I don't know what to do with my life. I have a stable office

You don't know the industry or profession well enough to make fundamental decisions about your life like that. Keep art as a hobby, do it however serious you want or can, network, talk to professionals (e-mail) and work on your plan "B" in the meantime or simply save up some money. See if the industry even supports a living wage in five years and with a plan "B" or money in your backpocket, you can always dare so much more.

>all day drawing and improving my art
You're not gonna get paid for that. It's not about you and your art.

Making a stable income as a freelance illustrator is all about gearing your work towards a style that is marketable towards the clients that can provide the type of opportunities you're looking for. In other words, you're drawing for someone else, not yourself.

Essentially, this is what you do.
1. Create new work for your portfolio site that is geared towards the type of market you want to break into
2. Research the contact info of decision makers (art directors, creative directors, etc.)
3. Start a campaign to reach out to all of these people. Don't give up after the first email.
4. Hope that they could see a use for your work, and land gig. Don't fuck it up, and hopefully turn the client into a regular.

Rinse and repeat every step, and you've got yourself a freelance illustration career. Of course it's easier said than done, every step of the way is excruciatingly difficult, especially #4.

>>3020249
Yeah this sounds the correct thing to do, but at the same time I don't want to end up hating the one thing I love just because I have to reach deadlines or work under pressure. It sounds stupid and childish I know...might as well have it only as a hobby

>>3020227
Are you me, OP? I lasted for three years as a social worker. I realized there's only so many dead kids a social worker can have on their conscience, and my limit is one. As I was sitting in a bathroom stall with a loaded gun to my head, I realized I needed a change, money or no. I quit that week with nothing lined up. My wife is a full time professional so we can limp along. I've been without a job for the past month and a half, and the only possible career that makes me excited is tattoo artist. I am a complete novice at drawing. Square fucking one. I'm about to enroll in my local community college to work on the basics with the ultimate goal of building a portfolio and getting a tattoo apprenticeship. It sounds so crazy typing it out or saying it out loud, I might just go ahead and kill myself instead.

>>3020227
What's your job?

It's always shitty to hear when creatives end up doing an office job they hate.

>>3020262
QA and some data entry. It sucks major cock but pays well. Thanks to it I finally bought my own tablet years ago. One of my dreams. I still hate it tho.

>>3020256
I'm sorry, OP. This is your thread. That was selfish. I guess my moral is take concrete steps towards the job you really want before your current job breaks you, and you do something rash. You can only take so much misery. If you hit your limit, you WILL get out of that situation, one way or another.

>>3020266
If you think you have the chops try to go a step above QA and into development. It's not an easy thing to do, but I've had colleagues do it and not only does the pay get a lot better, but you have a creative outlet too.

>>3020271
It's ok I don't mind this kind of sharing

>>3020255
>but at the same time I don't want to end up hating the one thing I love

I don't know why you're assuming that's something that will happen. Why do you think you're going to end up hating it just because you have deadlines? You can almost completely disregard the stress of deadlines by having some basic time management skills.

>might as well have it only as a hobby
What's the point of this thread? You're basically just complaining about your office job? You made is sound like you wanted to leave your office job for a career in illustration, but I guess that's that not the case.

>>3020290
Professional artists often make things that don't excite them because it gets them paid. I'm the anon that wants to be a tattoo artist. I know that should I "make it", it will still be a job. For every creative, original piece I do, I'm going to do twelve infinity symbols with a word in them, three feathers turning into flocks of birds, two tribal tattoos, and an incorrectly interpreted Japanese character. Will the job be worth it? Hope so, but I won't know for sure until I'm doing it, right? OP has an understandable concern about this unknown.

>>3020295
>OP has an understandable concern about this unknown.
Understandable - maybe. It's very obvious that OP is paralyzed by the fear of taking a risk in life. It's up to them to get over it and try it out. From the sounds of it, it would be better than being stuck in the office job they "hate from the bottom of their heart".

>Will the job be worth it?
I promise you that if you talk to seasoned tattoo artist, they will tell you its worth it. I've got several years of freelance illustration under my belt, and the work that pays the bills is the boring, mundane work you're so afraid of. If you truly love the craft, even those will be satisfying.

>>3020311
>If you truly love the craft, even those will be satisfying.
Yeah, I can see that. I got my daughter's name in a fancy script. Not a tasteless job, but certainly not exciting. Though I'm certain this particular artist had to do hundreds, if not thousands of such tattoos in his long career, he was so fucking proud of it. The lines at the end of each flourish got impossibly thin, yet were flawless. It would've looked decent enough had he just got it over with quickly, but he really, really wanted to do the best fucking script he possibly could.

>>3020227

The shadow of the man annoys the fuck out of me, even if I like the piece a lot.


Also I'm pretty much in the same boat as you OP. I'll probably end up killing myself in three years if nothing changes.

>>3020339
> end up killing myself in three years if nothing changes.

What are your goals for those three years, and the steps you're planning on taking to reach those goals?

>>3020339
It seems like a rather awkwardly placed light source to be working from. It must've been a challenge trying to get the shadows right.