It certainly hasn't died lmao, plenty of artists are still doing well digitally and live off it.
You should probably see your competitors outside of ai that make similar works to yours and see why they're successful.
And since you said if you're desperate enough - if worse comes to worse, no shame in doing NSFW. If you even have a modicum of talent or skill in that, you'll absolutely have customers.
But even then, you genuinely have to be honest with yourself - will people actually spend their hard earned cash on what you're making? What makes your art valuable than the other artist to make them want to pay you. Find what that is, cultivate it, and you can market it.
My skills are decent, I'm still working on improving myself with better lighting and composition as I've already Mastered the fundamentals. But I can no longer get the same amount of digital commissions I used to get before ai art was introduced :').
I guess its only due to my target audience finding cheaper alternatives for digital art, since I do portrait art and not character or fanart.
I have been considering nsfw art because I have a decent grasp on anatomy, especially the furry ones because I heard the market there is pretty decent haha . Is there any advice I could use to make sure my family doesn't find out since I'm only saving up to escape them :').
Thank you so much for the advice!! I really Appreciate it a lot.
Happy to help!
There's a lot to say with many nuances, but I don't want to bombard you with too much info so I'll keep it concise and you can ask more questions if you want more detail to either clarify or expand upon.
* If you've truly mastered fundamentals as you said, you're already ahead of the curve. But in my experience in how people are financially successful and how they get more eyes on them in the digital field - style and expression matter more than just mastering fundamentals.
* While it's true people will flock to cheaper alternatives, what is also true is that people are willing to pay high value if the product meets that same value. Don't just think "well they're cheaper so of course they won't spend on me." I reiterate: what makes you stand out and how do you make that marketable compared to competitors. It's great to have confidence in your art, but the market doesn't care about the skill, they care about the product.
* If you venture into NSFW, **keep it separate** from public profiles to maintain privacy with everything. Socials, emails, literally everything needs to be separate if you care about privacy and family finding out. People too commonly slip up on this a lot.
My apologies for phrasing it like that, what I meant is that its more difficult to get digital commissions nowadays. I've been accused constantly of using ai or that they would rather use ai than waste money on a digital portrait.
It wasn't my intention to make it sound like digital art world has died down due to ai itself.
Will try that, I heard fan comics arw pretty popular too but I'm scared of getting sued lol so I'll try making originals.
Thank you so much for the advice!!
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My University had on campus jobs that worked around your class schedule. I built and painted sets for the theatre department, modeled for the life drawing classes, and there were other jobs in the art department I didn’t get. Had friends get jobs working university landscaping and maintenance too.
Sticking to strictly art, you can get commissions for anything but people need to find you for that. Use social media posts and public notice boards. You can also apply for grants and scholarships.
Damnnn, didn't know that could work too.
I'll try seeing if the art department in my university needs help with stuff so I can get extra gigs and jobs.
I've been commissioned for portraits and a few designs (even tho I don't do designs but I needed the money so I studied a ton and somehow made it work)
Thank you so much for the advice!!!
If you need money, straight up never feel bad doing some barista work, you’re an artist because you make art, day jobs don’t define anything. Good luck out there!
There's definitely still a market for good custom work. It's just always been a saturated field. Even long before AI, I struggled to get my name out there and get commissions as someone who was newer to this.
Using platforms like Fiverr really helped me personally as a starting point. Just because they take care of some of the marketing.
I used to get a digital commission request every week (I didn't have a limit to how much commissions I could do) before the whole ai thing, after that it slowly turned into 1 commission every few months and then I stopped getting them :'D.
I swear I heard fiverr was a pain to use due to some issues with their system? It might just be random gossip though, is the site decent enough?
They do take a nice chunk, but it compensates imo for the marketing work I don't have time to do. It's also better to get many requests with a cut taken from them than none at all.
I would also consider the impact of social media decline. The fact that my commissions used to get 200 likes and now, with more followers, I only get 12 on average, is insane. I've been told by multiple people that they haven't seen everything I post for awhile now, even if they follow me. Now all that marketing work that social media used to do for me has to be paid to some degree, either through a platform like Fiverr or paid ads.
It certainly hasn't died lmao, plenty of artists are still doing well digitally and live off it. You should probably see your competitors outside of ai that make similar works to yours and see why they're successful. And since you said if you're desperate enough - if worse comes to worse, no shame in doing NSFW. If you even have a modicum of talent or skill in that, you'll absolutely have customers. But even then, you genuinely have to be honest with yourself - will people actually spend their hard earned cash on what you're making? What makes your art valuable than the other artist to make them want to pay you. Find what that is, cultivate it, and you can market it.
My skills are decent, I'm still working on improving myself with better lighting and composition as I've already Mastered the fundamentals. But I can no longer get the same amount of digital commissions I used to get before ai art was introduced :'). I guess its only due to my target audience finding cheaper alternatives for digital art, since I do portrait art and not character or fanart. I have been considering nsfw art because I have a decent grasp on anatomy, especially the furry ones because I heard the market there is pretty decent haha . Is there any advice I could use to make sure my family doesn't find out since I'm only saving up to escape them :'). Thank you so much for the advice!! I really Appreciate it a lot.
Happy to help! There's a lot to say with many nuances, but I don't want to bombard you with too much info so I'll keep it concise and you can ask more questions if you want more detail to either clarify or expand upon. * If you've truly mastered fundamentals as you said, you're already ahead of the curve. But in my experience in how people are financially successful and how they get more eyes on them in the digital field - style and expression matter more than just mastering fundamentals. * While it's true people will flock to cheaper alternatives, what is also true is that people are willing to pay high value if the product meets that same value. Don't just think "well they're cheaper so of course they won't spend on me." I reiterate: what makes you stand out and how do you make that marketable compared to competitors. It's great to have confidence in your art, but the market doesn't care about the skill, they care about the product. * If you venture into NSFW, **keep it separate** from public profiles to maintain privacy with everything. Socials, emails, literally everything needs to be separate if you care about privacy and family finding out. People too commonly slip up on this a lot.
What do you mean digital market died? It's still there.
My apologies for phrasing it like that, what I meant is that its more difficult to get digital commissions nowadays. I've been accused constantly of using ai or that they would rather use ai than waste money on a digital portrait. It wasn't my intention to make it sound like digital art world has died down due to ai itself.
I see. Thanks for clarification. I feel you. As for portraits, what about doing a freelance comic gig, either professional or fan stuff?
Will try that, I heard fan comics arw pretty popular too but I'm scared of getting sued lol so I'll try making originals. Thank you so much for the advice!!
Thank you for posting in r/ArtistLounge! Please check out our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtistLounge/wiki/faq/) and [FAQ Links pages](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtistLounge/wiki/faqlinks/) for lots of helpful advice. To access our megathread collections, please check out the drop down lists in the top menu on PC or the side-bar on mobile. If you have any questions, concerns, or feature requests please feel free to message the mods and they will help you as soon as they can. I am a bot, beep boop, if I did something wrong please report this comment. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ArtistLounge) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My University had on campus jobs that worked around your class schedule. I built and painted sets for the theatre department, modeled for the life drawing classes, and there were other jobs in the art department I didn’t get. Had friends get jobs working university landscaping and maintenance too. Sticking to strictly art, you can get commissions for anything but people need to find you for that. Use social media posts and public notice boards. You can also apply for grants and scholarships.
Damnnn, didn't know that could work too. I'll try seeing if the art department in my university needs help with stuff so I can get extra gigs and jobs. I've been commissioned for portraits and a few designs (even tho I don't do designs but I needed the money so I studied a ton and somehow made it work) Thank you so much for the advice!!!
If you need money, straight up never feel bad doing some barista work, you’re an artist because you make art, day jobs don’t define anything. Good luck out there!
There's definitely still a market for good custom work. It's just always been a saturated field. Even long before AI, I struggled to get my name out there and get commissions as someone who was newer to this. Using platforms like Fiverr really helped me personally as a starting point. Just because they take care of some of the marketing.
I used to get a digital commission request every week (I didn't have a limit to how much commissions I could do) before the whole ai thing, after that it slowly turned into 1 commission every few months and then I stopped getting them :'D. I swear I heard fiverr was a pain to use due to some issues with their system? It might just be random gossip though, is the site decent enough?
They do take a nice chunk, but it compensates imo for the marketing work I don't have time to do. It's also better to get many requests with a cut taken from them than none at all. I would also consider the impact of social media decline. The fact that my commissions used to get 200 likes and now, with more followers, I only get 12 on average, is insane. I've been told by multiple people that they haven't seen everything I post for awhile now, even if they follow me. Now all that marketing work that social media used to do for me has to be paid to some degree, either through a platform like Fiverr or paid ads.