When you can't find work in your industry of choice, what did/do you do to pay bills?

Soul_of_Solace

Of course, one wishes they could work sunrise to sunset on personal training and portfolio work, but unfortunately that doesn't pay the bills, especially as the months go by.

I'm just wondering what sort of jobs you took in order to get by, especially if you managed to get jobs perhaps not completely unrelated to art. As well as if you were able to land a job that didn't burn you out completely so that you could still manage to get personal work done in your spare time.

I've had to do a lot of QA work in the past, and unfortunately that doesn't lend itself well to having a lot of free time. Not to mention the burnouts from working so long and then you have zero energy when you get home.

Or perhaps, everyone here has managed to find work in time, since you're all pretty talented.

Kwramm

I did web-design and small programming jobs in the past. Thanks to that our pipeline now features some user friendly web interfaces

Not sure if there's many other jobs that complement more artistic roles such as modeling though. Good luck - and don't give up!

Dylan Brady

I took some contracts in the product illustration industry. lots of work out there if your willing to leave your comfort zone.
www.thumbtack.com has some stuff on it

Ben Apuna

I remember someone mentioning night shift security guard being a pretty good job. Better than minimum wage, lots of slow time to draw in a sketchbook.

While doing that try to land some remote freelance jobs with indie developers and places like Liquid Development and/or Shadows in the Darkness to get some professional experience.

Ace-Angel

I was turning tricks around the highway corner for a penny, before being called into a secret organization which hunted vampires and giants. My natural talent in certain areas got me the nickname of the Stake-ist.

And I don't see many Vampires or Giants around now, do I? You're welcome.

ScudzAlmighty

^^I believe the first part of that

...unless they were sparkly vampires...

Joseph Silverman

I try not to hang myself for a living. I get about minimum wage.

Fomori

Freelance. Can be a can of worms though. And you need savings as a buffer.

Always keep a decent wad of cash saved! I've only just begun to do this.

ericdigital

After I got laid off from my first job I worked at Target and worked a lot of really random short term jobs off craigslist and a little bit of freelance I could get, really sucked but had to do what was necessary

Mask_Salesman

Standing on street corners in fishnets...

Hang10

I work in IT for the government in Ottawa. Mon thru Fri hours and when things get slow I surf PC and model on my laptop. It's a great stepping stone but surrounded by 3 grey cubicle walls sucks the creativity out of me.

skylebones

I tried to keep whatever I did art oriented. So I did some custom airbrushing during the year I was laid off. Helmets, motorcycles, rc cars, etc. Kind of fund doing more tangible work, but it was tough.

Gestalt

I don't know if anyone has any experience with this, but I'm actually looking to get into wwoofing (basically working on an organic farm in exchange for a place to stay and food) and hopefully starting remote freelance on the side.

Justin Meisse

I worked IT jobs - eventually I got a cushy position watching over a mac based network from noon till 9pm, I usually only had 1-2 hours of actual work that needed to get done in my shift so I spent the rest of the time working on art.

Tigerfeet

I do design work for phone book ads right now. The work is easy and the pay isn't bad for this part of the US. The bonus is it's a standard 9-5 and they even got me a tablet, so I'm drawing on breaks and I've usually got enough juice left when I get home to work on modeling and sculpting. I also do some light freelance, but it's been a few months since I was on a project.

nyx702

I worked on getting a sugar momma.

skankerzero

I worked at a restaurant.

I saved on having to buy food, so that's a plus.

ZacD

Here's my work history so far

Subway 2008-2009 making minimum wage for a year
Dairy Queen 2009-2010 making minimum wage for a year
Interned at a cg studio that did various work for 3 months in 2009 unpaid
Small Business DSL Tech Support for Centurylink, made $11 an hour 2010-2011 for a year.
Currently work at an internal help desk for Discover Card, making a little under 30k a year.

R3D

I've been working as Lighting/Comp artist for about 7 months now, 6 months at one studio, one month at a new studio.

Wages are comparable to modeling and it seems i can move over to the modeling department with some ease (only been at this specific company for about a month now, was at another one on a 6 month contract)

Ghostscape

I spent over 5 years in college and beyond working at a call center for an alarm company. It was mind-numbing but easy work and the pay was good compared to other weekend/part time jobs during school, and it was certainly motivation to work on my portfolio after work every night.

shoes

I sold books to people who only knew what book they wanted by the color of the cover. (A lot of books are blue, this description is unhelpful).

I also fed baby tarantulas and scorpions for under minimum wage. And mopped dog kennels (these were my favorites)

Now I model trains and train accessories for a railroad training center, until next month, when I will accept my fate folding t-shirts at the mall.

biofrost

Joseph Silverman wrote: »

I try not to hang myself for a living. I get about minimum wage.

I know how you feel, I have been at Target for 4 years. I have just about had enough..

McGreed

I'm currently working for Activision...as localization tester. It's actually nice enough, playing games for a living, and localization testing is (imo) better then normal QA testing. And it's nice to take a break from thinking work-3D/portfolio-3D and just doing fun-3D.

Rilem

I used to work as a mailman, the pay was shit and the work was mind-numbing.
The same routine every day, it sucked ass.

Ged

worked doing insurance admin and then marketing and design for web before making games

Avanthera

Construction!

Soul_of_Solace

For those who managed to get some Freelancing, how did you go about getting started with that? I know we have a freelancing board here, but it just seems to be page after page of individual modelers asking for work. I can't imagine that alone would be good enough to get attention given the amount of people and how one would get easily lost in the throngs.

ZacD

My general advice is if you don't feel comfortable asking for $25-30 an hour, you probably shouldn't be freelancing. Freelancers have a lot more bills to cover than an internal employee.

Dylan Brady

again there's lots of boards out there with people looking for artists if your willing to step out of your comfort zone.
For me Ive gotten 90% of my freelance work through Craigslist.
Am currently looking into working with more stable clients eg. outsource houses.