I am curious to everyone’s thoughts on this matter.
Let me define successful for this question: Rich enough to not need a job and live a comfortable lifestyle debt free. Complete financial freedom.
I consider myself an introvert and enjoy being alone (although I have many friends). I love having my art critiqued its so eye opening, however I do NOT like people to know that the art is mine. I hate the spot light on me, I have my whole life.
In your opinion is it possible to become successful without putting yourself out there?
I have been trying to think of successful artist who are not known, and all I can really come up with is Banksy.
So the only two ways I can see becoming successful from art as a introvert, is doing something similar to Banksy (being anonymous) or starting my own company.
Does anyone know any artist that have become successful without being known?
Is it even possible as an Introvert? all the artist I see that are somewhat successful are also very good at marketing themselves.
Branding your work as something different, like a “company” (team), is a great way to put up a psychological barrier between you and what you want to put out there. Also, don’t feel bad about beating the social media drums about your work, because EVERYONE does that and absolutely needs to. If you don’t, then you really would be the odd one out. If your work is good enough, you won’t need a lot of text or any gimmicks to get eyeballs on it, and you WILL be successful.
I know you said you do this because your an intravert. I too am intravert. I learned from my youth that some talented and really good artist would never admit to making artwork. they would rather destroy a weeks, even years worth of work before letting anyone see what they made. There was a prince in a kingdom who had this type of problem. That if someone made a good commit about he’s work, he would violently tear it up.
They called this a mental problem. I have forgotten the name of it. Knowing that this type of thing is a mental problem, should help you with your fight against this problem. Not saying you have a problem, but there is a problem that behaves this way.
There is explainations of why people feel this way, you can research that on internet.
The anonymous part would be easy. Not sure why you are laboring over that concept. The hard part would be the successful part. That takes being talented, focused and driven. And finding a way to get your art visible. There are numerous ways to do that and remain anonymous. Creating obscure forum handles for one.
Years ago I used to think about it very intensely, but now I am not sure, perhaps I still am and not know about or I might not be at all in the first place since my birth.
Either way I am not bothered about it, because I am always occupied with projects and reading books. Now I am mostly bothered if the projects are done correctly.
i think more successful artists than you think are introverts. but many of them have forced themselves to play the art circus nevertheless, even if it costs them a lot more energy than extroverts.
if you are not ready to put yourself out there it’s going to be tricky. but not completely impossible.
edit: i think there is some confusion about what kind of artist you mean. of course you can become a successful 3d-artist (most aren’t artists but craftsmen) as an introvert.
I think I have perhaps severe or mild autism, but I’ve heard Asperger’s is rampant with computer use. These days maybe the best bet would to try and get a youtube twitter following etc before anything else which is pretty nightmarish. I suspect this may play a part with any of the hiring 3D companies because it’s very good, effective advertisement. “Hey check out the new movie I worked on as a compositor!”
to their 10,000 - 30.000 twitter people who are interested in that person and their success, multiplied by all the other likewise twitter endowed employees on the project. Even physical art gallery unless the work is dealing with global warming in an outstanding and prolific barrage of suddenly released work, they would first want to see if there is interest online before granting valuable space. It’s all pretty horrific, I myself am also learning survival skills, bushcraft etc
In theory this makes sense, but in practice the vast majority of your followers will be art lovers, fellow artists and miscellaneous people in stead of potential employers. They just click on ‘Like’ and move on. And when you leave the social medium, you will soon be forgotten.
I was a very active Facebook user for years. I had the maximum amount of ‘friends’ that is allowed for regular Facebook users: 5000. I posted all kinds of things people generally like to read: jokes, kittens, interesting facts, the works. I often received hundreds of likes on a single post. Every now and then I posted my own work, which was also liked, but in the end I received just a few jobs via Facebook ‘friends’ in a number of years.
I decided to leave Facebook and Instagram last year, because I grew tired of my hunger for likes and comments. I like spending my time over here at Blender Artists, because it adds to my knowledge, and because I can help others. If you regularly spend time publishing and updating your best work on portfolio sites, employers will find you sooner or later.
No I meant the followers would be perhaps 300 or so highly interested family members and all the others with similar artistic interests who would be more likely to purchase the final product, which is where the interest of the employer would lie, in hiring successful social media. I believe this may play a factor in success currently, I’m guessing they would try to suss out who has the most real family members, etc LOL and balance that with talent and personality, and the best would be hired.
All this is on the assumption of giving the social media link with the application for employment, and my suspicious belief that the employer would check it out against others who are also talented.
I don’t really use social media so all this could be nonsense, I guess people wouldn’t be insufferably tweeting “check out my Blizzard videogame, I made the music on it!” across the board, “I was the accountant on this Blizzard game and if you love me check it out!” “These are my particle effects go check it!”
A few years ago I created a BAT file that would open a web page and then close it and repeat until stopped, because for a small time I thought it might be a good way to kickstart a viral video and then turn on the monetization after a high number of fake ‘views’ , but then I thought blargghhh… That’s too weasly and any fame would just be a nightmare. Even Cynacatpro probably gets emails all day long from fans from around the world, and rightly so, but this is only one aspect, imagine suddenly crazy emails, suddenly your email is marked permanently as spam! I want my money back! etc
I should also note that despite how I write, my demeanor is similar to Nicole Kidman (after being transported into the 99 cent store). This is why I don’t drink though, because in reality I would never want to actually try to communicate like this while also being drunk. When I was younger I imagined I was suddenly outwardsly seemingly hilarious like jim carrey, but I prefer to keep this internalized for reality, which has no edit ability. Even sober I have difficulty quickly judging what should be edited. Most doctors would think I’m severely on the spectrum, in public I only speak to around 6 people, for a combined maximum of five minutes daily, and my ability to speak gets affected like a sliding scale by how well I like them. Like most people the most they can get from me is “No thank you” or “Sorry I don’t know” as I speed walk away.
here is the easy way:
YouTube Channel -> Upload abstract funny stuff, short episodes -> Register with every social media platform, and spam it everywhere (just like literally every big brand) -> Do that for 10 years (average time until becoming famous) -> Open a “Fund-Me” thing
… and that is it.
From experience , your product can be visually low-quality, but if it is interesting to some degree,it’ll be good enough.
There is 1.8 billion registered YouTube Users… Catch a small percentage and you’ll be fine
Or you can start a YouTube channel with frequent Blender tips that just about every Blender user already knows, spamming all Blender media about every new post you make, and endlessly promote a free add-on you’ve developed to keep attracting attention to your Patreon.
Think about it in the opposite way, why people with “charming personalities” are people-persons or people with strong-willed personalities are leaders. In a Parallel Universe, Pamela Anderson founded Microsoft and Bill Gates acted on Baywatch series.
Or you can start a YouTube channel with frequent Blender tips that just about every Blender user already knows, spamming all Blender media about every new post you make, and endlessly promote a free add-on you’ve developed to keep attracting attention to your Patreon. 