I have written a book and would like to add pictures. I am also poor and can’t easily pay a bunch of money, especially when I expect this book to make no money at all. It is an adult themed horror book and I want pictures like in The Wizard of Oz. Some of the characters, who are mostly women, are bi, one is possibly trans, it’s a book that a conservative would never want to illustrate for many reasons. There are LGBT themes and also offensive shocking and strange themes. I would be fine if AI helped generate them, but I need the characters to look consistent across the book. I almost wish I could use AI to draw the pictures, and tried experimenting, but could not get AI to generate the faces to look consistently the same. (AI sort of did whatever it felt like doing, instead of drawing as requested.) I also want color images. I’d like them to look realistic. I have ideas about what the characters look like. This isn’t a comic book… although it could become one someday.
I have no idea where to look. My hatred for Facebook and Reddit is EXTREME. I hate fucking shit where it’s some centralized asshole blocking everyone forever and/or requiring all sorts of bullshit.
Does anyone at lemmy have any ideas?
Deviantart, Mastodon (check the #portfolioDay hashtag, it’s all artists self-promoting, they do it every few months, and many of them have commissions open),
Furaffinity (a lot of people in fA don’t JUST draw furries!)Try Fiverr.
This is the way
Mastodon? I see a good number of artists here and there.
Aren’t there artists on Bluesky?
https://forum.scribblehub.com/forums/requests.24/
Maybe you could find some budding artist in this forum attached to Web Novel community.
Find some artists you like on DeviantArt. Should have no trouble finding skilled artists who are OK with the themes.
Might have trouble finding skilled artists who are okay with the pay, though
Yeah, perhaps I should just release the book without pictures. :-(
I am poor, I can’t waste money, and statistically books sell barely anything. I doubt I would recoup.
While it’s not much better than shitbook and baddit, linkedin is a place where people look for work…Lemmy could also help if this gets the right exposure. I can’ t draw so this comment might be useless…
Some already great suggestions in the comments, so to summarize: Have a look at Artststion, Deviantart, Cara, Instagram, LinkedIn, Fiverr, Tumblr.
Deviantart used to be really good for searching artists but not so much anymore. You’ll have to wade through AI slop using mediocre search
Artstation and Instagram will probably get you the best results as most active artists are in either of the platforms if not both. You can search keywords for the style too, to some degree
And before you feel overwhelmed about all these social media platforms, remember you don’t need to contact them, just find them. Any artist worth their salt will have some other means of contact such as a personal website, a work email or an account in a platform you can bear using.
Good luck out there.
I am actually okay with AI slop if they can be consistent with making the characters look the same way. I need to be like “draw main character being sexy” and then also be like “draw main character drinking smoothy” and not have it look like 2 different people.
Perhaps you’ll have luck at Artstation?
Artstation
it all looks like video game characters. i’d like something more realistic
That’s the bulk of them because that’s where the big money is. It sounds like you’ve got a pretty clear sense of what you’re looking for. Have you checked DeviantArt?
Gig work sites, maybe?
Look up artwork of books, comics, albums, posters, events, flyers etc of stuff you like. Try to find the visual artist, see if they have a portfolio. Contact them discuss a price that might work for you.
i don’t even know anyone or anyone. i like to write but also sometimes get annoyed with too much text. i think pictures would make the book less annoying
i don’t even know anyone or anyone.
You don’t have to know the person to reach out!
Go to a book store, search online, lookup products, search for events, etc
Chatgpt? 🤣
