It's Time to QUIT ART as a CAREER...

so as much as my channel is one that loves to promote pursuing art as a career for a lot of people out there the truth is that sometimes that's not going to be reasonable or possible for some I think it would be really irresponsible of me to just make a channel and be like yeah never give up while someone is just suffering or financially struggling and maybe not being able to meet ends meet and sacrificing their own well-being for the sake of pursuing art which is pretty much everything that I am kind of against on this channel I am pretty much all for not associating art with your identity and having that type of boundary from it and respecting yourself as a human that just does art as an extension of yourself but art is not yourself so regarding quitting art I'm mostly talking about people who are choosing to pursue art as a career and by quitting I think at the end of the day there's a long huge spectrum of levels of quitting and sometimes it doesn't need to be as dramatic as people make it sound to be so personally for be I don't think quitting art needs to always be this big dramatic announcement that people make being like you know I'm finally quitting our today and I'm just gonna pursue my next career as an accountant and blah blah blah I don't really think that people need to make this clear-cut end to a dream and sometimes it could be something like I'm taking a break from it and I'll revisit it later or maybe I'll pursue it at a later point in my life as a small business there are a lot of levels of quitting and revisiting and taking breaks that I feel like are not often discussed it's usually pursue art as a career or don't pursue art as a career when there's a lot of this gray area that's not really talked about so as I mentioned the reasons as to why you should quit art are going to cover a range of reasons and if you're not really sure about what to do with your art career just so you know I am offering email consultations on my patreon where I will respond back to you with any personalized feedback and advice and go over your portfolio or even give you reviews or critiques on your artwork whatever it is that you want I offer it on my patreon and if you're unable to become a patron I do have a one-off email consultation option for anyone who doesn't really need that follow-up and in addition to that you would get a lot of other offers such as behind the scenes work in progresses and early access to my work and any other maybe secret projects that I have not really announced to the public yet but anyway for any of you who are currently patrons of my community I truly appreciate your support it's because of viewers like you that allow me to live a more financially stable life and with that that kind of leads into my first point about financial stability so Financial stability is one of the reasons why most artists might have to either take a break or quit art as a career because honestly there might be a time in life where whatever you're creating is not making you enough money or maybe the job that you decided to pursue is a very gig driven or nomadic driven career like animation where you might have to hop between jobs and projects and sometimes you might not be making enough money or you might be on Hiatus for such a long time and you can't find another job to line up after your previous one so this is a time in life where you might have to either think about pursuing something else or pursuing a creative Venture that just might not be the one that you originally wanted just to be able to cover yourself during those Gap periods so some people might decide to quit art entirely as a career just because of that sort of financial stability and they're unable to really deal with that sort of mental chaos and if that idea of an unpredictable future with your finances is something you just cannot deal with then maybe art might not be the career path for you however I do not want this to be confused with the idea that art does not make money because I feel like we already live in a society that really thinks that artists don't make money and all artists starve the truth is is that you can make money it's just about the mindset that you have behind it because sometimes a lot of art might require some entrepreneurial skills in which there are a lot of artists out there that have that and that's something that I feel like should be taught to artists but the truth is is that there's also a lot of other entrepreneurial career paths and other career paths out there that are just as financially unstable and don't always promise you Financial stability so there really isn't that much of a difference the only difference is is that if you choose to pursue art because you're actually interested and passionate about it at least if you're stuck between two career paths that might not be that stable at least you get to choose the option that is creative and one that you're more passionate about so the next reason as to why you might quit art as a career is because maybe it just doesn't make you happy anymore because when you become an artist there is either the option of becoming a full-time artist where you do work at a studio as a nine-to-five job or you kind of taking more entrepreneurial career path where you either start your own business have your own brand or you have multiple different types of opportunities that are turning into your income so the thing about this is that most artists think that when they pursue art as a career it's going to be like you know everything that they want to do and everything that they make money off of is based off of what they want and the truth is that that's not always going to be the case because when you work a nine to five job especially at a studio you're usually creating art to help the vision of somebody else whether that be another business or an animated film movie or show or a game you're usually contributing art for the sake of somebody else's project or vision and that's gonna have to be a compromise you would be willing to accept to take a job that pays you more stably then the other option is taking a more entrepreneurial career path where you're doing things like running social media or having a small business or maybe publishing different books the thing about that is that even though you think that you are your own boss and you are running your own business and creating your own type of artwork for people to see the reality is that there's still going to be a level of compromise with your audience because your audience is basically going to be the source of your income for the most part and for them to be willing to buy into your art or your business they're going to have to have some interest in it and sometimes that might mean you might have to make sacrifices to what you usually want to create with your art in order to please your audience so at the end of the day whether if you are working a full-time job or doing your own thing the question is is are you really doing your own thing you're going to have to come to accept that you are going to have to compromise what you want to make with what other people want and if that's something that won't really make you happy and you find a lot of dissatisfaction with that maybe art might not be the career for you so the next reason as to why you might want to quit art as a career this one isn't really as much of oh you should quit art entirely this one is more like maybe you should take a break and just take a step back and revisit your skills and Foundations because I find that a lot of artists especially young ones are very quick to jump into wanting to pursue a career in the Arts when their skills are just simply not there yet so like the email consultations I meant earlier I've actually received some works from artists of all ranges and I have some artists who are still in the very beginner amateur level who are still very quick to think about what they want to do with commissions how they're going to start their own business how are they going to publish their first comic book which is great these are great dreams and Endeavors to have but based on their skill levels for the time being I don't feel like they are at the place where they should necessarily be reaching out to agents or applying to these jobs when really your time might be better spent in just studying and refocusing on your skill levels I feel like that time ultimately ends up getting wasted when you're applying to jobs that your skill level might not be necessarily aligned with yet and sometimes you might have to really put your art next to the art of a professional artist and ask yourself what are things that are not matching up to this professional artist it's kind of like a game of I spy Circle things about the professional artists work that you don't see in your work and circle things in your artwork that you don't don't see in the professional artists artwork so if you are a student at this time then continue to study and just focus on refining and honing in on your skills so that you can get your artwork to match the level of a professional artist but if you are someone who's already graduated and you're still trying to figure out your career you might have to pick up a part-time job or just something to financially support you while you are studying art on the side to get it to get up to that level of putting it into a portfolio and submitting it for professional hiring so the next reason you might consider quitting art as a career or even just reconsidering it is if you just can't deal with the idea of instability at all so the thing about instability is that it's not always just Financial it could be mental and it could just be in a range of different things so a lot of art careers are again going to be pretty nomadic you're going to be jumping around on different projects and a lot of it is going to be having to build a name for yourself so that you are kind of Irreplaceable but the thing is is that you might not always be in the exact same role that you want in each job that you hop around you might be on a project that you absolutely love and it's totally everything that you align with but once it ends maybe the only other options out there are these projects that you just really don't Vibe with the style of something you absolutely hate but you might have to force yourself to mold yourself into that style just to be able to land that job some artists are totally okay with just being a shape shifter like that but others are not so other than financial aspects aside that idea of job hunting but also having to shift yourself and having to reprove yourself to people over and over again might be something that a lot of people might really get exhausted by and are not sure if they want to sacrifice that part of themselves too so if that type of instability really kind of makes you uncomfortable and you really don't feel like you want to deal with that then maybe art might not be the best career for you the other other thing about that is that if you're building a name for yourself and building a brand or audience a lot of the times these analytics and numbers will fluctuate based on the time that we're living in and you can decide whether or not if you want to deal with that if you want to eventually run your own small business or run your own brand but at least while doing that you get to be doing things that you enjoy so this is really going to be a compromise for a lot of people because you might have to sacrifice that stability for at least that happiness that you have while working on your projects so it's really up to you if that type of instability is worth it or not so the next reason why you might be either reconsidering art as a career or quitting it as a career is because you have no interest in commercial viability with your work which is usually creating art that appeals to a more mass audience or creating it for people to want to buy in some way shape or form whether if you're contributing to like an animated film and people want to watch this or if you're making your own individual products and people want to buy this or if you're making YouTube videos like me and people want to watch it there's a lot of reasons as to why people do or do not want to buy into things whether if it's buying with their money or buying with their time and attention so you're going to have to accept that if you want to make money with your art or turning it into a career you're going to have to appeal to an audience in some way shape or form and again even if you are going to be working at a full nine to five job you're still going to have to appeal to your directors your bosses who are also having to appeal to a mass audience so at the end of the day even if you are working with a studio your job is to still appeal to a mass audience the only difference is that you have Studios Executives that are between you so you don't really get that access to what the audience wants and that's not really your job so in a way you do have some cushion with that however if you are running your own business or running your own brand there's a lot of appeal that you have to do for your audience so if you don't like making a certain type of artwork but that's what the audience wants and expects from you and you need to make ends meet sometimes you might have to put your ego aside and just create that type of art to support yourself so if that's something that you're not really like willing to do or you're not interested and really appealing for a more commercial based audience I'm not sure if art is going to be really a career for you but maybe it might be better off as a hobby where you can just create whatever you want and not care about what people think and you don't really have to rely on it fully as a full-time career or income and you can just focus on creating art for fun with the occasional sale as some sort of pocket money so the next one is actually a point that I discussed in my previous video the biggest art career mistake you can make so check that out if you would like a more expanded version of this point but this point is more about having a change of Interest whether if it's still art or not or maybe a different creative industry or maybe just not create of at all maybe you do have an interest in art but over time you actually change your mind about what you're interested in pursuing as a career so the thing about quitting art as a career is that people usually think you have to quit it entirely as a thing that exists in your life when that's not true maybe the way that you want to support yourself and make a living doesn't always need to be tied to art or at least the type of art that you were originally interested in so a lot of people think that they have to make this promise to their younger self and fulfill the very thing that they wanted to do when they were eight years old when that is really the thing that's going to hold you back from allowing yourself to change and grow and try another thing because just because you want to make art doesn't mean it has to be the thing that makes you the money to live your life and pay your bills sometimes that type of art that you make to pay your bills might not be the same one that you originally wanted maybe you want it to be a comic artist and you wanted to make comic books for a living but maybe you don't really want to do that anymore maybe you're just happy being a producer or something for an animated feature so you still get that access to creating some sort of narrative art but you don't really want to be creating the art anymore as the form of your income so I think allowing yourself to be open to these changes and being like hey maybe I might not want to make art off of drawing necessarily but I still want to be involved in the process and maybe help produce it and then I can work on my Comics you know after work and on my own spare time that is still very much an option and there are some other people out there who are just like I just want to quit art entirely I want to just become like an accountant or work in some other field and that should be totally okay I think that letting go of that younger self and what you wanted to do when you were younger is going to be really important because if you hold on to that child self too much they might be holding you back from the other possibilities in your life so that kind of leads me to my next point which is if you're only pursuing art to just fulfill what your childhood good self wanted that is a good enough reason to just quit art in itself because some people just think that this is what I wanted to do when I was a kid and a lot of people said I couldn't do this so now I have to keep doing it just to prove to people that I can do it but you're only really pursuing R just to either prove others wrong prove your childhood self right and not really because you're interested today in this day and age the truth is that you're probably going to have a lot of new interests in coming in your life as you get older and your brain is gonna just kind of get scattered all over the place as you learn about these new things in life and again like the previous point I think you should allow yourself to explore other options if they ever do fall into your lap but at the same time I only think that you should be pursuing art if it is something that your present day self still actually really genuinely enjoys and you're not just doing this to fulfill what your childhood self wanted just for the sake of it but your present day self is totally miserable and not really enjoying life because of that and I would like to reiterate that once again if you enjoy creating art and the creative process behind it just remember that it's not always the thing that has to equate to your income or making a living out of it especially if you don't want to put the hustle and the work behind it so the next reason is a little bit more of an obvious one but if you have a health concern or health problems that are preventing you from pursuing art as a career I am not one to fully believe and just sacrificing yourself for the sake of art but again perhaps engaging with it in a different way might be a more viable option because a lot of people for example if you're an illustrator you might think that for you to pursue your illustration dreams you have to be the one to physically draw it but if you develop something like carpal tunnel or some sort of wrist or hand injury that might be a long term or even permanent health problem for you to draw I don't believe in like you know worsening things much more than they already are but maybe finding a different way to engage with it even if this is just a temporary time for why you can't pursue art as a career you can still be doing other things like for example if you can't necessarily be drawing at this time maybe instead of becoming an illustrator you can do something like working for an editorial of some news article or some social media platform or some studio where you help either curate illustrators or you help recruit illustrators or you just do something that involves helping out other illustrators without you needing to be the one that draws if still pursuing a creative career path is something you want to do and you still want to get your hands into it maybe finding an option that won't be as strenuous on you would be a little bit more helpful maybe choosing a type of way of creating your art less strenuously would be a little bit more helpful than choosing a career that would constantly have you hunched over your desk and drawing non-stop 24 7. so then the last point is kind of pretty much the same as what I've mentioned with a lot of the other bullet points I listed but it's if you decide that maybe you want to just engage with art in a different way that is a very reasonable reason to quit art as a career and switch over or transfer to a different career path where you're still associated with creating the art but you're not the one creating the art so a lot of people I know who work in animation originally wanted to be the storyboard artist be the character designer but now instead of that they are the producer or executive producer or writer and there are other types of career paths where you're still working on the same form of the medium that you originally enjoyed but you don't need to be the one producing that same exact craft which leads back to that whole talk about you know just sticking to the thing that your younger self wanted to do really realize that you're an adult now and your wants now are going to be different and maybe there are things about being a producer or a script coordinator or an editor for a book or a graphic designer might help you with in your life as well as still allowing you that creative space to do your own thing there are a multitude of reasons why people choose career paths that take a little bit of a step back from creating the craft itself and they do other things such as you know helping the artist which brings them fulfillment in that way so don't be afraid to quit art just because it is something that you felt like you originally wanted to do all your life sure it might have been something that sparked your interest but maybe being that spark was all it needed to be for you to figure out that hey maybe I want to transition to something else or try something else I really think that people should be open to choosing art as a career but also be open to not choosing it as a career and not have having to hold on to it just because they said it was something they were going to do at some point in life for me personally I was always just like you know I just want to be a story artist at Walt Disney features specifically and nothing else I don't want to be like a director I don't want to run my own social media platform I don't want to publish a book I don't want to do all of this random [ __ ] but look at me now I'm doing a lot of random [ __ ] that I didn't think that I wanted to do I used to just want to live a life where I just wanted to be a storyboard artist from nine to five and after that I just turned it all off and just lived my life and that is totally valid path to take if that is what you want but for me personally I feel like I've learned that I do have interest in entrepreneurial projects that you know I just end up naturally just gravitating towards and if that's how it's gonna be I will just let it happen you know so I hope this video helped validate any of the thoughts you might have had as an artist and maybe you weren't sure if if you were going to quit art take a break from it or maybe revisit it as a different type of career than you originally thought you were going to have but you know if you need any help figuring that out again I have my patreon email consultations open for anybody that is interested and in addition to that Mish the bad demon is of course always available for you to read for anybody who's interested in reading my very first graphic novel ever which you know if you have questions about writing a graphic novel and Publishing it as well that's what the email consultations are for but yeah anyway thank you for watching this video I hope that it again helps you clarify your path a little bit more and I will see you all in the next one [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: mewTripled

Views: 26,698

Keywords: anime, disney, cartoon, animation, illustration, comics, comic, drawings, comic book, graphic novel, illustrator, freelancer, artists, art careers, freelance artist, manga, inu yasha, panty and stocking, powerpuff girls, pixar, dreamworks, animation studios, jobs, animation jobs, art jobs, art style, doodle, sketch, sketchbook, improve your art, find your art style, how to find your art style, small business, shop, galleries, fine arts, painting, abstract, tattoos, design, designer, graphic designer

Id: IX2IzvFL-k8

Length: 21min 52sec (1312 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023