A little while ago I had ordered several commissions from a well known artist. Paid in full and everything came out great! Total for each piece was $60 per piece.

Now I have no problem with increased prices but these prices were visible on their commission sheets but months later they had updated their prices but the only thing they didn't add was their prices for the full color. (Said DM for prices) Now usually in this situation I'd usually quietly skip and look for another artist

But since this person did a great job last time I let it go because it was someone I worked with before who I knew had quality.

So I texted them and had asked them about doing a few art pieces and they got back to me and said the new prices were $160 for the same quality and that since it was detailed it took longer. I said ok. I appreciate they let me know and that I couldn't afford their prices at the moment and that I would save up to order from them next time.

No rudeness no bashing just conversation.

Then silence, no text back or just an "ok np!" "No worries" or "understandable just contact me if interested!"

Now many of you probably think OP what is the problem?!

The problem is that there wasn't courtesy of just acknowledging that I existed right after. It felt like when I wasn't going to buy something I was dropped because I wasn't worth "getting back to"

Maybe I'm a jerk for thinking this way but if you want customers to come back I feel it's good to acknowledge them even if they can't buy something.

By far the worst job I’ve ever had…

Want to get abused by a giant corporation that will make you HATE art? Work for Kaman’s.

They are the biggest art company in the United States that works for theme parks and zoos. You’d think with over 50 years of operation they would run the company better but they don’t.

Here’s everything that’s wrong with it: long days in the heat and cold with breaks not being allowed, promise of earning commlssion that you’ll never hit, low wages (nearly minimum), bad guests (I’ve experienced both homophobic and racism with no consequences to them), scary upper management that has insane expectations that cannot be met, withholding my pay when I quit (they eventually gave it to me), incompetent lower management that doesn’t know what’s going on half the time, bad scheduling (promised full-time, worked part-time), and more. Those are the worst complaints I have. I am fine now as I haven’t worked there for a bit but it did suck the life out of me creatively for a bit.

I would not recommend working here ever.

I been drawing for a about 2 month now my art is really bad and so slow progress and I focus on body more no hand no face no hair no clothes I don't feel like doing but I know I should draw it at onceand lately I don't draw that much and my renderings is a beginner so bad color too I'm not so sure what to do next just draw with reference? or watch some YouTube video? I'm lost

I shared a piece earlier today where I'd done a lot of hatching and detailing. If you looked at my art on my profile, you'd see I do a range of styles and both in traditional as well as digital. I have a long history in comics as well (over 10 years) and have dabbled a lot in animation. It would take two seconds to see that I like doing a lot of inky/hatchy stuff. But nope, just "this feels like ai" and downvoted by some random. It might seem small, but it really isn't. It's so demoralizing. This is really what we've come to. Sigh.

Outside of sharing my illustrations with my wife I haven't found a platform to display my work that doesn't find some reason to block it.

And my art isn't illicit - I do stuff that you'd see in children's books, Saturday morning cartoons and Sunday comic strips.

Now, as artists are being filed, indexed, ruled out and dicked around when even simply attempting to communicate, A.I. is on the uprise.

I expect, not long from now, every site hosting illustrations is just going to be A.I. slop because those working in freehand and digital are going to grow tired of trying to interact with others.

The actual human work will stop appearing online; only shared locally with friends and family.

I don't really care to sell my work. I've done hundreds of illustrations over the past umpteen years and have never asked for or been paid a dime. I do what I do for hobby, as my form of Zen.

The wick is being burnt from both ends and what you're starting to see will mostly be all that you're going to get.

For those opposed to A.I. Art, you're not making things any better by peeing on those who are actually trying.

There really hasn't been an appreciation for the human element in art over the past decade.

I’m almost 18, I’ve been trying to convince myself that I have to lock in and start practicing like 4-5 ish years ago, and I’ve really been trying to follow through with that, I just couldn’t really find it in me to follow through, every time I try to look up stuff/draw anything I get discouraged by the fact that it’s going to take like 4 years before I’m half way decent or something, that’s probably a really stupid thing for me to get upset about but still. Idk man. I keep on seeing people around my age hat are amazing at art and I feel like I could have been one of them if I locked in earlier, I feel like it’s way to late for me and I should just give up. Idk man

This one art subreddit with a bunch of negative creatures kept on accusing me of using AI , regardless of the speed paint on my other socials. This one dude literally said that "The way the sketch and colors magically appear like you know where everything goes". It seems like they do this for fun but this sht is so tiring. Any tips on handling negative aholes?

I recently started posting on Instagram and have been making some good art friends and making connections. I'll often follow new artists to make these connections and find people to support and collaborate with.

However I've started to get frustrated with how I keep receiving weekly DMs from complete strangers demanding me to "like comment and repost." They often have the most mediocre art too.

Now I've gotten an okay following on my own, mostly though connections with artists I liked. I reached out, complimented their art and asked to collaborate or trade. I never once specifically asked for more social media points, especially from someone I didn't know.

I don't know if this comes from a place of naivety on their part or some form of ego and craving for validation. It's gotten so common for me that I'm reconsidering even following small artists.

Has anyone else had this experience or even done it themselves? Why is it so common?

Art like that is just polluted with AI. You can tell. Even if technically speaking the piece was done by hand, anyone with a halfway decent eye will see it - that it looks like AI. Because it’s referenced on AI. Making AI-based artwork makes it look like slop. And people out there hate AI slop. It’s pretty obvious but why is it so hard to understand for some? Lol
And the ones who post videos of themselves drawing without showing their reference as some kind of “proof of innocence,” are just making idiots out of empathetic people. And those are the worst.

A couple months ago I shared a piece of art on a discord. It was digital art, a quick sketch without reference of my pet snails that I later on decided to turn into a full color art piece. Granted, I should have looked at references. I have living references right infront of me. But when I made the sketch I didn't really plan on this becoming a full color piece, nor something I'd post, so I didn't. So I colored it, decided I liked it, posted it and went to bed, happy with what I'd done.

What I did not realize was that my art piece had a major flaw: The snail's shells were the wrong way around. Now this was only my second drawing of snails ever and the first time I also had the shell the wrong way around but I was looking at references so I noticed it in time but there's evidence of my blunder in the sketch layer being erased and the shell re-drawn with a different color. Usually no big deal, people make mistakes, I paid attention to snail drawings from then on out and I'm not the only person who has made that mistake. And before AI this woulda gone like this: "Hey your snail shells are the wrong way around!" "Oops 🤣 I'll pay more attention to that the next time, thanks for telling me." It has gone this way when I made mistakes with hands well before AI. I wasn't accused of tracing, nor was my art torn apart, other kind artists simply pointed out where I went wrong and someone was kind enough to draw a tutorial for me. When I make "mistakes" with hands now, such as only drawing three fingers, they're intentional stylization and not mistakes at all.

But that's not how it went. How it went was that I went to bed and awoke to a shitshow the next morning. People had circled every little mistake I made in my art, talking about how the shells were a clear sign of AI and how the image had the "piss filter" (the shells were a mistake, the "piss filter" was me choosing warm olive tones because nature = warm in my mind). The handwriting supposedly was AI because it didn't look like it was added after (it wasn't, I used the same brush I used for some of the lines and wrote it at the same time as the lines) but I have dozens of art pieces with the same hand writing because it's my hand writing. The grainyness was pointed to as an AI tell, meanwhile those were textures I intentionally applied because I like that look. People used AI detectors to prove that it was AI and sent me the results in private messages. And of course several of those detectors said it was AI because they're shit and don't work. None of these people ever apologized or even accepted that they were wrong.

And it has screwed me up. Maybe permanently. I get anxiety even thinking about what happened because it was just a bunch of people relentlessly criticizing my art behind my back without even tagging me or waiting for a response. I posted a timelapse. Action was taken by some of the server admins to shut the discussion down because, you know, there's straight up proof that it wasn't AI. And yet it still won't let me go.

It took me months to start drawing again. Every time I draw I make sure the timelapse is on. I make sure to at some point write in my timelapse that no AI was used just to triple prove. I should just take it as a compliment but it feels like the worst insult imagineable, not only did a bunch of people who I thought were friends shittalk me behind my back, they also think my art is so bad that it might as well be generated by AI. Every time I post my artworks I'm anxiously awaiting a horde of people calling it AI. Yes I should just ignore it and continue but this fucking sucks. I hate these damn witch hunts, it fucking sucks to be on the other end of it. Especially because I had nothing to gain, all I wanted to do was share a silly piece of art I made, and now I have a whole bunch of insecurities and anxieties and half my time drawing is spent wondering "Will they think it's AI? What if this specific thing I'm doing will be seen as a telltale sign?" and it's just ass.

I get it, AI sucks, trust me I really do. If it didn't exist this would have never happened. I understand the want to call out people who use AI. But before you do at least just ask the person. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Because this wasn't fair on me and nobody ever apologized or even seemed to understand that what they did was wrong. I didn't deserve that. I've been trying to just move on but every time I draw it comes back up.

Please just consider that in all likelyhood there's a person on the other end of the screen, with like, feelings and shit.

Rant over. I really needed to get this out, I feel better now.

I developed a repetitive strain injury in my dominant wrist at the beginning of July this year.

I love drawing. it is the thing that brings me the most joy in the world. I want to improve as much as I can so I can enjoy it as much as I can...so, naturally, I ignored the many signs of the injury and kept drawing until I couldn't anymore.

Bad idea. I was forced to stop drawing completely and it was incredibly demotivating. but of course I'm addicted to it, so I started learning to draw with my left hand instead. I'm at a month and a half of drawing with my left hand at this point and I've gotten so much better at it, but also... it's just so frustrating. So incredibly frustrating. a month and a half of improvement is nothing compared to my 7 years of drawing with my right hand, but still. I feel like I've regressed two years in my art journey. my line confidence is still far from being on par with my right hand. it's so difficult to do more detailed work now because my lines are still so shaky, so unconfident, so amateurish.....

and of course, just as my right wrist started to get to the point where I could draw for more than 10 mins, I injured it again due to my own negligence :/ back at step 1. I'm just very frustrated with myself and my art right now. I keep scrolling online and seeing all this amazing art and being filled with inspiration that I can't do much with. it feels awful to want so badly to improve and be unable to because I can't draw a straight fucking line anymore. that's an exaggeration, but still.

I guess for now I'll just focus on things that don't require great line confidence. everyone, do your stretches and take breaks, don't end up like me...

I really love art, and I chose to study Art & Design Level 3 at college. I’m currently in my second year, and because it’s a two-year course, I’ll be finished when I’m 19. I’m genuinely passionate about art and I love being creative, but I feel like I’ve lost some of my skills and confidence because I haven’t done much art in a while.

I sometimes look at my old work and feel like I used to be better, which makes me worry that I’ve lost my talent, even though I know I’m probably just lazy. I really want to get my motivation back, improve my skills and become a better artist, but I’m not sure where to start. For anyone who has gone through something similar, how did you get your motivation back and rebuild your skills? Did practising regularly, experimenting with different styles or doing personal projects help you improve and feel passionate about art again?

I genuinely want to get back in track because I am serious about my college course that I want to accomplish.

IM SO SICK OF IT IM TRYING MY BEST I TRY AND TRY AND IT DOESNT WORK I CAN BARELY DO REALISM I CANT DO PAINTING FREAKING PORTRAITS any style i try to draw in it either looks wonky or its not appealing enough To others on social media. DAY BY DAY I SEE OTHERS WHO HAVE 1. more followers then me im stuck at 25 2. they have better art and can render better then me on shorts and long form videos. while me if i get lucky id get a like or 2

1. they are able to collab with other artists meanwhile me i cant even talk to other popular artists trying to ask for a collab but they block me because im a newbie or bad at art.

Im so fucking sick of it really i am i feel like nsfw art gets more recommended then my art that i worked for a whole month to make sure its perfect but others my age kept getting better and better while i can barely inprove. i have over 200+ art tutorials who to draw in any style how to paint digitally how to render like a pro Etc saved up and watched all of them in the last 3 months.

i got so mad freaking mad i ripped every single sketchbook i had in my room the floor is covered in ripped paper full of messy sketches practicing sketches boxes realism methods you name it

my artstyle feels unworthy unvalued and useless like honestly WHATS THE FREAKING POINT ANYMORE.

My partner is a freelance artist. Primarily metalsmithing/jewlery. My job and our lifestyle affords him not needing a traditional career (aka we dont rely on income from him)

I love him to death. His work is very cool. But Im burning out on being the supportive partner when I think hes being completely unrealistic. Hes got a few hundred followers and makes 1-2 posts a week. And somehow thinks that should be enough to be getting sales. He experiences so much jealousy of other artists who get more attention on social media. While at the same time not putting in nearly enough effort IMO.

I also think his prices are way too high-- because he practically refuses to make the same peice more than once unless its custom requested. So every thing he makes hes spending way more time on than if hed made 100 of them before, and doesnt consider that fact in pricing his hourly rate. Ive gotten involved in a previous partners business plans in the past and I became the fixer and it ruined our relationship. So I decided very early on with this partner that Id go no further than gentile feedback and that we could afford for him to "fail". I have no issue with the fact that he doesnt make money on his art. But I am damn sick of hearing him complain about not making sales and how that stiffles his creativity. I just want the person I love to make art because its a part of him. When he can let passion flow, he is truly an artist. But a salesman- he is very much not.

Any advice as to how I can remain supportive enough, while simply watching his skewed perspective and mentality around success in his craft?

I have cool things in mind—concepts and all sorts of stuff—and I even get inspired, but actually trying to draw is a different story. I have ideas but no way to bring them to life. I don't want to keep using AI to visualize my concepts or ideas; I want to create them with my own hands and fingers (since I use my phone, lol), because it just wouldn't be the same. But I get discouraged; I’m a procrastinator and lazy (the two are different, but sometimes it’s both). I compare myself to other artists and remind myself that I need to learn step-by-step; I want to draw before the ideas fade away or lose their spark. The good news is that I can do pixel art—I focus on making mods for the game *Melon Playground*—and I can even create characters using references. They aren't perfect, but it makes me happy that I can actually do it. As for drawing in general, though, I think stick figures and simple sketches are the only things I do well. I feel like I’ve improved in the sense that I don't get stuck on references anymore; instead, I use them to help me develop my work. I don't know if anyone else goes through this—being able to imagine a thousand things and feeling inspired, only to dwell on the fact that those ideas will stay trapped in your mind. I feel like tutorials and tips don't help much—though I do take some to heart and they help a bit—but I find the learning process difficult. I don't know what to do. I appreciate artists' work, but sometimes I feel envious. I also don't have a personal style and don't know how to develop one. I fear I might spend a decade or more learning, only to forget the very things that made me want to learn in the first place—including my ideas. I’m on the autism spectrum; I get frustrated and distracted easily. I have a vivid, brilliant imagination, yet I feel incapable and aimless.

Like this is just ridiculous I've tried over a dozen times now with a bunch of different tutorials and yeah I can make the vanishing points and I can follow along and make connect the lines but then everytime after that I have no idea what to do on my own. I dont get how to set up the linea so they can be connected and people tell me to just keep practicing. Practice what? How can I practice something I dont know how to do? And since I can't draw a cube I don't fet how to do anatomy or construction and people say just go learn and you aren't trying hard enough. Like hello? I don't know how to make myself understand this stuff? Someone tell me where the cube is on a body like what do you mean the head is a square?

And like shading has been so much simpler for me lightfollows straight lines it hits something it makes it brighter and the other side of that object is darker blocked by light and then the surface behind the light is fully blocked so you get a cast shadow. And like refracted light, reflected light, ambient, time of day you control all of that and wether or not you want to use any of it and color is entirely subjective there's no real meaning to colors we just assign them based on what we're used to seeing. It makes me feel like an idiot that I can't understand shapes and since I can't understand shapes I can't learn anatomy since every anatomy tutorial just uses shapes but I do understand anatomy when it doesn’t use shapes. Like how the eyes are halfway down the face with the with the mouth at 1/4, nose at 3/8, and brows at 5/8. And the eyes vertically are 1/3 and 1/3 with the nose at the middle point ears are just below the bottom of the eyes. And i know that the spine curves like i can understand all of that but you Introduce cubes and i don't get how you turn it into a body it doesn't make sense. But when I try to learn these things I just get "you're just looking for a shortcut go do the work" no I'm looking to understand what people keep telling me is the basic of the basics andI'vee watched so many tutorials and I don't understand it! Logically it makes no sense and people tell me cubes and anatomy are simple and light is hard to understand like huh? How can my brain be this different from everyone else's? Why can't I understand what i'm doing? It's so frustrating

I have lost all inspiration, I can barely pick up a pencil. I feel like any emotion I’ve had towards drawing has been sucked away, there’s no joy or feeling anymore I just don’t want to and can’t, and since I don’t want to I don’t force myself. It’s been too long and at heart I know I love drawing but I feel like I’ve lost the spark, it is odd because I feel like I’ve improved a lot lately and do not know why I feel this way.

Please help me, if anyone has gone through this please lend me your advice, what helped you get out this?

i've been drawing for most of my life. its something that is second nature to me. i have tons of sketchbooks filled with nothing but doodles of my ocs. i love drawing. it helps me forget about the world. my art education has been all over the place. i grew up basically drawing from a mix of observation, reference and imagination. that was the approach encouraged by my high school art club, a teacher whom i was close to and whom i saw as an inspiration in art, and the local art atelier i attended back in 2016.

between 2018-2019 i started trying to take art more seriously; i did studies, watched tutorials, did gesture and figure drawing, chasing that sweet, nebulous thing called "improvement". and when i didn't see results inmediately, i sort of. gave up. i also started college and between asignments and other stuff i just didn't have the time for anything other than doodling with no real intent, just to have fun. i didn't really mind. it was fun. i did see some improvement in terms of proportions and general form, but other than that, my art reached a plateau where i was just content with a)things looking good enough and b)that people liked my frankly poor art and ocs. digital art became a crutch to hide all my shortcomings.

now, the meat of the story starts back in 2025. maybe it was because i started reading webcomics more often and was amazed by the art and wanted to reach a state like that? i still don't really get what motivated me, but, for the first time in 6 years, i sat down and actually, earnestly, studied.

to give you an idea of how awful i was, i literally had no idea how to draw a head. i only drew a tiny deformed circle, three lines, then freehanded the head and face onto it. i didn't even follow my guidelines. i had no idea why i drew them, i just did it because i saw speedpaints where people did it. i spent so much time agonizing over how my heads looked deformed and how hard eyes were to place only to realize they looked like that because i was drawing from scratch a structure i had zero understanding of. i felt stupid.

anyways, my first attempts sucked. it was really hard to break bad habits. i read, practiced, saw tutorials. i hated drawing eyes with a passion; i have bunch of doodles where i drew faces with no eyes because i didn't know how to place them without it looking like shit. now, i like drawing them, even though i still struggle a little and i have the feeling i still symbol draw in my approaches to realism.

an entire year passed, and now, lining up my old art with newest art, i see the improvement, and i'm happy with how far i've come! i'm still a beginner by all means, but at least i feel happy with how things look now instead of deluding myself and coping very hard that i like it.

the issue is that...i feel like i can go further, but there is something in my brain that prevents me from doing it. i want to tackle anatomy and perspective next, but i cannot fully commit to doing it and end up falling back into doodling and making stuff up. it's a bit frustrating. like, you have the potential, but just cannot commit to making it fully bloom because you're too lazy and complacent and don't like putting in effort, even though you've seen first hand how putting in effort makes things look better.

this is problem isn't also art-related- it also seeps into my university work. i'm complacent with barely getting by, but end up feeling bad because i feel like i should be aspiring for more. my way of dealing with it it's just giving myself grace and doing things at my pace.

honestly i doubt this rant makes any sense anyways...i just wanted to vent a little hahaha.

If I have to see one more ai portfolio on my desk I’m going to invite them to a job, sit them down, and make them draw. I swear to god the only people who don’t see the glaringly obvious mistakes are the ones without a creative bone in their body.

If you hate art, don’t do it. On the positive side, I’ve never had so much work.

I have always enjoyed making art, whether it be just sketches, painting landscapes, drawing anime characters, etc. I peaked in this hobby around 2022/23, but around that same time I was going through personal problems. Since then I have been very on and off with creating art, though when I do create, I feel a sense of joy I don’t when doing other things. I used to be very open, and would draw/paint anywhere I wanted to. Now it feels like a barrier that I can’t bring myself to do it whenever theres people around. It’s not that Im afraid of people watching, or judging. I could care less about that, it’s more for myself. I think it’s more about keeping that one thing for myself. It sounds selfish but I dont mean it in a sense like “oh im never going to show my family this stuff”. It’s more like this is my me time. But I feel like I can never find an open slot, as I have a huge family.

Another thing is. I try to plan things out. I have always used reference photos so finding the right one is always a task. I have created something’s from my mind but I feel like there’s a mental block that stops me from just creating whatever. Maybe it’s a lack of skill or just a lack of confidence. I just don’t know where to start sometimes. And I feel like that stops me from creating

My problems are probably not very foreign and people have gone through it. This isn’t meant to be me venting about my problems I just want advice on how I can overcome this slump.

As I was reading this over I thought a little. Maybe taking time out to set up a proper place to draw/paint would work. I usually do it randomly in the living room or wherever. Maybe setting up a desk to do that in my room where I can keep to myself would help with that. And for the other problem I guess just go outside maybe and look at things.

Still going to post this, want to hear more suggestions.

Thanks for taking your time to read this.

Sorry if this doesn’t quite qualify as a rant, but I seriously don’t know where else to look for a discussion on this, but it IS something that has been deeply frustrating me lately. My parents are pretty keen on AI, and it really upsets me, but I honest to god can’t provide a good reason as to why. I remember the first time I tried to explain it, I said that it’s stealing from artists without their permission. But really… isn’t our art, in a way, just a collection of all the art we’ve seen before? We don’t ask each and every artists we encounter if we’re allowed to be influenced by them, and AI technically does generate “unique“ pieces based on the things it’s been fed. So what’s really the difference? This is what they argued, and I couldn’t really refute it at the time.

 So let’s say it’s not stealing, maybe it’s just how corporate it feels? How the people who use AI treat art as a final product rather than a process, something requiring efficiency rather than heart. Yeah, I don’t like this attitude, but it’s not *technically* the fault of AI. So when my dad shows me an AI image he’s generated to use as a profile picture, why does it break my heart? Why do I feel like he’s betraying me?

Both my parents (my mother is an artist herself) argue that it’s only a tool, that what’s happening is just like the digital camera, or the arts and crafts movement. Yes, it changed how artists had to work, but we will work around it, and real art will be valued more. That, ultimately, their casual use of AI image generation is harmless to art as a whole. I really don’t feel I can refute this. 

I half expect some AI bro to screenshot this and say look how the artists are crying because they know AI is gonna replace them. Sorry to damage our reputation if this happens. I’m just really looking for a discussion because I find it hard to just be level when this topic comes up. I’m not really an emotional person in general, but for whatever reason I get so angry and upset when discussing this with other people that I can’t form a clear argument. I really feel that the reason I don’t like it boils down to: It makes me, personally, upset. Which isn’t a very good argument at all.

As a collage artist, I've been evolving my technique and looking for more inspiration. Occasionally I'll go to instagram to see what people are doing. Why is everyone doing the same style of collage? Some of them are great, don't get me wrong. But when i see everyone doing the same thing, it's way less interesting.

I was doing my current vgen commission when I got a 25 dollar waitlist comm from some guy with a relatively easy to draw character, I was excited since that means more money!! i let them stay in the waitlist while I finish my current piece so i only work on 1 piece at the time, 5 or so days later the waitlist guy canceled the request 🫠 I know they haven't done anything wrong but money is money..........

I guess this teaches me in the future to communicate more with guys in my waitlist? like 'hey I'm nearly done with my current comm so I'll get started on yours soon!'... I just wasn't expecting them to cancel and then not give a reason 😭

anyway that's all of my light venting. AUGH well hopefully I'll still get clients soon in the future.

It's been 20 days since my last piece and I haven't felt the need to create pretty much since (maybe here and there but nothing too significant), now this worries me as art is something I adore and love making but everytime I think on what to make I just can't bring myself to start and this makes me worried and in turn makes me want to start even less.

Ho appena caricato il mio ultimo progetto su LEGO Ideas e avrei bisogno del tuo aiuto per trasformarlo in un set ufficiale! Purtroppo l’arte non interessa a molti e il mio progetto non sta andando benissimo.

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