Freelance Digital Artists are Not Happy!

I've been a successful freelancer for more than 10 years.
Don't let yourself get discouraged by salty people who tell you you can't do it.
Most people will try to convince you that the only path possible is the path THEY have taken. "If you don't do like me, you will never make it".
These salty people have a huge ego problem. The problem is not you. The problem is them. Keep working hard and intelligently.

And then there was AI. The end

Entitled spoiled kid.
It's ok when we pay a fraction for a product made in other countries, like all the technology you use, because it's the free market.
It's ok when we, as rich countries, use all the resources of poor countries to our benefit, it's the free market.
But when someboy in Kenya is better than you are and get a gig, now it's not the free market anymore, ain't it?
The hypocrisy is disturbing.

people think by making a tech that COMPLETELY REMOVES difficulty will make it more accessible.. people dont understand that the WHOLE POINT of art itself is in its DIFFICULTY – bcoz it mean the person that made RELE BELIEVED in what he is portraying and went thru the proccess – THAT is what we actually find intruigin in art THAT is what attracts us to it – so when u REMOVE ONLY ELEMENT that makes it have a meaning u just RUIN IT – it is supposed to always maintain a certain level of difficulty to produce something meaningful, bcoz that filters out the scammers, and quick buck ppl – for example DIGITAL STILL ART IS SOOOOO RUINED – its like the first time was WOW then second time was like THIS IS RELE GOOD – then i saw about 100000 pictures made in 1 day with the same high quality and then SOMETHING WEIRD HHAPENED. by brain jus STOPPED CARING – that magical feelin when i used to see a still artwork was GONE – it got exponentially saturated soo fast and quality almost PEAKED right away that my brain jus said "whtever, this is computer generated stuff yeh its technically cool but it jus wants to skip it" I now maybe need to look at 100 a.i made art and skip thru them releee fast in order to get half the feelin of lookin at ONE human made difficult art.. so making art easy isnt making it easy its just devaluing it

Sorry but don't say the words "first world" or "third world country" if you don't know what they mean.

everyone calm down, if AI replace artist/illustrator, then why the software companies still updating their software (corel, blender, csp, adobe) , if it gonna replace user then no ones should use the software right? so why they still

I don't trust "experts" or gatekeepers.

Technology advancement but money making still no advancement since the feudal era lol

It's 10 x harder to do freelance. Being employed in a studio is a lot easier for me and most of the time more advantageous. But of course, the exception to that rule is if you're an established independent artist with a huge fanbase.

This is pretty sad as in my country (PR) is almost impossible to live. Things here are 2-3 times more expensive than in US, and we have some of the highest taxes in the continent… so trying to work as a freelancer with all this competition seems not viable

What we can only do is just keep studying and getting better to develop our own projects in the future and just forget about freelancing 😔

If that wasn't bad enough, thanks to AI now there will be more creators than consumers. Calling countries third world is really disgusting and demeaning, even UNO has stopped using such terms, you can just say under-developed, developing or developed nation.

It's stupid to think there will be no jobs well jobs are going to increase there nature will be different there will always be something to do .

PSA: If you intend to be a creative professional, you should be charging AT LEAST $50 USD per hour, no matter:

-what country you are from
-how old you are
-what your portfolio looks like (or if you even have one)
-how much experience you have

I've done some experiments and thinking over the years about how a person goes from an amateur to a professional as a digital creative, and I've learned a few things. Most commercial work that will be your bread-and-butter comes from clients with large enough budgets that doesn't matter if they pay you $10 an hour or $100 an hour. They just want to find a person who can do the job right. Usually what that person looks like is a professional who communicates smartly and charges around $50 per hour. I've landed work at that rate with practically nothing relevant on my profile. I just got the job, because I happened to be the first person interviewed.

For your FIRST Upwork job, you should be charging at least that much. You WILL actually receive more job invitations, because your higher price tag shows self-confidence. Whatever you do, don't charge less than that and destroy the market along with your own future career. The market value for a creative professional actually depends on our collective self-worth. People are waking up to this. I have paid very skilled blender artists from Portugal and Cameroon and India upwards of $70 per hour and it was worth every penny. In many cases, it didn't even matter that their portfolio didn't have what I was looking for. They communicated well and they knew the tools, and it was well within my budget.

Don't underestimate the amount of money floating around out there. in the United States alone, there are over 500,000 small businesses which each make at least $5 million per year. Some company from Italy paid me $3600 for a Houdini project that took me 2 hours. There is a LOT of money floating around out there.

Why because blender is free and then everything happened

Upwork is cancer. It was the worst time during my freelancing

stop using third-world countries you racist jackas

Some of you seem scared. Why even start art in the first place if your gonna let anything stop you? Sounds like you didn't really care all that much.

It wasn't that no one knew what a freelancer was a decade ago, it's that companies have realized they get an out on treating employees like garbage and compensating, or crediting them in the case of the games industry, fairly if that worker is classified under law as an independent contractor. Companies want the freedom to cut a job for a few months to save a few bucks, and they're willing to sacrifice flexibility and continuity for it. It's not people wanting to be freelance, it's people having to be freelance because companies want to run as lean as possible to maximize profits, even if that process ultimately hurts the industry and the things they make. They couldn't care less what's going out the door, or what's going on in the building, as long as it doesn't hurt their current or future potential for infinite growth. The reason people weren't freelance before is because it's inherently precarious. The reason they are now is because the companies know they can bully their workers around without consequence.

Basically, "we, privileged, are annoyed by you born in countries we, privileged, once ruined beyond repair".

These freelancers sites dont want to pay the real value , they just want exploit the third world countries workers . And dont even give a sh..t if you are very talented or offer a better quality of work. They just want to pay cheaper . For a experienced freelancer that makes everything dont worth it.

People need to stop making art that isn't theirs and using/ sticking to a style that is easily replicated. The artists who make a living make and sell their own unique style in multiple mediums. People want what they make, not what anyone can. AI or not, you'll be replaced either way, it's just how the competitive market works

People say ai will not replace the artists but it has already started replacing us 😂, now see there is less freelance work youtubers can now generate there thumbnails with ai also in nfts only ai art is selling now. Wake up guys raise your voice against ai because it will not effect big established Artists but small artists like us 🙂

Sir please how do I make animation voice over, I mean the voice. How will I make it sound like an animation sound.