(this is a repost of a newsletter I just sent. If you want to hear from me no more than once every month or so, you can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/JanPospisilArt )
TL;DR
I'm worried by AI generated content, I've been meaning to move away from client work towards personal work these past pandemic years and that mostly failed.
I'm starting an art director job at a gamedev company in January, which is quite fortunate.
I wish You all the best in the next year, in every way.
I'm starting an art director job at a gamedev company in January, which is quite fortunate.
I wish You all the best in the next year, in every way.
The long version
10 years
The year 2022 marks 10 years of my freelancing as an illustrator.
This is honestly about 5 years beyond my then-realistic estimate.
I started painting for clients, because it was the one thing I could do reasonably well. I had a master's degree in computer graphics programming, but even at that point I knew I didn't want be a programmer.
My ideal career progression (¯\_(ツ)_/¯ even less realistic in hindsight) was that I'd slowly get better at the craft, build a stable group of clients and climb towards some kind of "establishedness" in the industry.
And then...repeat until death?!
Beyond the first five years the future was hazy. Surely the industry will stay the same for decades, maybe improve a bit, right? There are old illustrators who still manage, right?
I got lucky in a lot of ways - a handful of clients found me on their own - who would pay on completion (rather than within 30 days, or some months in a few other cases) and I was slowly raising my rates successfully.
I worked on some industry-award-winning projects. In terms of IPs I fulfilled some dreams.
The aspects of my career I did not anticipate and which I did not correct for (quickly) have been:
- several rounds of burnout (when you work a lot for not a lot of money, you end up tired AND broke. Great combo.) and lack of knowledge on how to recover from that
- occasional mental health issues like depression, out of nowhere severe anxiety and some kind of undiagnosed attention disorder (again, no tools to deal with any of this). And because all of this lowers one's productivity, it leads to a downwards spiral of self-loathing.
- inflation: It just kinda slipped my mind I should be raising my rates over time? :D It sounds silly, but it happened like that. A few years ago I randomly came across an article about wages and realized I've been making quite dangerously close to minimum wage for a while. In my mind the salaries never moved up from what they were in 2013.
- learning: As I was just about managing to do the work itself, I couldn't really make myself study and improve my art intentionally. So it stagnated, somewhat.
So 5+ years into doing this I wasn't quite where I hoped I would be.
Not many cool covers or large colour paintings, the work was still mostly small inside illustrations often done in pencil. I used to say I wouldn't take any more of those, because I wasn't learning anything from them, they bored me to death and didn't pay very much. In reality they were quite reliable income, simple to do and I learnt quite a bit about drawing. (as opposed to painting)
Shortly pre-pandemic I was intensely unhappy about all of this, dreading any work because I found it so bad to look at and harrowing to do. The problem, I thought, was having to be "a hired pair of hands" - working on someone else's project and only ever being paid a set amount, owning the rights to almost none of the art I'd create.
The plan to overcome the problem slowly formed: To work on my own projects in spare time, start selling prints and stock art, start a Patreon. Get any kind of passive income possible.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
At the end of 2019 I moved, looking to make some kind of fresh start.
Then the pandemic hit. Everyone had a bad time.
Then in 2021 the NFT explosion - seems silly to even list this, but it genuinely shook me. Here was a chance for significant income that I knew was objectively horrible and morally wrong. And SO MANY artists were doing it, incredible famous artists, legends, people who I'd admired for ages.
"Enjoy being poor." - we heard back if we criticized NFTs. I was not enjoying it.
All of a sudden my dog was diagnosed with a heart defect. Meds and regular doctor visits put a significant strain on my already thin wallet.
I realized I was getting to the end of my contributions on the second Six Ages game, which was a stable source of work for several years at that point. Something had to change soon.
I'd not achieved much of what I set out to do. I drew some stock art, I did start a print store (and sold 4 prints, all to the same person), I did start selling original art (that did pretty ok), but did not manage to get any new higher level clients, or work on my own projects a lot.
(It again seems quite silly how I used to imagine emailing my portfolio to Wizards of the Coast and getting work on Magic just like that. I'm glad I finally did it as it was one of those things I was dumb for putting off, which constantly reminded me of how little progress I'd made. Still didn't work out though.)
Then the war in Ukraine started.
I should clarify that my country does not border with Ukraine, though our neighbouring Slovakia and Poland do.
We're not getting shelled or anything, it's just the same malaise and misery falling on us as is on everyone to the east of Germany. Sharply rising prices of basically everything, especially food and gas/electricity, growing social division etc. etc.
Someone in my close family is unfortunately hugely invested in conspiracy theories and fiercely pro-Russian, which has not been easy to live with.
Then the robots came for us.
AI ART
I likely don't have to introduce AI art, you've seen it by now.
I remember attending a lecture on neural networks back in uni (2012-ish?) and thinking it was extremely cool and promising technology.
And it is, it's capable of a lot of stuff (you've probably tried the recent chat bot, it can also generate programming code and Ubisoft has been developing neural networks for driving motion captured animations for a few years at this point).
I noticed the first papers on AI generated images a few years ago when the output was barely the size of a postage stamp, and thought it quite exciting.
I'd not really connected the dots on the social and economic impact this would have, but I knew the tech was progressing quickly.
When the first better results started breaking into less academic circles, I knew how much we moved forward in the few years since.
When the first public generators were released, I did realize where the tech was headed and who was pushing it. (this was roughly a year after the great NFT explosion, and went surprisingly similarly)
All the artists mocking it for various reasons (too much like photos, bad faces, too abstract, can't do text, can't do hands etc. etc.) were also too optimistic about the speed this tech would develop at. "Maybe in a decade we might start getting worried."
It took a few months instead.
Much has been written about the ethical, legal and technical side of AI art, so I won't go into that.
It became quite clear to me that being "a hired pair of hands" would be increasingly impossible as time goes on. Smaller publishers would have little incentive to hire artists for their (objectively lower quality) art needs. Back in my day (good grief, here we go..) people starting out could live on these lower end commissions.
This won't be possible any more. Larger publishers will likely follow as soon as the legal stuff is sorted in some way.
Again I was shook by something entirely out of my control, that thankfully didn't directly impact me yet.
I was desperately trying to figure out what I could do - if I could continue trying to build my "own brand" and work on my own projects (despite Twitter imploding, my main social/marketing platform for the past few years), or if I should just admit my failure and go look for a real job.
A Real Job
Out of nowhere in December I was contacted by someone who already messaged me in the past, vaguely hinting they would like to work with me in some capacity. And now they offered me a job, pretty much.
I couldn't believe it. What a coincidence?!
It was an art director/lead artist position on a videogame.
I didn't think too hard about it - the pay was pretty good considering everything, the project looks interesting and a good fit for me artistically.
It's going to be my first employment since a summer job I did in university.
In a way it feels like I'm cheating, or running away from the direction I've been going for the past 10 years. I worry that I'll mess it up and get fired.
I realize that's just impostor syndrome and whatnot, but it doesn't make it much easier.
But yeah, videogames!
Funny enough, the reason why I studied the uni program I did - I wanted to make videogames.
(technically I'm credited in 3-ish videogames already, but that was as a freelance artist. I was a pair of hired hands. This won't be "my game" either, but it's somewhat closer to what I imagined as an 18 year old.)
I'll be keeping my freelancer license, for now. There's still client and personal stuff I want to do, I'm still selling prints and originals and all that. But it'll be on the side.
So yeah, that's about it.
I'm sorry this first newsletter was so long. If you read all the way through, thanks!
No worries, I don't think I'll manage more than one of these a month.
Cheers, and all the best in the new year!
Jan
The year 2022 marks 10 years of my freelancing as an illustrator.
This is honestly about 5 years beyond my then-realistic estimate.
I started painting for clients, because it was the one thing I could do reasonably well. I had a master's degree in computer graphics programming, but even at that point I knew I didn't want be a programmer.
My ideal career progression (¯\_(ツ)_/¯ even less realistic in hindsight) was that I'd slowly get better at the craft, build a stable group of clients and climb towards some kind of "establishedness" in the industry.
And then...repeat until death?!
Beyond the first five years the future was hazy. Surely the industry will stay the same for decades, maybe improve a bit, right? There are old illustrators who still manage, right?
I got lucky in a lot of ways - a handful of clients found me on their own - who would pay on completion (rather than within 30 days, or some months in a few other cases) and I was slowly raising my rates successfully.
I worked on some industry-award-winning projects. In terms of IPs I fulfilled some dreams.
The aspects of my career I did not anticipate and which I did not correct for (quickly) have been:
- several rounds of burnout (when you work a lot for not a lot of money, you end up tired AND broke. Great combo.) and lack of knowledge on how to recover from that
- occasional mental health issues like depression, out of nowhere severe anxiety and some kind of undiagnosed attention disorder (again, no tools to deal with any of this). And because all of this lowers one's productivity, it leads to a downwards spiral of self-loathing.
- inflation: It just kinda slipped my mind I should be raising my rates over time? :D It sounds silly, but it happened like that. A few years ago I randomly came across an article about wages and realized I've been making quite dangerously close to minimum wage for a while. In my mind the salaries never moved up from what they were in 2013.
- learning: As I was just about managing to do the work itself, I couldn't really make myself study and improve my art intentionally. So it stagnated, somewhat.
So 5+ years into doing this I wasn't quite where I hoped I would be.
Not many cool covers or large colour paintings, the work was still mostly small inside illustrations often done in pencil. I used to say I wouldn't take any more of those, because I wasn't learning anything from them, they bored me to death and didn't pay very much. In reality they were quite reliable income, simple to do and I learnt quite a bit about drawing. (as opposed to painting)
Shortly pre-pandemic I was intensely unhappy about all of this, dreading any work because I found it so bad to look at and harrowing to do. The problem, I thought, was having to be "a hired pair of hands" - working on someone else's project and only ever being paid a set amount, owning the rights to almost none of the art I'd create.
The plan to overcome the problem slowly formed: To work on my own projects in spare time, start selling prints and stock art, start a Patreon. Get any kind of passive income possible.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
At the end of 2019 I moved, looking to make some kind of fresh start.
Then the pandemic hit. Everyone had a bad time.
Then in 2021 the NFT explosion - seems silly to even list this, but it genuinely shook me. Here was a chance for significant income that I knew was objectively horrible and morally wrong. And SO MANY artists were doing it, incredible famous artists, legends, people who I'd admired for ages.
"Enjoy being poor." - we heard back if we criticized NFTs. I was not enjoying it.
All of a sudden my dog was diagnosed with a heart defect. Meds and regular doctor visits put a significant strain on my already thin wallet.
I realized I was getting to the end of my contributions on the second Six Ages game, which was a stable source of work for several years at that point. Something had to change soon.
I'd not achieved much of what I set out to do. I drew some stock art, I did start a print store (and sold 4 prints, all to the same person), I did start selling original art (that did pretty ok), but did not manage to get any new higher level clients, or work on my own projects a lot.
(It again seems quite silly how I used to imagine emailing my portfolio to Wizards of the Coast and getting work on Magic just like that. I'm glad I finally did it as it was one of those things I was dumb for putting off, which constantly reminded me of how little progress I'd made. Still didn't work out though.)
Then the war in Ukraine started.
I should clarify that my country does not border with Ukraine, though our neighbouring Slovakia and Poland do.
We're not getting shelled or anything, it's just the same malaise and misery falling on us as is on everyone to the east of Germany. Sharply rising prices of basically everything, especially food and gas/electricity, growing social division etc. etc.
Someone in my close family is unfortunately hugely invested in conspiracy theories and fiercely pro-Russian, which has not been easy to live with.
Then the robots came for us.
AI ART
I likely don't have to introduce AI art, you've seen it by now.
I remember attending a lecture on neural networks back in uni (2012-ish?) and thinking it was extremely cool and promising technology.
And it is, it's capable of a lot of stuff (you've probably tried the recent chat bot, it can also generate programming code and Ubisoft has been developing neural networks for driving motion captured animations for a few years at this point).
I noticed the first papers on AI generated images a few years ago when the output was barely the size of a postage stamp, and thought it quite exciting.
I'd not really connected the dots on the social and economic impact this would have, but I knew the tech was progressing quickly.
When the first better results started breaking into less academic circles, I knew how much we moved forward in the few years since.
When the first public generators were released, I did realize where the tech was headed and who was pushing it. (this was roughly a year after the great NFT explosion, and went surprisingly similarly)
All the artists mocking it for various reasons (too much like photos, bad faces, too abstract, can't do text, can't do hands etc. etc.) were also too optimistic about the speed this tech would develop at. "Maybe in a decade we might start getting worried."
It took a few months instead.
Much has been written about the ethical, legal and technical side of AI art, so I won't go into that.
It became quite clear to me that being "a hired pair of hands" would be increasingly impossible as time goes on. Smaller publishers would have little incentive to hire artists for their (objectively lower quality) art needs. Back in my day (good grief, here we go..) people starting out could live on these lower end commissions.
This won't be possible any more. Larger publishers will likely follow as soon as the legal stuff is sorted in some way.
Again I was shook by something entirely out of my control, that thankfully didn't directly impact me yet.
I was desperately trying to figure out what I could do - if I could continue trying to build my "own brand" and work on my own projects (despite Twitter imploding, my main social/marketing platform for the past few years), or if I should just admit my failure and go look for a real job.
A Real Job
Out of nowhere in December I was contacted by someone who already messaged me in the past, vaguely hinting they would like to work with me in some capacity. And now they offered me a job, pretty much.
I couldn't believe it. What a coincidence?!
It was an art director/lead artist position on a videogame.
I didn't think too hard about it - the pay was pretty good considering everything, the project looks interesting and a good fit for me artistically.
It's going to be my first employment since a summer job I did in university.
In a way it feels like I'm cheating, or running away from the direction I've been going for the past 10 years. I worry that I'll mess it up and get fired.
I realize that's just impostor syndrome and whatnot, but it doesn't make it much easier.
But yeah, videogames!
Funny enough, the reason why I studied the uni program I did - I wanted to make videogames.
(technically I'm credited in 3-ish videogames already, but that was as a freelance artist. I was a pair of hired hands. This won't be "my game" either, but it's somewhat closer to what I imagined as an 18 year old.)
I'll be keeping my freelancer license, for now. There's still client and personal stuff I want to do, I'm still selling prints and originals and all that. But it'll be on the side.
So yeah, that's about it.
I'm sorry this first newsletter was so long. If you read all the way through, thanks!
No worries, I don't think I'll manage more than one of these a month.
Cheers, and all the best in the new year!
Jan
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