Do You Consider Yourself a Professional Artist?

[Cavechan]

Yes, but I don't do much "creative" stuff at my work, I mostly do image editing.

[Kiweevil]

I used to make money off of commissions and freelance work so....sorta? But I quit accepting commissions due to time constraints and wanting to work on more personal projects. I also don't feel too great charging for my work because of self esteem issues. So now I only accept art trades. I will trade with anyone of any style and any skill level, so long as they put in the same honest effort I do into my work.

As far as my freelancing goes, ehhh....I sorta backed out of my last gig due to the project conflicting with my moral views, haven't accepted another gig yet. They kinda lied about the project that they needed illustrated. Ultimately I felt it was too untasteful when stacked up against my own personal beliefs. And that's saying something, because I draw a comic about a half-reaper who brutally mutilates child abusers and rips apart violent cultists like they're salt water taffy. There's no shortage of blood or vulgarity in my comic. But as soon as you try to get me to lie to children about the existence of dinosaurs, I have to politely decline.

My last two day jobs have been cake decorating so that's art I do for a living. So I guess in a sense I'm a professional?

With the exception of my off-day, I'd say I draw at a professional level. But I won't consider myself I professional artist until I start earning off of my webcomic.

[Prometheus]

I’m what one would call A Professional Procrastinator At Becoming A Professional Artist. And it drives me absolutely crazy.

[mappypaint]

Not on the comics and drawing side of things but as a painter. That's what makes money for me.

[rmdooley]

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

No

I don't think the qualifier 'professional' has every applied to me in anything

[cornebranche]

Yes and No.
As it comes to my actual professional situation, I am a motion graphic and illustrator apprentice. I work for client in an angency and I am actually paid for doing that job. So yes, I could definitly call myself a professional at doing vector illustrations for clients. The style is mostly given, in most cases, I have to adapt myself. I sometimes get the chance to make propositions but that is still rare.

On my personal art side ... Not much. I am really bad at selling my work, woking with clients, keeping up with deadlines with my personal and professional life aside and I feel I still have A LOT to learn. Working with clients is a thing I will learn to do in my professional life anyway and I don't feel the urge to sell my work in any way except, mat be, by selling print at a convention!
I don't know, I would say I don't like to draw for other people in my style, on my free time, when I am alone.
I don't get much free time and I'd better draw for myself and do projects that I am passionate about instead of working for someone else ...

[JRHoch]

Like painting walls or painting landscapes?

[mappypaint]

Custom painted stuff. I did some airbrushed graphics on walls before. It can be anything that paint would adhere to... nowadays I commonly paint designs on helmets and bicycles.

[denaliah]

Yes, I work like a professional (though I do see areas where I need to improve) and my skill levels are good enough where I know fundamentals. Yes, there are others who might be better than me in a certain area such as anatomy, or architecture drawing, but honestly I don't need an employer or a big client to validate my professionalism. I do think I need to be better at carving out my niche and figuring out what to focus on so I can work on mastery, in the past I've done a lot of different styles and taken a variety of jobs out of fear of not making a living off it. Now I'm past that stage and I"m working more towards going all in on what I truly want to be know for and building a fanbase off of true fans. I take art seriously, that's all I need to know because I value my time and effort and improvements I made.

[Zak]

No.
Because people tell me my self worth is worth very little.

[LCT_m_a_d]

I'm so glad to hear this. When people think of professional they often just associate with money. Professional to me is how you pursue and invest in your trade. I think more often than not having a professional mindset will lead you to prosperity and not the other way around.

[JRHoch]

....................Is this Baby Yoda?

[arcojawa]

Na... I would love to be one in the future, but as of right now I've really avoided anything that might monetize my comic or my art. Especially with my comic the concept of asking for people to put money into my work has made me nervous because of how I thought people might perceive that, especially when the selling point of my comic is NOT the art (i.e. the obvious surface-level thing that everyone pays attention to). I sat on my Patreon for ages and only even put it up when my brother prodded me to do so ("you won't know how it will go until you get it out there"). I can now safely say that nothing came from it, not that I expected it to .

It helps that, especially in the age of easily accessible digital technology, good to great artists are a dime a dozen and I myself am just average as far as technical skill goes. I really kind of bank on my creativity to hold my work up because my artistic skill....... probably can't. I'm not bad in any sense of the word but really good artists are kind of everywhere these days. I might just have to wait till I get better to really start to push myself as an artist.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

If the simple definition is that I've made money on my art and I've done commissioned work, then...Yes.

[Rhonder]

Hmm not really, no. I'm in the same spot as a lot of people in this thread where I've done a few commissions here and there and have done a little work to establish myself as an artist as kind of a side gig, but don't currently nor really plan on working towards making it my profession.

However I do think that my work is creeping ever closer to being on the lower end of an acceptable "professional quality" & agree with some of the other sentiments presented earlier where it's not necessarily about raw skill, but more so being able to work with others and produce what's needed for the job. In that regard, I can step up to the plate and be professional when need be. I don't have a lot of paid work under my belt, but I think that the stuff that i have done has delivered competently every time, both the product and my relations with the customer.

[jeffanime1]

I'm a veteran ameture! Making the transition to pro.

[carloswebcomic]

I don’t even consider myself an artist...

[Darth_Biomech]

I'm not earning a living with my art, so nope.

[darthmongoose]

Yes. I've supported myself as an illustrator full-time while living in London, though now I've moved into a more general creative consultant role because Illustration has no real career path, but I'd still say I'm a pro; my list of past clients includes Nintendo, Screwfix, the BBC, a bunch of events, government authorities and large charities and organisations etc. and my job still involves making art in a professional capacity from time to time (most recently helping on some art for a show bible for Cartoon Network Execs and other Bigwigs).

I think the term "semi-pro" is underused. I'd say anyone who has done a few bits that earn them a decent bit of money on the side could reasonably call themselves "semi-pro", and that's still pretty impressive. I'd say a "pro" is someone who has managed to support themselves full time for a couple of months with just art. Once you're a pro, with art it's kind of different from say football because if you're not doing it any more, you're still kind of a pro 'cause you can still bust out pro quality art any time unless you really really let your skills go rusty to a terrible degree.

There's no shame in not being a full-time pro and it's definitely not for everyone. As jobs go, it doesn't pay well and often involves drawing a lot of really boring stuff for other people to the point that you have no energy to make anything of your own any more. If you want to draw just stuff you care about at your own pace, do a different job to pay rent and then enjoy making whatever you like. There's such a sense on the scene that if you haven't "broken in" you're somehow a failure as an artist, but the number of people I know who went pro and were just miserable and stressed out and so switched into working in games or design or consulting is staggering.

If you do want to be a pro though, the most important thing is being seen by people, so you need a nice website with an easy URL, strong social media presence, to go out to events and give out lots of business cards, and to be a good part of your art community, supporting other artists (my big break was a job for Nintendo. I got it when a more senior artist was too busy for the job and recommended me because she felt like I was a nice and reliable person based on my behaviour and output on the UK manga scene).
You also need a flexible art style with decently broad appeal and a professional level of polish. You may not always get to draw in your "favourite" style, and hey, if you're an elitist, you may be thinking "hah! Yeah, silly kiddies who draw manga, you can't just draw manga all the time!" and it's true, but hey it actually works both ways. I've seen artists who insist on drawing really sketchy artsy bleak stuff getting stuck due to lack of demand for that (most of them become jaded art teachers ), you need to be able to draw well in at least one style that has broad appeal in the context of say newspaper or magazine illos, adverts/websites or comics (and I mean comics that have followings of 10k plus people, like manga, marvel/DC superheroes, newspaper funnies, not like "oh I draw like the artist who did this one graphic novel that critics praised but nobody bought").
Being pro isn't about being the best artist in the world so much as being consistently, reliably good, easy to work with and supplying work in styles that there's demand for.