#work as an artist

[oggysonart]

PSA real quick: Don’t buy art advice

I’m not talking about art tutorials or like supporting a tier on someone’s patreon to get feedback or stuff like that, that’s a different thing. This is also not about going to art school.

What I am talking about is stuff like online courses and books that people sell on topics like secrets to growing your art instagram, making loads of passive money off your work, stuff like that. It’s fake.

I’ve seen a disturbing amount of them appear which is why I’m making this PSA. There is no secret to growing your art instagram or making passive money off your art or kickstarting your freelance carreer. If the tips are legit, it’s out there for free if you look for it. We are already talking about it because we’re already doing it. People making these courses and selling these books are only sharing stuff you can already google yourself. These people are rarely making their livings as artists themselves, instead they’re just doing the art world version of get rich quick schemes, they’re praying on your passions and selling you advice that is either already publicly available, unhelpful or even just false.

I’ll give you some advice for free, kay?

Improving your art:

First and foremost working on improving your art should always be priority and you can find tutorials on any subject matter for free pretty much anywhere if you just google stuff like “how to draw a cloud”. Your art is what people will want to buy/see so keep improving it and keep making it if your goals is to build a carreer or an audience, there is no way around it.

Growing your audience

Straight up just engage with whichever app/site you’re using. Post good art yourself, but be a cheerleader for others first and foremost. Post consistently, not constantly, use appropriate tags, talk about your work in your descriptions and engage with people who engage with you. That stuff is in your control, the rest is honestly just luck. For some people it takes a long time, for others it’s a faster progress, there is no secret here, no one knows how to please the algorithm, we’re all just throwing crumbs out and hoping it gets eaten. Bots and promo bots will do more harm than good and spamming other people’s accounts asking them to check you out or tagging someone in your art that’s completely unrelated to them is just annoying. Just chill and post your art and have fun. Remember that social media should ‘t be a popularity contest, it should be social.

Making money

There are so many ways! I don’t even know half the ways and it depends what you want to achieve really. You can make money selling commissions, you can try to get a job at some sort of company, at which there are many who’d want to employ artists, games, films, animation, marketing, marketing departments in companies that otherwise do completely unrelated stuff, I’ve heard of an artist working fulltime at a science lab. There is room for you, you just need to find your industry. You can also license your work which is where the passive income comes in and there are a bunch of ways to do this too google it. You can be an illustrator for books or magazines, you can be a cartoonist for a paper, you can do logos or t-shirt designs and you can work freelance as pretty much whatever you want. It’s not going to be easy finding these jobs and most people do several jobs at once. It takes time to build up clientell and find your opportunities but a good place to start is straight up just googling “how to license my art” or “how to become a concept artist” or just straight up “how to make money as an artist.” It’s all out here.

I don’t have all the answers at hand and I’m too busy looking for all the resources for you. I bet other people will happily provide links and stuff, so feel free to share resources! My point id just this:

Everything is out there for free, google it.

[sylvies-kablooie]

i do unironically think the best artists of our generation are posting to get 20 notes and 3 reblogs btw. that fanfic with like 45 kudos is some of the best stuff ever written. those OCs you carry around have some of the richest backstories and worldbuilding someone has ever seen. please do not think that reaching only a few people when you post means your art isn't worth celebrating.

[whaledocboi]

ai generated images make me increasingly sad and tired the more i see them in more and more casual contexts. i dont know how to explain, but it just fills the world with a bunch of nothing. no matter how visually stunning the pictures might be, there's nothing behind it for me. no dedication, no emotions, no feelings, no hard work or creativity, nothing i can truly think about, admire or enjoy. i dont think thats how art is supposed to be

[0sbrain]

alternatives for ai to design ocs

hero forge

picrew

the fucking sims 4

your local furry artist

bitmoji

shitty photoshoped collage

DeviantArt bases

zepeto

making edits of your favorite character

searching "dress up game" on the app store

learning how to draw

[daylane]

Free resource for artists and designers!!

I made a website where artists and designers can get color palette inspo from fire hydrants I've 3D scanned all over the US

Some of my favorites:

There are about 100 hydrants so far and I'm continuing to add more all the time

Public infrastructure is sexy, baby!!!!!! Pass it on!!

dayroselane.com/hydrants

[dovesick]

endless night

[ionomycin]

Grief

ref photo by @jawsstone

[bloodybellycomb]

One massive, legitimate way to improve as a writer or artist or in any creative endeavor really, is to become absolutely obsessed with something and to allow yourself to be weird about it. Genuinely mean this btw.

[cozylittleartblog]

cant tell you how bad it feels to constantly tell other artists to come to tumblr, because its the last good website that isn't fucked up by spoonfeeding algorithms and AI bullshit and isn't based around meaningless likes

just to watch that all fall apart in the last year or so and especially the last two weeks

there's nowhere good to go anymore for artists.

edit - a lot of people are saying the tags are important so actually, you'll look at my tags.

#please dont delete your accounts because of the AI crap. your art deserves more than being lost like that #if you have a good PC please glaze or nightshade it. if you dont or it doesnt work with your style (like mine) please start watermarking #use a plain-ish font. make it your username. if people can't google what your watermark says and find ur account its not a good watermark #it needs to be central in the image - NOT on the canvas edges - and put it in multiple places if you are compelled #please dont stop posting your art because of this shit. we just have to hope regulations will come slamming down on these shitheads#in the next year or two and you want to have accounts to come back to. the world Needs real art #if we all leave that just makes more room for these scam artists to fill in with their soulless recycled garbage #improvise adapt overcome. it sucks but it is what it is for the moment. safeguard yourself as best you can without making #years of art from thousands of artists lost media. the digital world and art is too temporary to hastily click a Delete button out of spite

[8pxl]

PSA: Tumblr/Wordpress is preparing to start selling our user data to Midjourney and OpenAI.

you have to MANUALLY opt out of it as well.

to opt out on desktop, click your blog ➡️ blog settings ➡️ scroll til you see visibility options and it’ll be the last option to toggle.

to opt out on mobile, click your blog ➡️ scroll then click visibility ➡️ toggle opt out option.

if you’ve already opted out of showing up in google searches, it’s preselected for you. if you don’t have the option available, update your app or close your browser/refresh a few times. important to note you also have to opt out for each blog you own separately, so if you’d like to prevent AI scraping your blog i’d really recommend taking the time to opt out. (source)

[badolmen]

People against piracy fail to realize that no, I can’t just ‘buy it.’ They stopped making DVDs and Blu-Rays. They’re barely offering digital copies for download. I am not spending money I could use for food or bills to pay for a subscription service just so I can always have access to a beloved piece of media. Especially not when the service will remove media on a whim without concern for how the loss of access to that piece will make its artistic conservation nigh impossible.

For example, I recently learned that Disney+ had an original film called Crater. It’s scifi, family friendly, and seems cool - I would love to buy it as a holiday gift for my little brother! But: it’s exclusive to D+ and THEY REMOVED IT LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER ITS RELEASE.

The ONLY way I can directly access this film is through piracy. The ONLY available ‘copies’ of this film are hosted on piracy websites. Disney will NEVER release it in theaters, or as something to buy, and it may NEVER return to the streaming service. It will be LOST because we aren’t allowed to purchase it for personal viewing. If I can’t pay to own it, I won’t pay for the privilege of losing it when corporate decides to put it in a vault.

So yes, I’m going to pirate and support piracy.

[tapiocats]

Decay exists as an extant form of life

[housegoblin]

Baldur’s Gate 3: But Make it Cats🐱

[gorjee-art]

gotta teach the youth of the hardships in life

[mwagneto]

i genuinely dont care if the creation of all media comes to a screeching halt btw i will very gladly live with no new movies no new tv shows no new anything for years if that's what it takes for the people who create them to be treated like human beings. i hope every other facet of the entertainment industry goes on strike too and i hope all the ones that havent unionised yet will. i want media creation to become completely impossible and i want the people who could make it possible again to hold out until they get every single thing they want. btw

[canisalbus]

✦ Freshly ordained ✦