Hey! Happy pumpkin day! 🎃 Today's topic is a ramble, but it's a healthy ramble I think and it could prevent aspiring pixel artist from turning their passion for it into an unhealthy career.
First let me just link my portfolio to show that I'm probably at least a somewhat credible person to listen to.
What got me into pixel art?
Why did I try my hand at pixel art? Well I started around year 2014 or 2015 and originally I was into indie game development, so naturally I needed some kind of accessible art form to use for my game. Pixel art seemed the easiest to come by. I ended up publishing a small arena game, but with terrible pixel art graphics. I was actually embarrassed about it that I ended up just deleting it! It was honestly kind of fun though.
Why did I try to full-time it?
Because I wasn't satisfied with the art for my little 2-week developed game, I wanted to improve my pixel art style. This took many years (and is still ongoing), and part of the reason for that was because most of my days I'd have to work a regular job (such as factory or cashier jobs) full-time and only off work is when I'd practice drawing pixel art with a PC and mouse. I also always had analysis paralysis over choosing more stable career paths, but enjoyed making pixel art, so in the meantime I'd usually be putting pixels on the screen. Eventually, it started to get to a point where I thought my pixel art skills could be marketable to game developers and this was a turning point where a few times I tried quitting normal jobs a few times to try pixel art full-time.
The hard reality (for ME, but maybe not for you)
I've always assumed that "following your passion" was the way to go. At least that's what I would often hear from internet gurus while growing up in my 20s, but the reality for me is that it's just very hard to make any profit at all from pixel art, even after many years. Now I'm not claiming to be a business/marketing expert and neither am I claiming to be an artist who can skillfully draw or animate anything I ever want, but the very first obstacle is already the biggest struggle: I usually just can't find any work. I've tried building an art portfolio, I've tried listing my contact info on my portfolio and social media. I've tried Upwork (a freelance site), I've tried Discord, I've tried forums, I've even screen recorded a video of my animated portfolio as my pinned message on social media... but I usually just can't find work and I don't know what to tell you. I'm not even trying to sound bitter, but I'm not exaggerating either so it might sound like I am. I can go months without a single art job that pays a livable hourly wage.
It might sound like im frustrated (and it kind of is honestly), but I'm not just trying to rant and guilt trip everyone into giving me their wallets. I'm sharing the truth about what it has been like to pursue pixel art as a career like my whole life depends on it.
There's less freedom than you might think
Pixel art is fun and games when it's off work and you can choose if and how you want to do it, but you lose that freedom when it becomes your job. That's already a big difference and you might not realize it until you've lived it long enough. Instead, when it's 24/7, it becomes the only thing you're allowed to do, Gary Vaynerchuk-style, and you can't say "no" anymore to just do something else for fun. Want to practice Guitar? "Nah, I have to work on my art portfolio". Want to learn C++? "No, practicing some UI design" Want to try 3D modelling? "Nope, I gotta animate my 2D sprite here". Want to read this book here? "Nope, drawing". Pixel art becomes the priority over everything else.
Isolation
That just covers losing time for other activities. The other issue hard to ignore is you start to feel like you live under a lonely rock. Socializing is less frequent, love is less frequent. You basically become a pixel art workaholic and all the small talk you know enough to talk about is pixel art because you forget everything else in the world.
Summary
Pixel art is a fun hobby, but life offers a variety of hobbies, skills to learn, and relationships to live a fulfilling life, but making pixel art your career can take a lot of that away. I would say keep that normal job of yours and don't be ashamed of it for now. Not until you see enough signs that you can live off of pixel art alone AND you are comfortable with that. I don't think money is worth anything if you just end up grinding all the time.
I don't plan on quitting pixel art/animation anytime soon, but sometimes I genuinely wish miss the freedom I use to have back when I was just a humble cashier. I wanted to share insight of what I do today, and the hard, unmentioned, reality of it so you don't feel ashamed of your normal 9-5 job and quit like I did. "Ashamed" is literally how I felt, but I really do emphasize that it is not nearly a strong enough reason to quit and do pixel art as a career. No way! That's all I got for this post, but happy pixelling anyway!