Professional Artists?

[Dr Legostar]

If my comic wasn't a dead giveaway I'm not an artist by trade. In fact I'm a Neuroscientist by profession.

[Mvmarcz]

I think you'll really like the art ed programs out there- you are still getting a BFA Bachelors in Fine Arts and can go on to get your masters in Fine Arts or like I hope to do, Masters in Art Education. There is no doctorate in Fine Arts, but there is in Art Education.

And besides...what other art career gives you such wonderful vacations?

yeah I want to get a masters in art ed and a doctorate if I can. Also I want to have kids so the summers will be very good.

[P-Frank]

Storyboarding and animation seem to be the areas where comics people can work as professionals and actually earn money. I can recommend SCAD if you want to get into studying comics, my girlfriend (who draws the comic I write, Combustible Orange, plug plug) goes there and loves it. Workload is high though Her major is Sequential Art.

[Swikan]

My hubby is a SCAD graduate, P-Frank. They didn't have sequential art when he was there. (He was in the 3rd or 4th class to graduate from SCAD, in fact. )

[Dutch!]

I took one look at the Art students at my local uni and knew there weren't enough wild horses in the entire Australian outback to drag me into that sort of degree.

I did do a six month unit on art while at Uni though. It was part of my third year Education course, to go along with my Writing and History Bachelor of Arts (which is just the other few letters that officially follow my name but I don't bother mentioning). This art unit involved painting on big pieces of butchers paper, making a little picture story book and other stuff like making rhinoceri out of whatever we could. That's REAL art and craft!

I use some of that stuff in my profession though. Draw a picture on the board, draw a quick cartoon to tell a story, etc...

Has anyone else here taught the skill of subtraction trading using their comic's characters? No?

Cheers.

[Mo]

You know, I still hesitate to call myself a professional artist even though I have worked as a freelance illustrator for professionals in the field with stuff that has been used and published... I have always had another dayjob and I haven't had enough comissions yet to varify calling me professional, I guess. Oh, I have also substituted in teaching art classes.
I do have a graphic design / illustration degree, but it's probably different from the degrees in other countries so... I dunno.

This much I know, if you're going to go freelance, your success depends equally on skills and initiative. If I'd used more time and energy to take initiative, get my portfolio out there, let people know who I am and what I do, I am quite sure I would've had much more comissions by now. Instead I've been wasting time hanging out with you guys.

So, initiative is important. Also, discipline, the biggest problem for most hobby artist. And like Komi said... don't expect to make a ton of money. Although, with that book illustration job I had last year, I worked on it about 1-2 weeks fulltime (spread over a 5-6 weeks period) and earned enough to live off it about 4 months. Unfortunately, that kind of comission doesn't happen all that often, nor do I know whether it would be as well paid in the USA.

Man, I sure could use a good illustration job right now...