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alexiuss — F-ING BEE. HOW TO BE A FREELANCE ILLUSTRATOR
Published: 2012-02-06 08:45:08 +0000 UTC; Views: 55918; 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
your program is awesome then. most of programs I've had were hideously horrendous and taught almost nothing of use
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"Glorious boob"....For some reason, that had me almost on the floor in laughter.
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thank you for not making me feel like a little turd for living with my parents and not studying art, but doing it anyway
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Hey there, motivational and funny tutorials, that's for sure 
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Where?
-They send me emails.
I don't ever contact anyone. I'm flooded with jobs. FLOOoooooooooooDED.
I don't know when I'll be able to draw them all and where to shove new jobs.
I stopped answering full-time job offers years ago.
Your work is excellent. You've got a great eye for design and clarity.
I enjoy this drawing much: [link]
This one has a style perfect for a comic: [link]
The only troubles I saw in couple of your artworks [link] is them lacking texture, skin being too smooth. Try downloading a crapload of custom brushes for photoshop to aid with this issue.
You've only 40'000 pageviews. You have to get yourself to 4 million to see solid financial results with your art and for that you'd need to be posting detailed artworks and doing promotions and collabs for 1-2 years.
I love your style and can offer you infinite collabs if you'd like to promote your work through my 80'000 watchers. Send me a note if interested.
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Thank you so much for the tips and the quick answer. Very appreciated. I'm always working on improving my art but since I've been more in design for my design work ([link] ) that's where at least 70% of my attention goes now. But my real passion behind it all is painting.
Thanks also for the feedback and constructive criticism. I'm aware of what you're pointing out and, although it's hard to break old habits, I'm working on it.
I'd be very interested in doing a collab with you - I follow your comic on a regular basis so it would actually be awesome. I'll drop you a note 
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wow, totally watching *vervex . Those links are awesome.
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Thx for this! Honestly got my motivations to skyrocket^^
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Thanks for this tuto.
My studies cost a lot of time in my own series or other project. But if I found the good timing I can mixed my studies with my passion.
I'm a french user and the reality is not the same -_-.
But I'm agree with the idea who art program or art school is not realy intersting.Because you spend a lot of money on studies who you can't take a job.
I prefer studies interesting thinks and drawing during my passtime and weeks.(and is realy hard when you had a drawing addiction ^^' I drawing on every support digital, paper, comptuer science lesson %D.)
So thanks again for the new source of motivation (is my great weakness I undervalue my capacity 
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Truly you are a man among men.
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I am so goddamn glad I put you on my deviantWATCH.
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very interesting... Soo... Collaboration?
( i've been itching to do a "real" landscape, for a while... Might as well make it apocalyptic. or maybe i could draw a lot of soldiers, or the captain, or snippy, in on that landscape... Or continue the minicomic... )
But to charge 250+ for 'my' kind of art, would be overkill.
I'd say, start small, then grow your prices along with the fame....
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staring small works for some, but a lot of artists I knew from college got stuck forever on the 20$ per artwork price.
anyway just keep pushing your style and doing more livestreams!
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YES SIR!
It's An honor!
Livestream agian soon, then!
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Excellent stuff... always hard to sell work for more, my current sphere where I can see my work is tiny (excluding prints online) and its not the most well off either so charging 200+ for a piece means I would probably never sell any... will have to think on this more. Many thanks for the post
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My suggestion is to start a comic with that faceless character of yours or at least a series of postcards. People get addicted to a series of things.
Give me a shout in a note if you want some comic ideas.
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Cool, thanks for the reply and ideas
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Another useful thing to do is to join lots of groups and submit your art to them and be active in said groups. Also to fave and watch young artists and help where you can on DA, I'm no big artist yet, hell I get excited when I get 25 faves on a picture, but I found that doing the things you said AND the stuff I mentioned you start to build trust and an interest in your art. Also being friendly never hurt anyone.
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Great additions
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Thank you.
And it really does, I used to watch a few people, their art was awesome but they were total asshats about it so I never really faved their stuff.
And oh my god I just stalked your page for a bit and your art! 
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Me has made a little sculpture out of metal. selled it for 120€. Regretted it afterwards. xD
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This is really helpful
I usually post drawings twice everyday, but I don't anymore. I should draw more often, like I used to
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This is really useful, thanks a lot for pointing out all those issues that might occure newbies, or people who struggle with getting noticed. And I believe this advice can easily be applied not only to illustrators, but to any other type of artists out there.
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Lots of great advice here! 
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Lmao, well that was... helpful? Yeah, let's go with that
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Thank you. I'll fav this in order to motivate me. Damn realism.
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this is great advice and all, but... now i have even LESS of a clue what i want to do with my life O_O
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haha, well i WAS planning to go to an art school when i had the money, because i felt it would broaden my art horizons. but here, you and a few other people say its not such a good idea to spend so much money on school, as youve learned more from just deviantart... but i suppose thats just for freelancing. but now i'm unsure if i want to become a freelance artist, or work for a company, or whatever. and then maybe i don't even want to be an artist, maybe i could go into programming, as ive always enjoyed that. even more so, im a also a musician! 
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I just like high-fiving people, I don't have anything inspirational or wise to say.
...
::HIGH FIVE::
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One thing I've learned is to decide to do one thing. Do something intensively enough for a long time and people WILL pay you to do it. You'll become that good. I'm still struggling with staying away from drawing, though, so I can concentrate on reading/writing "^^
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High-five!
I know what you mean. I'm striving to become a successful illustrator, but facing the REAL WORLD is being quite rough on me. I mean, you have to face the fact that:
it is.
a tough.
life.
It seems that you have to be pretty good (AND lucky, and have connections, and...) to be successful in this area. Looking at everyone's amazing work here on DA may be inspiring, but there are times when it just kinda gets you down, right? Knowing that there are a gazillion fabulous artists around (that are probably as underpaid as yourself)...
BUT - I would never forgive myself if I just settled down and became, I don't know, a teacher - or anything else rather than AN ARTIST. This is what I wanted to be my whole life. This is the only thing I think I'm really good at, and the only thing I REALLY LOVE. Would I be truly happy if I just forgot about it and stumbled trough life in a safe mind-numbing job? Think about that.
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Do what you love the most :-D I am getting on in my years and only now really starting to take my love of drawing seriously. Study is great if only for meeting people (as in face to face), making friends and networking!
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high-five
it's just a problem of incisiveness then. just try different things and see which thing gets you the most fun/love
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this is great advice--i've been posting every couple days and my watchers have gone up like crazy. i used to post perhaps once every couple months at most, and i got about one watcher a month, too.
another good thing to do that i find, in my personal experience--and this sounds like selling out to some but it's really not--is to do fan art. if you're doing something people are searching for you're more likely to get people looking at your work. but if you're say, doing your own comic and no one has ever heard of it, the chances that someone will stumble on it are far lesser. so do both! do fan art for things you love. it's not selling out. >: 3
based on my experience i've also found that submitting your work to groups is a great way to promote yourself. groups with a lot of watchers are best. it's also good to find groups that are specific to your work, like groups for pencil artists if you do pencil, rather than to go for groups that are generic catch-alls where anyone can submit anything.
but yeah. groups. it's like free advertising.
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Thanks this really help what I thought about my art, this has really helped my confidence in my project that I'm making and hopefully selling soon.
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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!"
This... is too true... I think I've learned so much more on dA than I have in school when I took classes.
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Interesting. I think that goes for a lot of different arts. Being with other people who worship the same art is the best and most productive.
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Simultaneously feeling disbelief and appreciation...
somehow...
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