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alexiuss — F-ING BEE. HOW TO BE A FREELANCE ILLUSTRATOR
Published: 2012-02-06 08:45:08 +0000 UTC; Views: 55913; Favourites: 2096; Downloads: 496
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A TUTORIAL OF INTEREST PER FAN REQUESTS!"HOW TO BE A FREELANCE ILLUSTRATOR?"
Step 1: CREATE AND POST!
So you has drawing talents?
Don't be scared to post work on deviantart and other websites such as conceptart.org or cghub
Post as much art as possible. Draw 10 hours everyday.
Post an artwork daily or once per week minimum if the art is really detailed.
Forget all other jobs if you want to freelance. It takes incredible amounts of time, dedication and a massive portfolio to be a freelancer.
You will need at least 1-2 years for just drawing and posting. Nothing but drawing. I don't care how, but it must be done. Draw and post work.... everyday... for a few years to get your work known!
Stuck in an art block? Don't know what to draw?
Want to get really motivated by your own watchers from DA?
Start a livestream session and have fun drawing whatever silliness your friends ask of you! It's great practice!
Get some energetic music to go with it!
Want to promote your work nicely on DA?
A collaboration is the best kind of feature on deviantart and they're not hard to get unlike daily deviations!
Ask well known deviants if they would like to collaborate with you!
Their features will give you hundreds to thousands of new watchers, depending on how famous a deviant-artist is.
If they feature your painting, it will get 10'000-100'000 views! That's better than any art gallery in the real world!
For example - want to collaborate with me? Send me a note!
Also, submit your work to groups. Groups is a great way to get watchers.
NEVER, EVER UNDERVALUE YOUR WORK!
CHARGE 100 TIMES WHAT YOU THINK IT'S ACTUALLY WORTH!
Once you start charging 20 dollars for an artwork you will be in a spiral to client hell, where clients give a pittance and expect a masterpiece and then direct similar ass-hat clients your way that propagate the same horribleness that makes value of your art worth very little, providing nothing but shame.
Instead of wasting time arguing with clients/working for a pittance do collaborations with other artists and expand your portfolio as much as possible!
Don't waste time on "ART PROGRAMS in universities". Very often, they will teach you almost nothing and put you in hideous debts, especially if there are a lot of "liberal studies" involved in the course.
Look into colleges or private lessons instead, of you have money to spend and need motivation.
Instead of wasting $50'000+ dollars on a degree, live with your parents and draw non stop everyday, trying new styles, creating new paintings, collaborating with new artists. Make friends on da- as many friends as possible. Learn techniques from experienced deviants!
STUDYING ONLINE IS EASY! Browse AND TRY OUT ALL TUTORIALS: [link]
HOW MUCH TO CHARGE CLIENTS FOR ARTWORK?
Here's an archive page for association of illustrators:
[link]
[link]
Generally you should charge around $250 to $10'000 dollars per artwork. If you're charging less, you're severely undervaluing yourself and bringing down the art market.
The lower range of $250 should be charged for small, easy commissions like personal portraits, simple interior illustrations.
The higher range should be charged for big companies that plan to do something with the work - print/distribute it worldwide, or want to get full exclusive rights for the work, or want "work for hire" (basically they won't credit you), etc. If a corporation makes money off your drawing skills, charge them well for it! Corporations can afford to pay lots, if you know how much your work is REALLY worth to them.
I state this again- it is better to draw personal paintings or collabs than to work for a pittance for companies!
You can sell personal or collab paintings as prints FOREVER and no client will ever tell you what you can/cannot with your OWN work.
A nice personal painting can make you $10'000 dollars in your lifetime if you sell prints of it successfully online!
Found this tutorial of interest useful or enjoyable?
+fav it to spread the word!
WANT ME TO ADD SOMETHING ELSE TO THIS TUTORIAL?
ASK QUESTIONS IN DEVIATION DESCRIPTION BELOW!
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Comments: 312
You are typing in English right now. Therefore you can work for American companies without any issues. It's the internet age!
It's true, some art schools are amazing. Not the ones I was taught in though. Them universities are horrid.
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I already gave up on being an "official" artist, I lack that inspirational force I talked about but I have friends working as freelancers or hired at game studios. I know they have an international client circle and they've never earned much, only enough to get by. As I see much depends on pure luck, namely do rich clients find you or not?
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I don't believe it's luck.
I believe it's statistics.
If you output enough solid work, companies are bound to notice.
I've had around 5 full time job offers over the years, simply because I post work on deviantart, so yes big corporations find me.
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You have talent, you post pictures regularly so you'll be found. I agree, it has nothing to do with luck. But you're one among a hundred. There're X million people registered here but only the few really talented (and lucky) ones can make a career. So stating that only by being productive you can achieve something is a little exaggerated.
But all these are my personal thoughts and are not obligatory to be agreed on. I don't wish to oppose anyone or anything further or hurt anyone's feelings.
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I agree with you about art school. Best 6 years of my life, and I studied conceptual art. We didn't even do technique.
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THAT is some beautiful arts right there.
I feel inspired
In all seriousness though, thanks for sharing some of your vast knowledge of art with zee common boobs such as myself
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Collab collab collab?
Just kidding I er.. where did that come from honestly? But that's given me a lot of ideas, I'll have to go around posting collab bullitens.
Definitely guilty of undercharging for my art. MMmm... I guess I'll have to change that soon too.
This is a very amusing comic. Right now I'm going to art school and I really enjoy it, it's help me to network with other artists and has helped me to grow a lot. Though I agree, a lot of things can be learned online and some art schools are a bunch of hoccum.
I should probably post more, I have a whole library of mess that I should post here and other places.
Great advice sir, danke!
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Thank you, good sir, I think you have put an awesome amount of hope to my heart.
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This is... weird. Something I'd espect from torture-device. I sincerely thought it was his post at first glance.
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How to sell :/
I mean I'm GETTING a paypal but then what next :3
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how to sell what?
be more specific plz
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Hm...art? Lol fail
More specifically my paper children
Sadly at the moment I'm only doing freebies and trades
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Attend a local anime convention near you.
Open up an ebay / etsy store.
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Is it physical? Start a store, like Etsy.
Digital? Set up a donation. People appreciate the hard work of their favourite artists, and will often throw a bit of cash your way.
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I..I have been designing monsters like this: [link] and only get paid $15 each.. what do now? T____T
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how long does it take you do draw each monster?
ask to be paid fair hourly wage.
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about 3-5 hours each, and the client wants me to do 100 monsters total.. I've done 48 so far for him. :S
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So that's 5-3 dollars an hour? That's reeeeally bad, but understandable.
I did work for a lower when I was in school.
Try and get better rate once you're done these.
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it's frustrating because I don't have any reference really to know if my art is worth more than that or not. XD
Thanks for the deviation and advice.
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Jeez, that's a challenging career path for sure.
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Is it weird, that this actually demotivates me more than it motivates me?
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Probably more than one.
It might be the sheer amount of competition that I know realized once more, my lacking confidence in my own art, and the fact that I don't have the time to draw or paint everyday, but am not willing to give up university to do so.
But maybe that just means that I am not fit to be a professional artist. ^^
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You have to believe in yourself more. Even if you don't like it, FORCE yourself to like it. Say in your head that you like it. There's always somebody there who will like what you do even if you don't like it. You need to start with a good attitude, otherwise, you end up forcing yourself to finish and drawing without passion.
Sketch a lot. If you think something looks great sketchy, leave it like that for a couple of days. If after a few days you think that it needs more, add more. If not, leave it like that.
Starting with a low morale usually doesn't give too many good results... Try sketching everyday for five minutes. Pick a random object from you bedroom. Time yourself. You'll get better and better.
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Thank you very much (:
Now THAT motivated me!
Yeah, I guess I really should sketch a lot more..
I usually find it hard to get started, but I think once it's gotten a daily routine it should be a lot easier. I should probably really try that.
I also think that leaving a sketch for a couple of days is a useful thing, sometimes you get a whole different perspective on it then, or you find just the thing that has been missing from it.
Anyway, thanks again for picking me up like that, it really kinda helped.
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Glad I could help. Remember: it's always about the attitude. Be optimistic. If you feel you don't like it, take a break. Try something else.
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Yeah I'm trying to keep my spirits up 
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Great guide! I'm always too scared to put my work up. I might try it more often now...
University is pretty useless if you truly care about learning. The internet has just made it so obsolete as I've discovered in my first semester, but it does give you the time to really study and draw so I'll take that and wait until I can get on my feet with an indie game project I'm working on. Qualifications are a pretty pathetic excuse for little education but supposedly they give you some kind of security. SUPPOSEDLY.
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I'm going to tab back out and continue working on this painting. Thank you, it was a good read.
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good tips works pretty much the same on 3D art/visualisation as well..
A tip to add : A person should not be constrained to DA, post everywhere!
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totally.
da is just the best thing for getting fans in my experience
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xD why do you have that white hat in the comic? looks funny
Thank you Alexiuss a very amazing tuto for an artist
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is my winter soviet hat: [link]
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This sounds really helpful, I will see what happens when I do this as well.
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I am currently doing Animation at University, and while I spend almost every spare moment I have immersing myself in drawing, sketching and painting, I feel I have hit a wall with progress.
I desire to get better, to never be comfortable with my skills, but I kind of feel disheartened when I work so hard and don't see myself going anywhere with progress.
I have a couple of ideas for a different comics, so should I pursue them keep working on building up my foundation of anatomy? I don't want to create a comic that nobody reads because it looks bad. D:
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Ladies and gentlemen- Vitaly's true drawing skills.
Yes, uncanny photomanipulations are a thing of the past, Vit's moving on up in life!
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lol
You be serious or just motivating me to draw more full paintings from scratch?
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Motivating you to actually draw more paintings from scratch.
DO IT FGT.
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Challenge accepted - I can do the next episode of RA entirely from scratch, without using a single photographic reference or texture.
Just Let me ask you- why?
Do you particularly dislike it when I use matte painting / photography in my comic?
What's your beef with techniques of matte painting?
Do you also hate the movie Sin City?
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It's the uncanny valley more than anything, the photos are perfectly realistic, but even the slightest mistake in a painting juxtaposed with a photo shows at least ten times as glaringly.
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Eh, personally I never had issues with uncanny valley.
I designed low poly games 10 years ago and the uncanny valley values would be ridiculous high at times, because of high-res textures and low poly graphics.
Nothing is perfect and it is impossible to have absolute realism, especially in a silly webcomic which I draw for free for everyone.
If I draw every single commission from scratch with the amount of work I have, I'd end up with carpal tunnel by the time I'm 30 and nobody wants that. Once in LA my hand went completely fucking paralyzed from painting 10 days non stop and I had to work with my left hand. That was a ridiculous experience I do not wish to repeat.
You're just gonna have to enjoy my old fully painted works, because it doesn't look like I'll stop using photos in my comic anytime soon.
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Aw, I'd really like to have seen how you've changed over the past few years, but I understand.
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you can track the style and lots of things that I've tried over the years in my gallery if you go back far enough.
2002 oils: [link]
2005 digital brushwork: [link]
2007 traditional media: [link]
2007 acrylics: [link]
2008 writing and photoshop illustration: [link]
2009 photography: [link]
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Hilter and Dr.Richtofen would be disappointed.
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Don't answer me. I saw the behind the scenes deviation.
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I always wondered...how do you do the captain's coat? Is it a picture manipulation or do you paint it by hand? I, personally, don't make the difference.
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"Don't waste time on "ART PROGRAMS in universities". They will teach you almost nothing.
Instead of wasting 20'000+ dollars on a degree, live with your parents and draw non stop everyday, trying new styles, creating new paintings, collaborating with new artists. Make friends on da- as many friends as possible. Learn techniques from experienced deviants!"
I feel this is partly true, maybe for some people. I am attending the academy of art university and I have learned a lot. I draw every day and going to school has really given me a boost in things that probably would have taken longer to learn if I had waddled around on my own. Art school really gave me a boost, and helps me network with other artists, soooooo I wouldn't entirely debunk art school.
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