As an artist, should you aim to make comics or animation nowadays? It is better to go independent or work for a company?
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As an artist, should you aim to make comics or animation nowadays? It is better to go independent or work for a company?
I wanna rape reagan
She's not for rape. Her dad raped her enough.
what about the robot bear?
Never enough
Make either and post them on Cinemaphile.
From an art school graduate with a BFA in Animation simply don't bother trying to get a career doing animation or comics. Its better to make good money and support yourself and your art with an actual career than be working project to project for a bunch of wackos who don't care about you or your art and will avoid paying you a living wage at any cost.
well what do you do instead?
I switched to finance as a client services associate. Finance, tech, marketing, or communications are probably your best options. You really have to take a hard look at what kind of businesses are around you though to know what's a feasable option. I would like to get into tech but I live in an undersized midwestern city in the US so I have to stick it out where I am for now.
>dont live your dream
I wanna kill myself
You can still do art as a hobby dummy, this guy is literally telling you it's better that way anyhow. Plus, you can still get big in indie success if you grind wich should be no problem if your passionate enough.
I see.
>You can still do art as a hobby dummy,
As a hobby you'll never be able to produce stuff to the same amount of material as you'd be able to even struggling. Everyone who says they do art as a hobby on the side of their six figure IT career is at best making a handful of art a month.
Artists want to create, no matter what, and other factors are often just a barrier to that.
I’m the OP that got the BFA and this is such a broad generalization and it’s hard to really know this for certain. Obviously if you have a demanding job it’s going to take you a lot longer to finish, say, a 50 page comic book or 10 minute animation, but there are other creative endeavors that don’t take nearly as long. I draw in my sketchbook every day after work, and about 5% of that makes it onto the internet. I also do embroidery which takes longer but I still have time to work on it when I feel like it. So to an outside observer that might look like not much is being made but you have time to do plenty of stuff. There’s like 5-6 hours between 5pm and 12am, you can get a lot done if you’re dedicated.
what school did you go to?
This
In the same boat. Studied computer animation. Now work in IT because "I know Computers" and it's a far safer, easier, and lucrative career. Plus I can work on animated stuff on the side for myself without executive oversite.
I was thinking of doing the exact same thing if it wasn't for the comptia a+ exam. I'm working on learning web development instead.
Patreon for Furry porn
What ever you do make sure you own the rights to the thing you created
I’m not an artist, but I’d suggest indie comics. You can build an audience without spending too much money and time like animation.
Aim to change your career because AI is already doing your job better than you.
More like the people who will sell ai to studio execs promising it will do the job better are going to make a killing
But I don't do realism nor am I a pedophile
>But I don't do realism nor am I a pedophile
What?
no need to project your own failure
pajeet plz
If there's one thing techbros are very reliable at, its fricking up their own inventions. Im not worried.
AI it's more of a thing for over-rendrred pin up illustrations. For secuential art its not consistent at all.
Plus the lawsuuts, if it can get away with fair use then yes, were in trouble.
There's an AI that does animation already.
It's insane that people are doing ye old "a carriage with no horses? That'll never catch on!"
This is the early stages of a technology in a world where technology develops exponentially. And the technology in question itself creates exponential growth on top of that.
>This is the early stages of a technology in a world where technology develops exponentially.
I personally don’t see how it would be possible without AI that can on its own parse a comic into a learnning dataset and then train itself on it.
>There's an AI that does animation already.
Badly. People are sceptical because guys like you are claiming the AI can already create comics and cartoons better than people when it demonstrably can't. Maybe it will and maybe it'll be soon, but it hurts your point to be disingenuous about it and then deflect to "BUH IT'S NEW TECH ITLL GET THERE".
More than anything it makes people question what the hell comics and cartoons you watch if you think shit like this is worth money.
I didn't say it does it well now, I'm just saying that it's showing capability. Cars were shitty death traps when they first came out, now they are getting close to driving themselves effectively. People are talking about this stuff like it's no big deal because it's not perfect right now, but it doesn't matter if it's not perfect right now. It matters how quickly it will be improved, and how much it needs to grow before it makes an impact. I'm saying that time frame is too small to not be concerned about that right now. I'm saying include it in your 5 year plans, because it would be irresponsible not to. Because all the businessgays are ahead of you, and are willing to destroy your industry for a quick buck.
>aI that has done animation already
Show it? I keep hearing about things like this but nobody shows any proof.
Am I having a stroke?
none of this is good enough for a movie, at best it's a passable adult swim skit
>This CGI crap will never catch on!
You had to choose the worst example?
You couldn't even use the T2 CGI which came out ten years before Scorpion king and still holds up?
There's all sorts of them.
Videos that mimic real people speaking.
Image stills to animation.
Animation from nothing.
Once again it isn't perfect, but no product is the day it comes out.
>Who cares about AI art.
Capitalists.
Who do you think the law works for?
Everyone cried about the whole copyright thing for social media. Yet here we are.
people clap their hands for AI because they're antagonistic dickheads who use it as a way to berate contemporary artists. AI tools suck right now, but they'll eventually get better. When they do, these same idiots who think that it will fix everything will complain that the new stuff lacks S O U L.
Computers can replicate things they've seen, combine influences, and even toss in a bit of randomness to spice things up (which is very similar to how human brains work) but there's an element of association that will be lacking. Patrick McHale made Over the Garden Wall from a pastiche of things that he had experienced over his lifetime up to that point which he filed away in a similar emotional place in his head. The blend of visuals/music/story/dialogue etc were not obvious associations to anyone but him, but once it was made it seemed like they were always meant to go together.
AI will eventually be able to create unique things that we've never seen before, but the unique fingerprint of emotional associations that human artists have and ultimately put into their work won't be able to be replicated with algorithms. If anything, AI will take over the boring formulaic shit like Brickleberry, Paradise PD, Marvel movies, etc, which will hopefully create a market for more interesting human made animation.
>use it as a way to berate contemporary artists
No one cares about artists besides artists.
The people discussing it outside of artists are consumers, and people who make money off of consumers.
If the AI fails to make content that produces money, it'll be changed to produce content that produces money, even if that means using money to pay artists to create content to train it.
It will also enable actual idea guys to bring their visions to life without going bankrupt trying to hire artists for a chance shot, and similarly with artists who don't want to spend all they've got on a project with no guarantee for success.
It's a tool, not an all powerful being that will alleviate mankind from the burden of thought.
Stop being obtuse.
something tells me you're enthusiastic about NFTs
NFTs are an ephemeral dogshit financial instruments that coked up middle men use to get their next hit before the market inevitably crashes when people stop believing in their madeup fairytales about their value.
So no.
I just have to sit next to these crackheads and listen to their Scooby Doo schemes to ruin society for everyone, so the least I can do is tell the naive Joe Somebodies with their heads in the clouds thinking that the manmade world is any less chaotic than the natural world: include changes in technology in your 5 year plan, or risk being swept up in an ever increasing tide of technological change designed to improve a corporation's bottom line and nothing else. The unfeeling, unthinking machine is pushing forward, and doesn't care about what flesh it rips through along the way.
People like you are essentially saying "Don't worry, Milkman Joe. People will always need milk! How else are they gonna get it unless it gets delivered fresh to their door?"
>carriages without horses
That isn’t a similar at all.
It’s all stolen assets and a legal liability. The AI has been stealing thousands of images for some time now. It’s not a tech acceptance problem, but a legal issue and squashing artists. Who cares about AI art.
They don't even know how to draw hands. good luck making action shows where fists are flying all around.
>They don't even know how to draw hands
Yet. Give it a year or two.
Comics and animated film have become archaic media in a relatively short timespan, I would say that there aren't many opportunities for people who want to create them to the best of their abilities. There are still commercial illustration jobs but those are absolutely going to be taken over by machine generation. Drawing/animating is just not a good skillset in present day, but honestly very few things are. We're heading towards the collapse of the wage labor / consumer system where potentially billions will be shit out of luck because they are no longer necessary to power the financial industry.
>Get job in IT
>Literally spend most of the day on Cinemaphile or twitter
>Bust out the tablet when everyone is out
>Get great benefits, 401k, paid sick and most holidays, paid vacation
>Have to deal with a few shitty people, but 97% of them are cool
>Mingle with the marketing team and see how they work
>Don't have to worry about sudden cancellation or finding a job ever 6 months or every year
>Don't have to deal with the insane woke crowed that monitor your socials to get you fired
Unless you have actual connections, not grunt work friends but produces and show runners, you're expendable. If you really want to keep drawing then porn is more stable. The most stables jobs in the animation industry are the office workers.
>The most stables jobs in the animation industry are the office workers.
Can confirm
These people flex on LinkedIn like they are important but really no one cares about their office decor and emails. They can't even draw and act helpless when products are disorganized.
independent, independent, independent, independent.
I don't know how many more spectacular failures it's going to take before creators with good, original ideas realize it's going to be better in the long run and do it yourself, even if you know what you make will only be 30-40% of your true potential, because Disney, or Adult Swim, or Netflix, or Hulu, or whoever WILL frick you. It's not a matter of how to avoid it, or what you can do to make it out safe, they WILL frick you, they WILL take all the money, they WILL keep the rights to your original creation, and they'll even make more of it without you, if they want. They'll make a Gravity Falls comic series without Alex Hirsch, they'll do whatever they want. They'll wine you and dine you and sell you on their professional teams of artists and musicians, their links to animation departments overseas, they'll introduce you to voice actors, whatever it takes to get you to sign the contract, and then they will put you into a big squeeze press and crush you to death and collect your liquid soul in a big bucket and then shit in it. You won't even get out of it with a big fat paycheck, because at least then you could take the paycheck and frick off and make your own other new stuff. They'll pay you as little as they can get away with, and chip away at your ideas until they're nothing but a skeleton, and then blame you when it isn't profitable enough.
...
IT IS NOT WORTH IT, IT NEVER WAS
OP, as an artist I spend my nights wondering if I should even make it to the next day.
But yeah, work for a company if you want some semblance of security.
You could start out by making an indie project (be it a webcomic or an animation or something), and then use that to beef up your resume and apply to some bigger companies. There are a lot of internet people who have made it in the industry lately, you could be one of them
Whatever sells/gets views.
No industry is about providing a product, it's about making money.
Most ideas nowadays don't sell though
who?
I wanna do some animations on youtube but i'm trying to figure out what the hell the new policy on violent content is.
Like, what kind of gore can I get away with in 2d animations without getting age restricted and/or demonetized.
Do what something like danganronpa did and color the blood a neon color to mask it
Honestly im not sure if that even works anymore.
for you, i think is better to get on your knees and start sucking my wiener
Frick making money. If you're going to make art, do it because you're passionate. As soon as money enters the picture, it's all over.
>As an artist
I'm in my upper 30's. I'm only starting to make headway in a creative career now after a lifetime of grinding away at it.
I'm sure people will shit on everything I'm about to say, but I spent my entire life so far doing shit the hard way. Here's advice I wish I would have gotten.
Almost everyone here who is vehemently anti-art school either didn't go, or went to some small school nobody ever heard of with potentially questionable curriculum. You absolutely don't need to go art school to work in animation or comics, but unless you're *incredibly* focused, driven, and organized, it will be difficult to teach yourself all the things you can get from a well-respected school. You can read a book, but being forced to do tests and final projects and living/eating/breathing the material for several years with other people who are doing the same thing is hard to replicate. Being in that environment really lights a fire under your ass and pushes you to work harder.
Keep your art and work separate. They won't teach you to be an artist at school and you'll be really frustrated if that's what you concentrate on if/when you go there. They CAN teach you technical skills which you can use in your art. These skills relate directly to jobs that pop up. You'll never see a job for "person with good ideas" but gigs for background painters, puppet riggers, storyboard artists, rough animators, colorists, cleanup, etc will pop up. Learn everything, but try to figure out what you're especially good at and really concentrate on that.
(1/?)
Assuming you do school, go somewhere with good clout. I was always told that going to smaller schools is better because you get more personal attention etc. I did go to a smaller school and got private lessons with every visiting artist/lecturer, got every opportunity, but while that's great for education, it does absolute shit for you after you get out. After you graduate, being able to say that you went to Ringling or SCAD or CalArts will give you a built-in network with other alumni who are likely working in the field. Like it or not, this network is essential to finding gigs. Again, this isn't necessary for getting jobs but it sure as shit makes things a lot easier. Creative fields are super saturated so every edge helps.
Take advantage of all opportunities while you're young. There are tons of internships/competitions/grants/workshops/incubators/boot camps/whatever for young people (especially if you're in college). You can also contact important people in the field and ask to tour facilities or spend a day observing. A lot of people are pretty keen to foster young talent. These opportunities last until you're about mid 20's and then steeply decline every year after. Almost none of them pay, but this shit is SUPER important for building up a resume/bio as well as making more network connections.
I was told to never do anything for free which is horrible fricking advice. When you're young you don't have anything in your portfolio. The best way to prove to employers that you can do the work is by already having done it. Student projects often suck and they almost never pay, but it's a great way to hone your skills and get experience in a real pipeline in a low pressure environment. Better to make mistakes when someone has to accept whatever they can get than to wait until you're doing a test for a show on nickelodeon.
(2/?)
Thank you, brother.
Realize there's a difference between a hobby and career and that having a hobby that you're SUPER serious about is fine. No matter what you do for a living, at some point it will just be a job. The whole "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" is some mega-boomer bullshit that people use to hold you hostage with your passions. There will always be days you wake up and feel like you just don't want to go to work. A career should be something you can tolerate doing every day relatively well, not something that you live eat and breathe. There are easier ways to make money so if you can be happy having a day job and working on your own indie stuff on evenings and weekends, that's super legit. For a lot of people, once they draw or act or make music for a living, it's no longer something they do for fun. Sometimes that's the reason why indie shit turns out better - because it doesn't 100% need to pay the bills so the end result is what you want, not what will necessarily sell. Decide what you prefer and act accordingly.
Finally, put yourself somewhere where the action is and make sure to get out regularly and interact with the community. Remote work makes it possible to do almost any job from the middle of fricking nowhere, but again, networks are SUPER important. Most job openings are never listed because they're filled with personal recommendations first. If you want a heads up about these opportunities, you need to live in the area these gigs are actually happening, and you need to be friends with the people who hear about these things. Like it or not, this usually means living in a big city and even if you're introverted, you need to go out to screenings/signings/conventions/conferences/and other industry related social events. Research related guilds and organizations and join those. Be active in the community.
(3/?)
This is absolutely true. I make comics for a living. It is literally my dream job, I wouldn't want to do anything else. But brother, I have worked some days. There's some days I get up and think "oh GOD I have to do another page today". But I do it anyway, because it's my job and I have to treat it like a job.
Final thoughts and then I'll frick off.
One of the major pros of working in creative industries professionally is getting schooled in the practical side of producing and shipping art. People who do things on their own or hobbyists tend to struggle with putting things out because they're inefficient and also precious about their "art". When you work professionally you learn how to cut the fat out REALLY quickly because you need to work very fast. Every drawing stops needing to be some work of artistic genius. Sometimes lightening strikes, but waiting for inspiration is for hobbyists. Pros know that while sometimes ideas are good right off the bat, it's more common that you need to use your skills to take meh ideas and actually make them into something reasonably good. You'll also learn how to organize and compartmentalize the production process. A lot of indie artists do everything all at once, but once you can break things down into chunks and just concentrate on knocking out tasks on a list you'll find it much easier to make more shit.
Keep in mind that if you're young your art will feel like the most important thing in the world, but that feeling tends to wane as you get older. You'll still care about your creative work, but living in squalor and never being able to take a vacation becomes far less romantic with age. In my case, it actually made it easier to monetize my skillset because creative work became more like problem solving than a need to extend my "voice", but for some people they realize it was just a hobby all along.
Finally, the haters on /co are creative poison. If you spend too much time here, all you'll hear in your head are shit posts about how much of a hack you are whenever you try to make anything since that's all anyone ever talks about. The critiques you put out will be very similar to the ones you internalize, so be critical of your fellow artists but ultimately also be supportive and know when to go offline.
Someone said, "If you do what you love, you'll probably have a fricked up work-life balance."
I have to agree with your point about bigger schools. I went to a smaller school in a town with no industry and limited connections via alumni and faculty and suffered greatly as a result. Anybody who did break in wanted nothing to do with the school after the fact so we were kind of left in the dust.
The only thing I’d say is that student loans are a b***h to deal with and they’re especially so from a c**ty private school. Having to make monthly payments throughout your 20s that could otherwise go towards retirement or saving up for a down payment on a home is such a miserable existence I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Especially when you’re probably making a meager retail salary as you try and grind for an in to the industry.
This is all my personal opinion obviously and doesn’t apply to everybody reading this but relative financial stability has made life more satisfying and worth living for me than any amount of success as an artist ever could.
All the internships I apply to I never get. There are no grants, competitions, workshops in AZ. And I go to a crappy local school. I’ve been keenly looking at professional portfolios so I know what to put in. Honestly with no network I absolutely feel screwed.
I feel you. Either you give up or you keep trying. In the case of the latter, this is what I suggest:
>All the internships I apply to I never get.
Keep applying. Also reach out to artists you respect and see if they would let you tour their studio, spend a day observing, or if they'd be open to some sort of work study type thing.
>There are no grants, competitions, workshops in AZ
AZ is tough. It's not really known as an art hub unless you're into leather or turquoise. If you want a career, you'll probably need to eventually move. In the meantime, visiting places and setting up meetings can be just as effective. I don't live in LA, but when I go to visit I try to pack my days with coffee dates and meetings. In some ways you can put in more face time that way since people who live there don't meet up with colleagues nearly as much as you would if you were visiting.
There are a lot of grants and competitions that are not geographically restricted. The ones you have a better chance of getting/winning are likely not super well advertised which means less competition, but you'll have to dig. It really sucks, but chasing down leads is 90% of creative work.
>no network
fix that. It fricking sucks but do what you can. Read "How to win friends and influence people". Be active on social media. Don't just reach out, but interact with people regularly. Try to meet in person as much as possible and follow up afterwards.
>And I go to a crappy local school. I’ve been keenly looking at professional portfolios so I know what to put in.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, but it's entirely possible your art needs work. It's really difficult to get brutally honest feedback and even more difficult to get it from someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Most people will tell you what you want to hear. Try to take part in portfolio reviews. Pay for private lessons with someone who actually does this and request blunt feedback.
The COVID era is your friend! A lot of workshops have gone virtual now so as long as you have zoom and a decent internet connection you can sign up. Get involved with organizations like ASIFA (and WIA if you're a woman) and dig into their resources.
>Almost everyone here who is vehemently anti-art school either didn't go, or went to some small school nobody ever heard of with potentially questionable curriculum. You absolutely don't need to go art school to work in animation or comics, but unless you're *incredibly* focused, driven, and organized, it will be difficult to teach yourself all the things you can get from a well-respected school.
Lol this so much. Most of the people who hate on "art school" are thinking of their local college art program or some P2Win college. Or they think they'll actuallybe able to study on their own and end up jerking off to porn instead.
If you're looking for money right away, then go into 3D animation and modeling for video games. If you don't particularly care about the money, then do whatever the hell you want. If you're passionate and decently competent you can find an audience and eventually the money will come after a few years of grinding.
You're still asking this after the decades of people talking about how those industries overwork, underpay, and abuse their employees while pairing them up with crazy coworkers and shitty projects?
Neither. Have you seen the state of the industries?
If your are asking that kind of question you are not cut for the task
I know a few animators, and they all have one thing in common: rather then asking questions, they were aways producing some thing, animated or not, since they were teenagers
You don't even have to be talented to be an animator. My brother just practiced enough until he could follow guidelines and emulate styles. He aways gets praise for doing his job fast, and most producers prefer to hire someone who can work within the deadline than someone who is a talented genius but is aways late.
storyboard artists don't even really have to be able to draw. You just have to have a keen eye for framing and a good instinct for visual storytelling.
It's always funny when anons criticize how shitty a storyboard drawing looks. Dude, it can literally be stick figures. Making characters on model for a storyboard is largely a waste of time.
Storyboarders need to be talented actually. It doens't matter if the board itself looks bad, they aways have experience in animation and know how transitions between scenes work, becouse they worked with that in the past.
I know one guy who makes youtube animations and got offered a storyboard work after he made a video where the camera was zooming into earth, then a continent, a country, a city, then a person. Pretty cliche, but not everyone knows how to do it the way he did.
Agreed. But it's more about the framing, transitions, and layout than the actual drawings. Not saying that storyboarders aren't talented.
Are they?
yes. It's like anything else - when it's done really well it looks easy and people get the impression that anyone can do it.
Try your hand at making a storyboard from nothing but a script, though, and it becomes clear how many decisions are being made. In the case of board driven shows, even the script is just a rough outline of plot devices.
It seems so obvious when you see the finished product, but there's nothing more terrifying than the infinite abyss of free creativity.
The life of an artist is often tragic.
Get a real job, but make stuff that is your passion and try putting it online. A free portfolio to start and generate interest, and move to a patreon model if you feel you have enough support.
If you can consistently get enough supporters, you can transition to making it your fulltime job as an independent living off of subscribers. But you want a stable financial situation first, because there is no certainty that will work.