I want to be an artist. Right now though I live in an area with poor job prospects. I make below the poverty line, only making $7500 a year working food service. My grandmother is providing me with housing and food I also have around $50000 from my fathers life insurance so it will be awhile before I will be in financial ruins. So you can say I am better off than some people.

My brother says that art is a bad idea and I will make nothing. He says I should get into a trade or an associates or bachelors of science before it’s too late or I will end up like my cousin who is in her 50’s who is under the poverty line and can’t get a job because of poor work history

I am twenty three and will be twenty four in nine weeks. I durped around in high school, didn’t even bother with SAT/ACT, passed with a low 2 point something gpa. I am also about as dumb as a rock, so four year is not for me.

My biggest problem is just motivation. I can’t find anything that I would like to do, because I want to do digital art. I am not looking for a career, just something that won’t make me homeless with a piece of paper. So I ether find out something about a career that makes me nope out of there (EXAMPLE: Nope, I don’t want to stick tubes up people’s dick) or there isn’t very good prospects. Ether because it’s a dying job, not in demand for hundreds of miles of where I live, or my driving record (three violations, one of them hit and run property damage only).

I wouldn’t be getting a degree in something for a life long career, I would just treat it like a throw-away job to only keep until I pay the bills doing art. With no passion, would an employer even bother hiring me?

I cannot exist on food service alone, my car insurance alone eats up my entire wages. But it’s getting hard for me to pick something to go to college for. Should I just try to stretch out my savings as long as possible, and try to make it as an artist or am I risking permanent poverty?

Being a freelance artist is a very big challenge. It's not impossible, but it takes a ton of drive and commitment.

You have to ask yourself if you're disciplined and motivated enough for that world.

wolftacos said:
Being a freelance artist is a very big challenge. It's not impossible, but it takes a ton of drive and commitment.

You have to ask yourself if you're disciplined and motivated enough for that world.

Maybe what your saying is a little redundant and obvious?

So it would take less motivation and discipline to drag my ass though two to four years of college, forcing myself to do homework projects and studying for five hours a day, going though boring classes for four hours, spending about $40,000 to $80,000 dollars to obtain an “education”, taking billions of exams and certifications, desperately trying to network with people when I am an extremely introverted with no social circle, and to feign interest and empathy towards a hiring manager and their company when the only thing I care about is the money. All for what, a career that I don’t even give a shite about and one I plan on dumping?

I might have answered my own questions.

What you need to look for is a job that suits your way of working.

All I was saying is to make sure freelance art is something that fits. Go ahead and try it on for a while and start posting a portfolio and asking for commissions.

Just know that you won't be asked to draw what you want all the time, and motivation is a tough problem for artists in general already. It's a very tough job to have if you want to keep yourself afloat with it.

Some people get really successful with it! But it's incredibly hard, and terribly draining.

As someone who graduated from animation... nobody asked me the piece of paper to work for them xD. Also this country (I like in a Latin American one) pays pretty bad when it's about art, so I prefer being a freelance artist online.

If you want to success as a freelance artist on the internet, those are my tips:
-Be sure about your goals.
-Be sure about the kind of content you want to create and which kind of public will you want. (fan art and nsfw sells a lot)
-Post your art very often, I would say almost everyday.
-Post your art everywhere, as many places as you can. This app will help http://www.postybirb.com/
-Hone your art skills as much as you can.
-Be patient and persistent af.

Well first I make the food, get a utensil (preferably a fork), and then I insert food into my mouth.

And that is how I feed myself. The end.

We live in a society

In which drawing horse dick appears like one of most feasible ways to get food.

:^