General Dark Art question

[Spavlides84]

Hey everyone,

I have a question for all the professionals out there and anyone else who might know, concerning finding your particular art market niche (and i apologize if this is in the wrong forum category. new to the site and it seemed the best place).

The kind of art i do is pretty dark, both visually and thematically (like many people here i'm sure), and i've been told it's generally hard to find work like that in the illustration world. I've also been told however that there is a niche for creepy/brooding imagery, and i have but to find it.

So my question is, where would be a good place to look, comic books aside? Are there certain publishing houses in particular? Magazines? I suppose heavy metal artwork is one place to look but most of those dudes are broke to begin with...

Any suggestions? I look forward to reading your responses!

[dpaint]

Dark and brooding isn't a problem, do you want to be specific?

[QueenGwenevere]

Depends what kind of "dark art" you do... If I recall, I think some artists who cater to the goth and/or steampunk markets make a certain portion of their income from sales at conventions. (Unfortunately I can't think of any specific conventions, but there seem to be a lot of them, covering a lot of sub-niches...)

Something to consider, anyway.

It's hard to make practical suggestions without seeing the art, though.

[TinyBird]

Yeah, that might depend much on what sort of "creepy/brooding" you mean.
If it's something like this http://godmachinedesigns.blogspot.com/ you may have an opening in t-shirts and designs, but if it's more like "crawling in my skiiiiin" Deviant Art tween emo sort of thing, it's going to be much harder.

Generally sticking on one specific thing/theme/style will make finding work much harder anyway, especially if you're a beginner in the industry.

[Serpian]

Noo! Stay away from the Dark Arts! Voldemort already tried it, and look where that brought us!

[QueenGwenevere]

But... but... with dark arts you get a really cool and badass wardrobe!

[qlotzan]

thats nice issue to discuss it, i agree with other friends who answer on your question
asking you to show us sample of your DARK ARTWORK to see the level that you have it
because every things that you've ask like comic book, magazine and other stuff or even
T-shirt style design require some experinces to be able to choose it as your style.

After all that and while we waiting to your artwork, i think that the best idea to do more
comic practicing to see if your art comes with.

good luck my friend

Qlotzan

[Dusty]

Every niche has a market. Surely, if you have interest in dark art there are products that you, yourself, have used as inspiration? Write the companies that make those products.

For me when I was a teenager it was heavy metal, RPGs, comic books, and video games. So that's a good place to start. Start with your passions and interests and talk to people in those fields that might hire you.