Is there too many aspiring/professional artists?

When did you stop enjoying pictures for what they are and not as a benchmark of someone's technical adequacy?

>>3011257
Yes.

>>3011257
That's like saying there's too many people who aspire to be rich and that they should stay broke.

>>3011257
The supply is bigger than the demand for every single profession, including criminal activities.

There's almost nine billion people in the world.

>>3011597
Are you from future? Because right now we aren't even past 8 billion people.

>>3011257
That is the story of human endeavor.

Hell, the history of the universe.

I feel like the amount of people who aren't prepared to git gud cancels out the supply problem to some extent.

>>3011257
Not really. At least as far as total professionals go. Good at what they do, personable, punctual - every studio wants more of those guys.

It might seem crowded, but that's just because the barrier to entry is so low that the aspiring/amateur crowd is like a billion at any given moment.

>>3011257
The amount of work for artists is getting smaller, as digital/cheap photography has taken over a lot of fields that artists would have traditionally filled, illustration being the number one field.

But, even back then, only a small percentage of graduates from art schools would go on to work as an artist. Same is true today.

Like music, the overwhelming number of guitarists and drummers are flooding the field, but few will actually start or join bands, fewer will work as musicians.

The vast majority of artists will be hobbyists - and there's nothing wrong with that, it's an excellent hobby to have. Working? Very few will reach that height. Most won't even try. For too many, art school is simply away to keep adult life further away, for 4 more years.

>>3011630
there is .1 trillion people alive right now.

>>3011848
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Yea, seems legit.

>>3011785
Yes, but this professionalism sets a strict criteria of how they should draw, that is the easily pipelined churned out pumped out (disgusting words to say) stuff you see on artstation. But the time of unuque and peculiar creators, such as Rackham, Parrish, Wyeth, Tolkien, Le Guin, the one who wrote The Worm Ouroboros-not just from the illustrative field - is long gone. Imagination is trivialized, homogenized, capitalized on. Is it because of low demand so everyone who wants to supply to that demand needs to conform? Rhetorical question, I know.

>>3011924
Also Howe, Whelan, Ono, many illustrators of early 20th century.
Is there an example of such oldfashioned illustrators who stay afloat this day?

>>3011257
There is almost no demand for "aspiring artists" and there are the supply of "professional artists" (in terms of skill) is not that big, so no. It's easy to find work if you're good.

>>3012138
Seconding this.

File: top tier lessons.png (574KB, 774x576px) Image search: [Google]

574KB, 774x576px

>>3011257
i know what you mean, too many non pros making tutorials which just brings the bar down.
<---

>>3011257
The market is really small in terms of diversity. a lot of copycats and such.

>>3011843
That last part tho. Damn

>>3012157
lmao wtf is up with her arm

>>3012138
What skill exactly? Pictures are very diverse outside of artstation. And some which are very skilled won't get any demand because their oeuvre doesn't match the current conjuncture.
>>3011929

>>3012242
If you limit yourself to a narrow style and tool set, you're not as good as you could be.

No, the industry is growing as well. You gotta realize that artists aren't working on a dozen projects at once and good artists are booked out throughout the year, which leaves tons of opportunities and work for everyone else.

>>3012269
Artist is admirable and interesting for his own take on a thing, not for adapting like a chameleon to whatever's trending. See Rackham and Vrubel - very distinctive artists, they're best on their own.

>>3012269
Style is not quite a correct word to use. It would be much more precise to call this a manner, habit of drawing, how each artist tackles a subject, even if just in the way of placing strokes and drawing lines.

>>3011257
Supply of art has always been greater than demand, and it always will be. The thing that changes when there is an abundance of artists is standards. Only the top percentile will make serious money, and it will always be so no matter how people are doing it.

There are more people making a living from art than ever before, but percentage-wise most of you will starve, as it has always been.

>>3011257
Art is never going to be a reliable source of income. If that was your motivation, abandon it immediatly. The only good reason to be an artist is that it's what you want to do.

>>3011843
Animation has lots of work if you get your foot in the door

>>3012340
isnt it mostly outsourced to korea these days?

>>3012338
Except there are hundreds of thousands of professional artists working in-house in studios around the world, just like any other full time employees, you dumb shit.

>>3012311
The percentage is very skewed though because art looks like such an accessible field to amateurs. Imagine if you could become a professional, fully licenced lawyer or doctor just by reading tutorials on the internet and never going to medical school or law school. There would be an endless swarm of extremely unqualified wannabees shitting up the market, but the demand for real lawyers and doctors wouldn't go down at all.

By that allegory I don't mean artists have to go to art school to be real artists, but that there is a huge difference between an actually competent, trained artist and someone like you.

>>3012351
"Hundreds of thousands" is not a lot. Art is a saturated, narrow field with scarce opportunities, and a significant number of working artists do not enjoy traditional forms of long-term employment. Hoping to be one of those people is not a good source of motivation and it is an unrealistic goal with low chance of success. You will burn out fast like that. For those kind of jobs your actual ability or creativity aren't even that important compared to networking and being able to churn out mediocre* content dictated by the client within given deadlines.

I feel like /ic/ is burdened by tunnel vision in regards to career opportunities and ignores many good reasons and ways to practice and apply art and it's led to this board having a desperate air to it that discourages people from pursuing their interests.

*mediocre by industry standards, not /ic/'s of course

>>3012366
that's because /ic/ retards don't understand it's less about technical skill and more about knowing how to actually make something that's appealing.

Everyone dumping hours into that shit a day is seriously wasting their time.

>>3012366
>tunnel vision in regards to career opportunities
This is the vibe I get from ic:

1. I want to do personal commissions so I need followers (that's the path to starving artist, guys)

2. I want to be a concept artist but never looked at what companies actually need / have no idea what concept art looks like. (as a result focus on MTG quality illustrations and no less but becoming useless for a CA position)

>(as a result focus on MTG quality illustrations and no less but becoming useless for a CA position)

Could you explain what you mean?

>>3012550
Meant for >>3012540

>>3012550
A few thoughts... /ic/ has a focus on things like rendering and anatomy instead of showing functionality.

I mostly see fantasy/portraits and very little modern world, historical/cultural pieces or clean sci-fi etc.

I see people making one big piece instead of a bunch of design iterations.

I see work based on video game or popular culture instead of solid cultural or historical basis. See mostly characters, whereas environment and prop design is most in demand atm.

Also, almost see no stuff for mobile games. No side sketches added to pieces to show mechanisms etc. Don't see series either (multiple designs/scenes for one project).

Not saying nothing good is around here :) I just feel like it's a fine arts/illustration board mostly.

If I had to guess why, it's because it sucks. Grinding perspective? Kinda sucky. Designing 12 entrance gates? Nahhh. Making designs for a game revolving around the Mongol invasion of Poland? That requires reseaaaarch.

Also, spending time on /ic/ is easier than working on the above. Proof: I should be drawing instead of posting this.

>>3012568
Okay that's cool and all but who the fuck are you?

>>3011630
15% women are pregnant right now.
And they're 51% of the population.
We're gonna be 9B by the end of the decade.

>>3012613
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our art.

>>3013480
K. Post work.

(I-if you want)

>>3011257
no, but there are too mant that sell themselves short and cheapen the job for others

>>3012568
>If I had to guess why, it's because it sucks. Grinding perspective? Kinda sucky. Designing 12 entrance gates? Nahhh. Making designs for a game revolving around the Mongol invasion of Poland? That requires reseaaaarch.
I can't speak for everyone, and you should keep in mind that i'm a hobbyist, but for me it's more about what i want to draw, rather than grinding, an i guess the same applies to all of those who just want to draw "cute anime girls", not that there's anything wrong with that ofc

>Sturgeons law
>dunning kruger
>80/20 rule
>saturated market

i need to grind fundies to surpass chen and kim

>>3011257
>Is supply bigger than the demand?

Nope but many, many artists are atrocious at business.

>>3013495
>cheapen the job for others
Haven't experienced that effect, actually. When I charge 20x more than your average d/ic/k, those are clients who don't even look at the cheap ranges.

So yeah, I don't mind undercutting at all. It's just a matter of this >>3018169

>>3011257

I just want to feed my dark passenger.

>>3013256
fucking sluts amirite?

No. If you're skilled and know how to network, you'll get work.
Now if you're talking about demand being $20 commissions for sub par artists from deviantart... then yes, the supply is far greater than the demand.