Right, thanks for the good comments, guys. A few (actually, a lot of) things i'd like to respond to:
You haven't shown us what you can do. However, there do exist people who make money in the fields you've described. It can be done.
Oops! Once again i manage to forget that telepathy isn't a thing.
My deviantART page provides examples of art, writing and comics, while
this is the game i'm currently working on (not expecting any profit from that project, because licensing everywhere).
Read this thread. In particular, this post and this post.
Ah, excellent read. I wasn't expecting to sell physical books, but rather e-books as you mentioned, if i even get to that point. Until then, i'll just be writing for my own amusement.
Me, personally? No, I don't usually pay for these things. Why would I? There's a huge pile of people producing them for free.
Fair point, i'd obviously not be charging anything for people to have their eyes burned by my random brain farts, but rather to have me make something that they specify. Truthfully, i'd like to keep it all free, but that'd be naive if i am to pursue this dream. Now to figure out how to get people to pay for commissions instead of going somewhere else for free requests...
1) Successful webcomics are those that entertain, not those that are well drawn.
2) There's no need to wait until after you've finished your degree. You could start a webcomic now, and that will give you a couple years to determine whether you can make money from it.
Lovely to hear that! I'm going to start a mostly-regular webcomic as soon as i can get my grubby hands on a website to host it (already have a domain registered and a friend willing to make the site, but we need to get it off the ground first), so fingers crossed!
Living off commissions will be very hard at first, especially for spriting. If you can do animations it's a step above most. If you really want to live well off commissions you'll probably have to take up several different styles of drawing, including realism, to be more approachable for clients.
Wasn't planning on living off them alone, mostly as a supplement to the other things. I mean, even if i went to the logical extreme, a commission a day for 5 could tally up to 150 a month, which could barely support my food consumption alone. I'd hope for freelance work and/or eventual hirings to bring in a smidge more than that, if they ever happen. Fortunately, i CAN do animations, more or less, which as you say might be a slight advantage, and which could probably sell for a bit more.
Writing should be a free time thing until you hit the point of having something tangible. 100 pages of an incomplete novel should be enough for a publisher to say yay or nay on pre-publishing funding. Just remember that once you accept funds from a company you might be committed to finishing it no matter what, so be ready for it.
Well, i already have 7 chapters of
this story ready (7th chapter still not published), but it obviously comes with the kink of it being available for free at the moment. But yeah, writing is probably the lowest priority of the "make money off this" list. Takes FAR longer than even a whole sprite sheet, and with me being as unknown a figure as i am, it wouldn't exactly be easy to make any profit on it whatsoever.
I know you want to be an indie developer, but if you want you can try an internship/entry level job at a video game company. Experience in a bigger company would help immensely in writing your own games. If you know a couple different coding languages and ways to optimize memory I'm sure that they'd be happy to have you work there. You never know until you apply yourself and try it. For now I'd count indie games as a free time thing until you know you have something unique in the alpha stages. When applying you'll need a portfolio of recent programming projects.
I have an alpha-stage game already, but it's not necessarily unique, and it certainly isn't made with an actual programming language. I plan to rectify this later, however, by means of making games in proper programming languages (i.e. Java, learning that at the moment). In fact, i wouldn't mind a job at a video game company at all, but there's not really a lot of them stationed here in Denmark that i know of, which is what complicates things significantly. But then again, that's why we have Google, so yeah.
Side question for the knowledgable: Is C++ and the likes supremely different from Java? I reckon the companies have a higher demand for C++ than Java, but depending on the similarity between it and Java (and Lua), learning could take anything from days to months.
Webcomics are hit and miss. Most are bad, and others are lost in the crowd. Don't expect a big turn out at first. Unless you get noticed quickly and positively I'd keep it as a side-project. People have lived off webcomics before, so there is a definite possibility.
Of course, it'd be silly to expect any new webcomic (especially from an unknown chap like me) to gain any notable popularity within a few days or weeks, which is why i'm going to start out while i'm not depending on it. If i against all odds could make a comic every day or two for an extended period of time (and have them be entertaining as well), i hope that people will slowly trickle in, and hopefully stay as well. If one brodude manages to get two others to stick with it, who then get another two brodudes each and so on, that'd be an exponential growth rate right there.
For all of them you aren't being impossible, but it will be an uphill climb for all but programming. You don't need a degree for most of these (some places might want a comp sci degree), so you can always work at it while getting a degree elsewhere. NEVER write off your back-up plan.
I was expecting as much. Fortunately, i still have at least 2 years to go before i get my bachelor, and another 2 for a masters degree, provided that i stick with geology (otherwise smack on at least one additional year). 4 years to get SOMETHING up and running doesn't sound too ridiculous, does it?
If I had a full income myself (i.e. hopefully in 3 years), I imagine I'd pay some good money for good art. 
Or donate £5 a week to your decent webcomic that updates bi - weekly (for example.)
If your webcomic / artstyle becomes a phenomenon, which it might, 
, I'd say you have a decent chance of supporting yourself.
Glad to hear that! You bring me more hope for the future. c:
Now to get the silly stickmen to become a phenomenon...........
Author
Topic: Future income contemplations (Read 3214 times)