>>7675
>Many of those works are subsidized, that is, they're commissions, or professional work, that have been paid for directly by others, at some going business rate.


Nonsense. You probably never even used those sites if you say such things. Just go there and observe all that unbelievable amout of stuff. You probably will not be able to see all those pictures even if you do nothing more than browse them because they are being produced faster than you can watch them.
It almost all free and has nothing to do with any commission.
There are very few artists who do commissions but most are just doing it for free.
art quality also has no relationship to the fact if it is paid or free
For example, dofantasy sells art which is pretty primitive and sketchy while you can find free works that are far superior to that.

>Sure, but they're provided for free directly to potential clients.


And how do you do that? how do you find those potential clients and make the waste their very valuable time on your worthless crap? how do you even prove that this is your work and you did not just download it somewhere?

Nobody will even look at your work and nobody will hire you because nobody has any clue what you can do. As we already know, there are hundreds of thousands of works already. So good look convincing someone to look at your pictures even if you give them for free.

The only way how you can attract a rich guy is by building the good name of yourself and that can be done only by posting lots of free pictures and getting lots of publicity and lots of likes.

When you become famous, sometimes some clients come to you and offer you some job.

without posting hundreds of free picture you will not even manage to build any skills to market because you have no clue how to make good art.

Sure you probably can practice for a few years in the basement never share anything and then try to spam people with your offers but I can bet it will not work as good as just posting hundreds fo your works for free and waiting.

But nothing of that makes any economic sense if you consider commision prices. Are you planning to work for 10-20$ a day before tax? there is no less paid job than being an artist competition is just too high and demand too low.

I would not worry about an artist working for themselves because that is the most stupid thing one can imagine even
if you put something on some medium this because you want to show it to someone. if you do it for yourself you have your fantasy no need to waste hours of work on painting something you already have in your head.