472]

>>6083905
meds now

[Anonymous No.6086623]

>>6080036
I make more than 12k on bennies m8

[Anonymous No.6086732]

>>6079892
step 1: be a digital nomad

[Anonymous No.6086743]

>>6086623
If it's per month, then respect.
if it's per year, then it's laughable.

[Anonymous No.6088242]

Bump

[Anonymous No.6088251]

>>6086743
What use is money if you have to be a wagecuck and don't get to enjoy it?

[Anonymous No.6088298]

>>6082227
> Of course unless you live in a third world shithole like colombia
Or America, basically the same but more expensive

[Anonymous No.6088326]

>>6084203
>But it WILL take a lot longer than if you went the NSFW route
people keep saying this yet complaining they can't get commissions. SFW and NSFW are both equally challenging when it comes to earning income. with NSFW you have more competition than ever because you're up against every pajeet, carlos, and other 3rd worlders trying to cash in on the same thing. at least with SFW you can find work locally with little competition because odds are you're one of the five artists in town, unless you live in a major city.

[Anonymous No.6088385]

>>6080143
Based

This is honestly how all artists should be

[Anonymous No.6088915]

>>6088326
You're competing in a hot market, yes, but you're underestimating coomers. They have such low art standards at times and will commission the same thing from multiple artists. Yeah, the market is saturated with artists nowadays, but "sex sells" is a saying for a reason.

It's not like you can't make just as much as a SFW artist, but you have to put in more leg work to spread your name and advertise yourself. While on the flip side on say, twitter, you'd barely have to lift a finger if you can draw some nice nudes. It practically advertises itself. While most of the time SFW OC art that gets made will typically get far less interaction per post.

[Anonymous No.6089023]

>>6082394
There's a lot of different options, all super competitive & hard to get, you're not drawing what you want, you're drawing their thing, it's mentally draining trying to come up with 100 different ideas for something you don't even like, making shit you're not proud of, it's so far from what I actually like to do when I draw for fun.

[Anonymous No.6091487]

>>6079892
there are so many variables this minimum idea makes no sense
expenses
lifestyle
taxes
currency
country
etc

[Anonymous No.6091489]

I made 15 with my art before.

[Anonymous No.6091517]

>>6086623
how are you getting 1k a month? I've dropped out of UC cause I thought it would get me working harder and I was only getting £400 a month. I was living with family. did you move out, set your expenses to 1000 and have the gubment pay to neet it up? very based

[Anonymous No.6091518]

>>6088251
That's just cope.
You can make money and still enjoy it. You just need to be good at making money.

[Anonymous No.6091652]

>>6088326
My nsfw recieves over 3-10x the attention
Which is both good and bad.

Good because it's easy to make nudes than ruffled dresses
Bad because I don't find it challenging.