hey millio! ive always loved art and im about to attend school for illustration but im feeling kind of down about art careers and maintaining my excitement for the field. since youve graduated and i really admire your art i was wondering if you have had experience with battling these thoughts/even accepting them? all the best to you :'0

Hi! Thank you so much. I hope I can help. I am poor with college level writing but good with broad optimism!

You’ll be in an environment designed for learning and experimentation. You’re probably going to have a lot of assignments and not enough time to do them properly. You’ll be making a lot of content that you won’t feel is good enough but it’s all practice practice practice and all something to build upon. Focus on trying new things out! You won’t figure out what you like and works best for you unless you try as much as you can.

Something that really brings me peace is knowing that I have my entire life to become a better artist. You’ll be a completely different artist then you are right now in 10 years! In 5! In 2! Always growing. Always learning. I think so much of art is just noticing things you hadn’t before, being aware of them, and making a conscious decision to include or exclude them. It all takes time and experiences and just living. (I really look forward to see what I deem is important and worth showing in XX-amount of years!)

Focus on things that make you happy. Do your best with the crappy deadlines. Make a twitter and talk about what you love. Make a private twitter and complain about everything else (LOL). And most importantly: post everything you create!!! Share with people what inspires you, what you put time into.

Frankly, job searching BLOWS. It’s rough. But I think it’ll be ok! The forth definition of optimisum on dictionary dot com is ‘the doctrine that the existing world is the best of all possible worlds’ and I want to believe it’ll all work out! So much good has come to me from just enjoying things on the interent with other people on the internet. I hope the same can be true for everyone.

I’m not entirely sure if this is the vein your were going for. There are bad days. Sometimes everything SUCKS. But it’ll be ok. Lay down in the shower! Complain about it to someone that’ll listen! Join a zine! Watch Monster Factory! Read 800 fanfictions! There’s so much good out there and so much worth it.

Good luck!