How can I get a job doing freelance art?
cartoon, people, places and or things!
Drawing & Illustration - 1 Answers
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Do you have a site with portfolio samples? If not, you gotta make one. And make sure you explain your general workflow and deliverable formats (for instance "I usually create all my art in acryllic, scan, retouch, tweak colors, and provide clients with high-resolution RGB files via FTP.") Then I'd suggest posting on Craigslist in cities with lots of busy art directors (San Francisco, New York, Chicago). All you need to do is include "freelance illustrator" in the title, and a nice short description of your style in the message plus a link to your site. Let people know you will be working remotely. Maybe mention that you're willing to work on a project basis, with rights buy-out included in your costs, and that people need to contact you for estimates. (You don't need to mention any lack of experience, desperation for cash, etc. -- with freelance projects the work speaks for itself!) You might want to list that you're open to projects from specific industries (this might get you into the results from more specific searches). For instance I usually say "advertising, product design, marketing, packaging, toys, games, editorial, presentation, storyboards, etc." Craigslist is the first place people look to find illustrators (at least the first place they look beyond their normal stable of favorites -- but there are plenty of reasons art directors go looking). Craisglist is free, gets lots of traffic, and is a very popular venue for creative agencies to locate new talent (compared with other venues like Workbook.com etc. where you need to pay money and it's more geared towards established artists). Just be careful what you agree to -- there are many amateurish clients out there who don't know the value of illustration and will give you no end of grief. But of course freelancing is all about picking and choosing your clients wisely! Good luck. P.S. In my opinion -- make sure you have a firm hourly rate in mind before you start talking to people. And don't hesitate letting them know what it is. When you're first starting with freelance illustration I think the most important thing is to make sure you don't end up working lots of free hours. In other words -- always give your estimates as a number of HOURS. That way if the project goes over the estimate, the client will realize that they'll need to pay more money. (Avoid agreeing to fixed-cost contracts, they almost always end up with you doing a lot of revisions for free.) And forget about negotiating about usage rights until you've got enough work to start turning it down... One more thing. Keep creating new samples for your portfolio all the time, but every time you put up a new one, take down an old stale one! The important thing to land new clients is to show you can reliably deliver projects based on client demands -- not necessarily just what your own taste is. I know a lot of art purists will disagree with me on this point, but we're talking about running a business here, and until you have a solid income from a client base I think the vital thing is to show that you can handle commercial deadlines and can handle shifting requests -- so take on free work to pad your portfolio for restaurants, daycare places, etc. I recommend NOT showing anything you ever did for a school project! Don't give those art directors any reason to underprice you. Ok I've ranted enough. No more coffee for me
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