For me it's more that people can't comprehend that you can't walk into a gallery and just display your art, or sell it for a bajillion dollars with zero effort.

My family is basically all of the mindset that I'm not trying, because I haven't waltzed into a gallery and demanded they put my doodles on their window front. They believe I'm not making any effort because I don't sell prints of random doodles by the droves.

I think that's unfortunately a comment misconception.

Edit: Oh, and the classic "why aren't you selling these on t-shirts, everyone would buy them, you need to try!"

Well, the closest experience for me was telling my mom how much I make off my comics on patreon and hearing a kinda condescending "Well, you can't really live off of that." with "Why are you wasting time on this?" kinda implied in response. But sharing something I'm excited about with her and getting "But why aren't you doing X instead?" in response in nothing new to me...

it happens from time to time, I had a coworker ask "then why do you bother?" and I found that to be such a weird answer, as if it all comes down to it. Sure I would love to get paid for some of my artistic stuff, but not getting paid isnt that much of a demotivator.

My immediate family knows how I don't get paid for making comics and how any income is usually tips or commissions. as for other folks like coworkers or even my boss who I've mentioned that I'm working on a comic to I'm suddenly curious (tbh i'd be pissed if that's what's contributing to my crap hours)

But even as a beginner artists this was never really my mindset coz i figured the only folks really making money were those working for a publisher or something. Of course I've learned more being inside the art community/space so there's a lot more context

But i think for non artists or people who aren't art enjoyers themselves either assume we're making butt-loads of money (hence some of the weird mindsets of ai people) or that we're broke (in tandem with the starving artist stereotype)

I've definitely encountered the "oh why not approach a gallery types" especialy since we've got a few of those in the area but like there's a process (one i wouldn't mind insight on) but it's kinda weird the conclusions people jump to

Still tho I think I've encountered the "that's not a real job" or "you'll never get money for that" crowd a lot more than folks who'd assume i'm getting paid for anything

All the money TSFI makes goes straight to Burd's pockets... specifically since I have a hard time splitting the rev. I was like "screw it, you just take it".

It's a little awkward talking about that with family members. THAT and the fact that I work for free whenever animators need help. My Mom's like "YOU SHOULD BE CHARGING THOSE ANIMATORS, MIJO!". There are two people that do offer me cash. One is currently promising pay (seeing how that turns out), the other straight up offered me money (I turned it down like an idiot for a reason so dumb, I don't want to get into). But other than that yeah... my parents are always like "You getting paid yet?".

It's the opposite for me.
My partner told me not to be surprised for not getting any monies from doing this

And it was true

I experience the opposite a lot. People don’t usually believe that I draw comics for a living. When I answer the question “What do you do?” with “I write and draw comics” i usually get questions like “but, like, what do you do for money?” or “well, what’s your day job?”

It really took a long time for my family to not worry about what I was doing and they’ve only in the last five years stopped asking me if I needed some cash or if I needed to get hooked up with a job.

I don't think they do, but the other older people around me either expect me to materialize sales out of thin air, or they view it as being irresponsible with time or money, or an illegitimate pursuit. It's as if people are completely blind to the scope of my focus even if I put the physical pages in front of them I think, because they would just assume it was easy to do. I get that maybe it's surprising that I could put so much attention to a single task each and every day, but every time i've tried to stress I can't meet my goals balancing a soul draining dead end job and the time and energy needed to meet my goals, I just get scoffed at. To me, a chapter and a half a year is unacceptable for a comic expected to drive into the hundreds, but that's all I managed to accomplish for a near decade. Somehow I still seem to get that strange attitude even from other artists even when I bring it up. I don't know why.

In the end I can't really blame them despite the fact that it gets tiresome. To a point it's useless trying to force the issue even though i'm stuck explaining the same old thing every time it seems to get brought up. Quarreling with the need to feel a sense of worth via monetary value has been one of the most soul crushing things, because I know in my heart of hearts that's all people look at even if I myself don't honestly believe that's the only way value should be derived.

Do I wish I could make money of any kind? Of course. It's natural that when someone puts in enough work they expect some return and i'm no exception. It's silly to think you should be given something for anything you do, but naturally seeing the ridiculous levels of time and energy dumped into one thing people are confused thinking i'm sitting on a hill of gold that I am pissing away, and not the hunk of lead I believe it to be.

Sorry this one's a sore spot!

I do make money off my series and the looks I've gotten have been more of shock that I'm essentially running a small business than anything else. Out of all my IRL writer friends I can only think of three, aside from my brother, who has published anything. The writer friends look at me shocked that I've published and regular people look at me confused/shocked because they've never even heard of what I do.

That is sooo true. It is more like a business. And all money you make you have to reinvest like any other business...

Oh yeah. My business would be doing much better if I invested more money into it, but I need the savings more. It's a really tough spot to be in.

yea, I try not to tell people I make comics at a loss. I actually tend to lie and tell them I make some cash off it otherwise I'll get the "if you're not making money you're wasting your time" from my family lmao i dont have the patience to deal with that anymore

My mom recently found out what I do, I'm writing a BL novel and working on a commission to draw characters with horns and wings xD and the same thing happened to me as most of the comments. But this isn't what I do for a living, because I know it won't be easy - at least my chances are minuscule - I don't see it as likely.

Once the commission is over, I'll go back to where I started. I do this for motivation, because I love to write and draw. But at least, I am gaining experience and I will try in different ways. There will be another client somewhere who wants my services... I hope so....

About the commission, my mom even gives me feedback. She didn't know that I drew attractive people with abs. 🤣🤣️

"You're a really good artist, why aren't you doing that instead?"

"No one wanted to give me any money for the art they liked."

While i've gone over whether I should change my publishing schedule, I said "No!!" Because it's not that easy. It changes the experience for readers, it takes away the time I need to do editing if something is wrong or something can be done better, and I can't get an understanding of how pages flow together when they are posted (essentially) as they are done week to week. Does it sacrifice viewership? Sure does, but I'll get there when I get there. At this point there's no mulligans for things that look bad or sound awkward though, so getting it done the best I can is more important.

Anyway I really appreciate it!

People that i know IRL don't even know that i write anything

I'd say that people who have no insight into this matter then how would they know? Some would only do this and that if they'd get some financial gain from everything. I mean, I can understand where they're coming from. I mean for people who don't decide to write a novel/draw a comic they cannot imagine the amount of work and there would be many who wouldn't move their finger in their free time to devote themselves to a project like that. Many people do dream about getting into drawing comics and imagine how we drop now all work, just do our thing and we get paid for that So the imagination versus reality is completely different.

I've gotten to a point where I hate to show my art to people because I'll get a million suggestions on what I should be doing with my art to make money, all of which are just nonsense.

For me it's kind of strange because I do get paid for my art generally, I do comissions, a lot of conventions in artist alleys, I have a couple of people on patreon, an online store with a friend and I hope to eventually make print versions of my comic and sell them online and at conventions, but I don't get paid for my comic yet, which is very difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't really grasped how crowdfunding self publishing works.

My parents are supportive but aren't quite sure why I'm making my comic available online for free if I eventually intend to sell it, and why I don't pitch it to traditionnal publishing (I've yet to explain the dire publishing situation for comics in my country plus the fact that my native language is english so any pitch would inevitably be a translated to french version) because though it's not a slam dunk, the people I've talked to in the industry say it would be possible with the right pitch. Other than that people who aren't in the art world tend to assume I'm not getting paid for my art at all because I'm not employed by any studio, I'm not really popping off on the socials and I don't sell my oil paintings because I make them as presents to friends,, so when I tell them I can make rent in 1 weekend at a convention they sort of look at me shocked.

So I'm in episodic novels and on Tapas I didn't make money. On Dreame I didn't make money. One webtoons I didn't make money. But on Mythrill I'm the second most viewed and one of the highest grossing authors with my two stories. It's about finding the right platform and fan base. At the start I had people assume I was making money already (surprise surprise I wasn't). It was a similar reaction, they were shocked. Now I do make money. Some it's what they expect, some it's less, some it's more. It depends on who you ask, what their thoughts are.

Something I had to learn early on as a freelance illustrator is that people will deliberately try to give the appearance of being more successful than they are, because looking like you're highly successful is a good way to get more work, as clients will have more faith in you if it looks like lots of other clients have faith in you.

...So it took me a really long time to realise that I wasn't horribly under-performing compared to my peers by only making a modest income. I was actually doing unusually well, and a lot of them just simply didn't let on how much they lean on having a wealthy partner or family, or how much debt they were in.

A lot of the high profile jobs for big name publishers don't pay well at all, because they know illustrators will take them for the prestige of being published by a big name publisher; it makes you look successful. So there's always this funny disconnect, where when I started doing jobs for clients they'd heard of, people stopped asking how much money I was making, and started to believe me when I said I was making a comfortable income off my work.... even though doing those big jobs was sometimes when I was at my most broke in actual finances!

I think people are aware that my work at my day job working on edutainment pays most of my bills, and that my original comics and D&D content and stuff is a decent side-hustle. Sometimes I'm surprised by how much that side hustle makes... but also I know it's nowhere near enough that it'd pay my rent, and I don't think anyone thinks it is! Admittedly, I have a Northern accent, so I always sound like I have no money!

I mean to be fair, yeah a lot of people do that. Also I just realised that "I make rent in 1 weekend" sounds WAY MORE IMPRESSIVE if you think I live anywhere in the US. Rent is also crazy stupid where I live but I'm in a small flat I've had since I was a student and though it's a lot for what it is, it's just under 500 bucks, and most of my income at all comes from conventions because it's really easy to sell pretty things to people when you're shown to 30k people who like pretty things. It basically means that to be able to make rent, I have to do a convention every month, so it means that I have to make rent that weekend otherwise I don't have rent. The only freelance artists I know who make stable income work for animation studios and game studios or have longer ongoing contracts.

Either way people tend to underestimate how much I make from conventions and overestimate everything else, which is funny because a lot of them will go to conventions and spend what feels like their life savings and then be surprised artists are willing to pay for tables.

Hahaha yeah, that's true.

A few years back, I was living in East London, around Shoreditch, and an acquaintance from the comics scene ran into me in an event I'd gone to because it was at a cafe down the road from my flat. This person asked a very uncomfortable question, knowing I was working full time as a freelance illustrator at that time:
"...So how much are you making?"

I just gestured at Shoreditch and replied:
"Enough to live here."

They IMMEDIATELY stopped asking about money.

That is one of the biggest flexes you can do without saying a number frankly. I'd love to go back to England to live but oh god the price of everything. Gg for making enough for Shoreditch that's really impressive! At least to me, I'm still at baby's first paycheque stage which is probably why people assume the things they do about how financially viable paying for travel + tables is for conventions.

Welp... Friends and strangers who happened to make small chat with me praise me for being able to live out of this. Some ask me how long I've been doing this or what strategy I've applied to succeed, I avoid telling the details that exposes the toxic perfectionist enviroment I grew up with since I won't like some of them... idk, knowing a family member and then telling them, I simply don't want self-righteous hypocrites coming at my door.

My father's side while they compliment me and feel happy for me, there are concerned since my grandfather was also an artist, a very successful one but due to alzheimer he ended up in poverty and separated from his toddler sons at a very early age, never recovered and also became an addict. So both my dad and uncle worry especially about my mental state, but do it on a healthy way by not being pushy and just let me be honest to them, which, thankfully I do trust.

My mother's side, well... the few that kind of accepted and somewhat understood what I do is my younger aunt's husband and my great grandmother. My uncle liked to talk about the webcomics I work for and the process of making them since that interested him, meanwhile my great grandmother not only gave me input when I was drawing sexy girls, she also bought a few pin-ups and hung them on her fridge, still tho she admmited to me she was afraid I couldn't live out of this but she noticed her error the moment she saw me leaving my mom's house with brand new furniture already in the cargo truck (The ones I rubbed on everyone's faces: Fridge and Washing Machine which are hella expensive) since when my mom got with my dad she only had a bag with her clothes, nothing else (And my dad didn't had much either, so they started off pretty poor)

But despite that I purposefully used my money and even exposed my earnings to my family, seems like my mother doesn't believe I can live out of this. Even my therapist is amazed that despite how much I do, is not enough for this woman. And if she already didn't trust me at the point of every time she contacted me she went "Do you need money?" "Ask me if you need anything!" things got worse when my younger sibling got diagnosed of ASD, ugh, she immediatly assumed I must have ASD too and began to infantilize me even more and I called her out on her ableism and lack on trust of me, but things went even more clear when she said

"What are you going to do the day you can't live out of your hyperfixation?"

It's been almost a year since I went No Contact with her.

Oh, and I've also found out a few artists friends I have are a bit surprised when I mention I have a MakeUp, Hairdressing and Manicurist Titles, or that I even won a few hairstyle contests. They also get surprised at the fact I also won a few karaoke contests or that I worked on my hometown's City Hall.

Is a fact tho: In South-America you'll find out more people getting surprised at you making money out of this than not, if you don't make money they'll feel amazed you have the time to dedicate to your hobbies and would encourage you to keep it up.

Ah, not for me then. But thanks for the info.

People who are aware of how much time and effort goes into art and storytelling, sometimes, literally cannot fathom putting that much time, money, and effort into something that doesn't get you paid. People are so wrapped in capitalism, it's unheard of to spend so much time on something off passion alone.