If You're Not Doing What You Love, You're Wasting Your Time.
“I'm a 3D Generalist based out of Atlanta, GA. Coming from a Film & Television background, the transition to 3D was seamless, as I had prior knowledge of lighting/composition and camera settings. I've been lucky enough to pursue this passion on my own time as a freelancer, booking contracted jobs with major companies such as Adidas, Microsoft, Home Depot, Crocs, etc.”
Patrick Foley
I knew from a pretty young age that I could not work a regular 9-5 job (even in a creative industry). I build my following over the course of 2-3 years, being consistent on social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. The only real challenging part of building a following is the constant posting (1 per day) over a long term period. However, if you're into it the way you should be, it should not be a problem. I was balancing a full college schedule and working all while building, so there is really no excuse. Not only has "everydays" been beneficial for the following, but also for my skill level, pushing myself to create new things and learn new techniques daily.
There are a few things that to me, are a must when building a platform for yourself in the art community. Using proper and strategic hashtags, being consistent with your posting, creating unique content, and making sure your work is, of course, good (which should not be an issue if you push yourself to learn and create every day).
If in college or any type of setting, communicate with people. Reach out and network, because these people will literally be your future associates. Don't just congregate with people in your major, make allies with people from different industries.
"If you're not doing what you love, you're wasting your time." - Billy Joel
Diko M
I’ve always wanted to get featured on other blogs and honestly never thought i would get featured. I never thought my photo manipulation skills were good enough. But I guess I was wrong. Never doubt yourself, you never know what your art means to the people. Everyone sees things differently. Art touches everyone differently and moves different emotions. But yeah, there is no perfect art, just art. So I just ignored my constant need to get featured and focused on working on how I really felt in my art, and I guess that’s what touched people and motivated them to feature some of my work.
For a new digital artist, I’d say engage, be constant, and it’s about quality not quantity. Take your time with your art, don’t be hasty with it. Appreciate it, love it, finish it very carefully. I think for new digital artists it's very tempting to keep thinking about the followers and likes they want to receive. Trust me, the best way to reach more people, is by giving it all in your art, don’t hold out. Engage with other artists and tell them what you think of their work. Tell them that they inspire you because artists are for each other and it shouldn’t be a competition. I’ve shared a lot of tips with other artists and others have given me so much to learn from. Help each other out, give to receive. In a nutshell; Practice, engage with the community and most of all, love what you are creating. The BEST way to gain exposure is to engage with the community. I did, and now almost all of the artists on Instagram are my friends now. We share each other’s work all the time. That’s how you grow.
If I had to do it all over again, I guess there’s nothing I would change. I don’t think there is anything to change really... you just keep growing. Slowly but surely.
The best advice I’ve received is to be constant in quality, doesn’t matter how many artworks you post a day, you can post weekly and you’d have more engagement. It all depends on the effort you put in your art. For me, art keeps me sane. I believe my work is a reflection of me, a part of me, and people have to see that.
To get more exposure, I get featured on may big pages. We are a community on IG, we all appreciate each other’s work, and love to share it in our stories.
Reach out to artists and they’ll reach out to you. Maybe create some art inspired by another artist and tag them in it, tell them it’s inspired by them. And they’ll most probably be happy about it and share it too. But I think the most important thing is to be yourself in your art, don’t try to imitate other artists, be the unique personality that you are and project that in your visuals.
“I’ve started visual arts only around 6 months ago, and I think the surrealism that is seen in my work is a reflection of what’s going on inside me.“
“I'm a Geological Engineering student and with it, I'm a freelancer 3D designer.”
Sarper
It's hard to create a community who likes your art and effort. It must be different, unique, and soulful, and most importantly, with all of these things, you must create art consistently.
I use hashtags which include pages that may feature and promote my work once for a month. I also promote it not for my "Heroes," but I promote them for people who might love 3D designs like photographers, illustrators and such because as a 3D artist my expectations are high for liking and following an artist.
Know your place and take actions with it. For a beginner, patients must be the key to success. Keep creating your art and believe it has potential. Do not stop learning and develop yourself daily.
Find the right inspiration. For me, music always hits me from my heart. I can't create anything without listening to music, that's my motivation for creating! Additionally, I always check out other artist's post every second, because seeing how good others are inspires me to be better, so I check tons of art pieces for inspiration.
Dream away from yourself. Keep your heartbeat up for creating those dreams. And dream daily.
Denis Sheckler
I started creating and posting new artwork every day to my Instagram, then, through using hashtags, my work started to get noticed and reposted by some great accounts.
In each collage, I try to add some objects which will get some resonance with social problems, but sometimes I make just those things that I love (without social problems, just the beauty of 3D objects, shapes, etc).
Search pictures from Instagram account from great artists and try to inspire from their works. Use the right hashtags that describe your artwork. Use your own prime-time!
In search of inspiration, I am looking through thousands of photos and pictures and listen to experimental music. As I see it these days, where we’re all constantly inundated with images, there is a common tendency, where even the most beautiful photographs with a variety of dialed parameters (exposure, composition, color correction, etc.) do not attract the proper attention, therefore it is necessary to invent something original, funky, and sometimes absurd things, which will make people look at the art of photography in a new way, so i create my artworks as a vision of creativity as it is.
Never stop creating!
My favorite profiles are @slimesunday, @circlecirclemath, @sarashakeel.
“I am a digital collage artist from Moscow, Russia, my real name is Denis. I love to create collages or funky images in Photoshop since 2012.”