Freelance artist jobs 2020 real ways to earn money with your art. How to start a portfolio, guide, tips, websites, comic art, drawing job work from home.
You know as an artist one of the major revenue comes from contract work and commission. One of the major drawbacks to being a freelance artist who works on commission, short term contracts, or one-off projects. You only have work when you get the call. It’s not secure.
That lack of financial certainty isn’t just a drawback when it comes to getting the rent and bills paid on time. If you have a family to take care it can be a dangerous gamble.
I will share with you some of the tips for gaining and securing regular work as a freelance artist. I going cover:
- How to create a winning portfolio that attracts clients
- How to accurately price your art
- Where to find client work and get art commissions
- How to make sure you get paid for your work
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Before I cover how to create a winning portfolio that attracts clients. First things first, if you want to get more clients, they’ve got to be able to find you. You got to promote your art.
If you’re drawing alone in your basement and never show anyone what you’re capable of, it doesn’t matter how much skill you’ve got, no one’s going to know who you are or what you’ve got to offer them.
The major determiner of your success as a career artist will come down to your ability to get as many eyes as possible on the work you do, so that you’ve got an audience to sell it to. You run a business that offers a service, so you’ve got to be a great businessman as well as a great artist.
So where do you begin?
You’ll need to put together a killer portfolio full of your very best work. I’m talking about the most pristine gems of craftsmanship that show off the full range of skills you’re capable of.
If you’re aiming to get hired by a big company or independence studio. You’ll want to be well rounded at drawing pretty much everything. This can be including pin-up, covers, draw people, vehicle, background, and scene.
Sometimes they’re looking for artists who have the ability to tell a story through sequential art first, rather than cover art or pinups. If you can build a story behind one of your art I believe it is a bonus to make yourself stand out from the crown.
What to Include in an Art Portfolio?
You should consider ask yourself this question. What kind of jobs you’d like to get hired to do?
Like all you want to draw a robot, machine, or vehicle that awesome or you like draw a sexy lady on the cover page that total fine too. As long you passion something put it on there.
If you polish up your skills and get really good at working within your chosen category, or categories of art. The clients out there who are looking to hire someone who can draw the specific things that they want.
You’ll need to hone your abilities within your desired specialization. Become the best within that category of art and you’ll establish yourself as the go to person for that kind of work.
Again no one wants to hire a generalist because people want to hire a specialist. Let me give you an example: I love to draw dragon especially game of throne medieval time. And showcase it on the front page of my portfolio.
Some potential clients they browsing around who can draw a dragon with medieval time. And you’ve got a killer art piece in your portfolio featuring a dragon. They instant consider hiring you and the more dragon you draw the more showcase you put on your portfolio that makes you the dragon lord or dragon queen.
When the client comes to you, it’s for a reason. They already have something in mind, and that’s probably how they found you and why they’ve approached you to do some work for them. If you can define what your niche’ is, or in other words, the specific style, theme, and subject matter your work consists of, you’ll stand out among the crowd much easier.
Here’s some of the website you might want to check it out for model your portfolio:
Artstation.com
Devianart.com
How to accurately price your art?
Now you’ve got something to show potential clients, but what you show them is of course going to determine whether or not you get hired, and if you do get hired, how much you’re going to get paid.
Here’s the honest truth, most of the time you’ll get paid in direct proportion to your level of skill. The better you are at your craft, the more you’ll be able to charge. It is simple.
You might want to keep this in mind
Charge too little, and you’ll end up stressed out, working long hours, and living hand-to-mouth. Your work will suffer, and you’ll lose clients.
Charge too much, and you’ll price yourself out of the market and won’t land any clients.
You’ll need to objectively compare price to the industry standard. Let me give you some preference.
If you’re professional, fast, and good at what you do, you can get hired for $50, to $100 per hour. Remember your trade isn’t generalized, it’s specialized. You provide a service that fulfills a need. People pay you for what you do because you’re the only one who can do it in your style.
Where to find client work and get art commissions?
If you’re looking for fast money, there’s a number of freelance websites out there with job postings. I will name of few:
99designs is a graphic design platform that has freelancers for over 90 different types of design services like designing a business card, managing logo design, helping with e-commerce website design and more.
Dribbble is a platform that lets talented designers share their work to potential clients. It allows you to browse through a freelancer’s design portfolio and reach out to them for a project if their work impressed you.
DesignHill is another popular freelance graphic design website that helps you find talented graphic designers for your projects.
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I’ve found great job opportunities is on Facebook Group communities, where occasionally someone will make a post looking for an artist. My suggestion would be to join as many of these Facebook groups as possible and keep your eyes peeled for people looking to hire artists.
There are also many art forums out there that have a section specifically dedicated to job postings for artists, where you’ll find similar opportunities. Here’s a few
DeviantArt:https://forum.deviantart.com/jobs/offers/
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/jobs
Digital Webbing: http://www.digitalwebbing.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=e61a133c71d2fcd503f30e8aac9fa294&f=101
How to make sure you get paid for your work?
Sometime you sent everything off to client already and guess what they don’t have to pay you a cent. What are you going to do?
First off, how do you avoid having this happen to you?
Ask for a percentage of the agreed upon payment upfront, always! It could be 30%, or it could be 50%. It might even be 100%. For my oil business, I usually ask client deposit 30% upfront before we can start production and pack the container.
This is the best way of securing at least some financial compensation for your time no matter what happens. Most clients won’t have a problem laying down a deposit.
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