Jakeinator 2013-05-05 05:04:45

Do whatever makes you happy mate. You're going to want to commit to your animation like it's your job if you're planning on doing it. It's a cushy position, let's you make your own hours, which doesn't give you a any deadlines or regulations to abide by.

See what you can limit your budget to and see if your animations can meet that budget. If not, I'd try finding a part-time job until you get a better following.

Until then, good luck mate. My hat's off to ya.

~Jacob Steakfries

Ali 2013-05-05 05:53:44

You should try it man. It's a hard thing to try, but it'll be amazing if you succeed.

Soupcat 2013-05-05 06:01:23

Living off the internet is a myth.

Labraxadores 2013-05-05 06:50:45

Eh, get a part time job, and then make animations. If the animations get horribly popular, then you may as well proceed.

VictorVonVice 2013-05-05 06:53:16

Unless your going to be paid a salary under a studio, I wouldn't consider it. I believe Egoraptor has a job outside of Game Grumps and his own animations.

MattGoop 2013-05-05 09:05:04

I think the best thing to do is to be open to commissionsJust show them that you have the animation capacities,and once you get a decent following on YT,you can start getting serious on your own stuff.Good luck dude!

Poniiboi 2013-05-05 09:50:43

Fuck all these idiots below me. Go for it with everything that you have. Market yourself and put yourself on a schedule and you will make it.

Susurroushydra 2013-05-05 10:05:44

what ponii said +
also team up with awesome gais on ng
(aka find people who are good at stuff)
if you want to

ZenithQuinn 2013-05-05 10:08:46

Damian what? I know several dozen people whose main income is youtube alone.

CoolBerries 2013-05-05 12:27:59

Just happened to stumble upon this post, and the most I can say, is always have a fall-back plan. That's all.

Tyler 2013-05-05 13:06:28

No idea where you live, but it may be more feasible for you than others if you live in a "poor" country. For example, game dev is different than animation of course, but plenty of game developers I know get paid similar amounts and because their countries cost of living is lower (than say US devs), they tend to do okay living off the internets.

IMO, its going to be hard to live off of your own content regardless of what you do. I think you should have something more stable in your life (part time job, etc) until you can prove to yourself that you can in fact make enough money to live off of the internet. I say go for it, but make sure you're secured first.

Dieseling 2013-05-05 13:24:22

It's extremely unlikely to happen unless you have a secondary income for about 2-3 years and even then it can take longer, people you know like (Ego, Oney, Spaz) they've all been doing it for a really long time, 4-9 years now, they have the audience to live from making content. I'm trying, but it's a struggle for anyone starting out. You have to know the right people be willing to put countless hours of work into your projects to make them stand out and above all, you have to know that it could end up flopping.

Twisted4000 2013-05-05 13:59:06

Almost no one can make a living off of the internet, no matter how memy or bandwagon their videos are. It can be enough to make a decent amount of scrap money to HELP pay for a living, but certainly not enough to solely live off of.

The only real way to make a living off of your animations is to animate for networks, since they pay you a rate for it (as far as my knowledge goes, that's what Spazkid does). Ad revenue from places like Newgrounds and YouTube will not be enough alone. But remember, 90% of it is luck, too.

Zullzee 2013-05-05 15:27:42

If google/networks pay you similar to the rates americans get, then with your lower cost of living it could be feasible. The problem is you have to build an audience first, and it's much harder to live off internet animation because of how freakin slow the production of content is. A live action youtuber can come out with a new video every 3 days, but as an animator, we're lucky if we can come out with a new video every 4 weeks!

Ron-Geno 2013-05-05 16:44:53

Back up plan.
Have it.

Sacrifice.
Prepare to make it.

Ramen.
Get use to eating it.

Furniture and other nice things?
You don't need it. Sleeping bag/air mattress and rubbermaids work fine.

But yeah, go for it if that's what you want.

Tanadrine-Studios 2013-05-05 17:17:34

You can make some decent income with videos on the internet strictly off of ad-based income, but it takes a hell of a lot of work to get to that point. To make enough for a production to be self-sustaining you must pair your work with premium content and/or other direct-sales stuff.

If you are really serious about it, you need to develop a solid idea from the ground up and then figure out how to market and monetize it directly. The process of learning and implementing this can take upwards of 10 years. I'm not kidding or exaggerating. You can cut that time down if you are doing parodies and whatnot, but know that it too is a highly competitive arena and your work will be at the mercy of pop-culture (when the franchise becomes unpopular, you become unpopular).

My advice; doing your creative work needs to feel as natural as brushing your teeth or taking a shower. If it is anything other than that I'd re-consider the idea of trying to make animated content monetarily successful.

Kajenx 2013-05-05 19:01:52

Well, your jokes are funny (in that video you linked) but it takes you forever to get to them. The video would be really funny if it was a minute long instead of five.

On Youtube, a short clip is best anyway. Just do, like, mini one-liner type things and put one out every few days. People will subscribe then, and they're more likely to link it or post it somewhere.

As for making money, I have no idea. I make money off Flash games, but that's pretty different.

Kel-chan 2013-05-06 03:12:18

the hardest and most time consuming thing is building an audience

also the problem with animation is it takes so long to make something unless you have alot of people helping in which case you;ll probably need to pay them

a good idea that came to me is to form your own studio- as a solo act you'll never get anything done- If you can find 3 or 4 friends who are commited then you can divide the work and create higher quality animations faster but its still a gamble

Jaltoid 2013-05-06 15:35:18

Its a very difficult thing to achieve. But its certainly possible.
It may seem like an easy cushy job. But it takes a lot of hard work to build an audience. There were weeks where we saw no sunlight. You need to stay as active as possible and be able to provide excellent content each time. It will take some time to master that, even we haven't mastered our ability to knock it out of the park with our submissions. But we're getting to a point where we have to.

We recently took a chance with animating for YouTube and we are slowly but steadily making enough to live comfortably. Its certainly possible. But it is a lot of work. Its all about talent, time, patience, and a little bit of luck. People are attracted to hard work and persistence. But if its not moving enough, you really should consider your options.

Good luck <:)