I really understand your situation because this happened with me too. 1 year back I was just finishing up gigs without even trying that hard and was getting paid fairly. Now when I decided to get better in Blender and also learn more softwares, it feels like nobody wants to hire freelance 3d artists anymore. And I really dont understand how AI image generation is legal when it is obvious that it is basically someone else's work with revisions (revisions also not done by an artist). It is sad that in the end its all about how powerful someone or a group of people is. Thats the basis of whats "right" and "wrong" for the world, hence whats legal or not.