[Lunatique]

Try these:

1)A website absolutely helps. Put your best work on there, and email various companies(magazine editors, ad agencies, book/comic book publisheers..etc).

2)Actually mail color copies or slides of your work to above mentioned companies.

3)Try to get your work published in annual illustrator books like Spectrum.

Hope that helps.

[Breakerboy2]

1. Make sure the work in your portfolio is consistent and appropriate. Show editorial work to editorial clients. Advertising/storyboard work to advertising clients. Try to show one consistent style if you can - you don't want to confuse Art Directors.

2. Mailings are a must. You can get 500 color postcards for around $100 at Modern Postcard or someplace like it. These make really nice samples and leave-behinds that are cheap to mail and convenient to have stashed inside your portfolio to leave with art directors who are looking at your book.

Modern Postcard

It's often that the first few mailings may not bring in much work. If you can send out a new sample to prospective clients every month or two, you'll have a much better chance of bringing in work. You want to make your work familiar to the AD's you send it to.

I know some people that send a self-addressed-stamped postcard out to AD's with their samples that says: "If you are interested in seeing more of my work, please check here and mail this postcard back to me." They say they've had great responses and can make their mailing lists more efficient.

If you have your web address on your postcard, they can look at your work and have a better idea whether your work is appropriate for their publications/ads/whatever.

Making the mailings as personal as possible is also a good idea. Art Directors get TONS of junk in the mail everyday, and one more anonymous postcard isn't going to grab their attention as much as a hand-written card with their name on it.

3. Buying a page in the annuals is a step I haven't taken yet, but it will definitely give you national exposure. The annuals are expensive ($2500 - $4000 and up) but you can't make money without spending some.

4. Check out the Ispot. They have a great forum over there made up mostly of freelance illustrators who discuss business and advice all the time. Very helpful place.

The Ispot

5. There's a great book called "The Business of Illustration". I highly recommend it. It gives a lot of advice on how to put together a strong portfolio, how to market yourself, some suggested pricing for different types of jobs, and whole lot of other things that are very helpful.

Good luck!

[Breakerboy2]

Weird. Somehow my last post got re-posted.

Sorry about that.

[ August 03, 2001: Message edited by: Breakerboy2 ]

[Ahcri]

I was going to ask about this some time, but looks like someone asked it already. Thanks for all the answers!

[Breakerboy2]

One other thought regarding portfolios, a portfolio shouldn't have more than 15 pieces in it, and no less than 10. (Web portfolios are a different story, but you still don't want to barrage viewers with tons of artwork.)

I would maybe have a small sub-portfolio with choice sketches pulled together into one clean presentation. My sketch/storyboard folios are actually just nice folders that fit neatly inside the cover of my main portfolio. I got a lot of my first storyboard jobs just from showing sketches so it's definitely a good idea to have them handy. You just don't want to mix them up with your finished work.

Obviously, if you're showing concept art to a studio or something, you'd want to mix things up a bit, but in general these are pretty good rules to abide by. The most important thing in trying to get work is to show the art directors what they need to see.

[shinji69]

OK, let's say I have a nice portfolio of drawings, sketches and paintings.

Then what?

What do I do?

Should I make my own website? But that doesn't work.

Nobody seems to know about the 'next step'. What's that? I am thinking about becoming a freelance illustrator. But HOW?!

[FireFry]

One thing you can do is put up a flyer stating that you are a freelance illustrator thats available for work, list your qualifications and if you have some room show one or two pieces of work. Have some tabs with your name and # so if people are interested they can break one off of the flyer instead of trying to find a pen and paper to write it down.

It's a 50/50 chance but you never know until you try.

[ August 03, 2001: Message edited by: FireFry ]

[MadSamoan]

It depends on who you hope to get work from. Get to know a potential client/employer's product lines and send appropriate samples in your mailings. Also, have a good attitude. Editors and art directors will give work to a lesser experienced artist/illustrator even though they may have a higher caliber talent at their disposal simply because he/she may be easier to work with. I've seen some very, very talented people shoot themselves in the foot and not be able to get work just because they developed a primadonna attitude and it can take years to repair the damage.

[Socar MYLES]

I find that the Internet is a BRILLIANT source of free and almost-free advertising for your illustration talents. Personally, I get about 75% of my freelance work from people who've seen my work online. I just go around the Net regularly, looking for new places to show my work. Here's a quick list of the best ones:
www.epilogue.net - THE best. I get at least two small commissions from people who've found me there per month, and I've also scored a major job thanks to Epilogue.

elfwood.lysator.liu.se - Not nearly as good as Epilogue-there's a lot of rubbish to wade through-but I do get occasional work from there, so it's not to be sneezed at just yet.
www.renderosity.com - Lots of people go there. I wrote in the description of one of the pics I posted there that I was looking for work, and I got responses almost immediately.
www.deviantart.com - Good publicity, and free.
www.digitalart.org - Well, I've gotten lots of compliments on my work from there, but never a job offer. But hey, any publicity is good.
www.bkaro.net - Just for fun.
www.critical-depth.com - I sold a lot of prints of 'Gone Fishing' the month I entered their contest. (I didn't win, but who cares?)

And a few other sites, not generally so effective, in my experience, but still worth the effort, if only to get your name in more places...
www.side7.com www.mysketchbook.net (for students only) www.findmeanartist.com (I THINK it's .com..might be .net) www.absolutearts.com www.talentx.com www.portfolios.com

There are a million of them out there. The hard work is finding them, uploading all your art, and making sure people see it. Get involved in all the communities; help out, get friendly with the site admins. It really does help. PR is the biggest part of making it in any industry.

One other thing you can do, which isn't free, but very cheap: Go to e-bay. Auction some prints of your work for cheaper than usual. Provide a link back to your site from EVERY SINGLE AUCTION, and have an about-me page, also with links to your site on it. I've got a couple of small jobs from people who've bought prints on e-bay (I drew a pet rat for a birthday gift, for example)--and also, people come from e-bay and buy other full-price prints from my site.

And when you DO get a job, make sure you go out of your way to please your employer. Have the work done AHEAD of deadline if possible, and always do exactly what you say you're going to do. Never, ever, finish work late. Repeat business is your friend, and so are references.

Whenever you find you're getting more work offers than you can handle, jack up the price. That knocks the volume down for a while, but the profits stay the same.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on the matter.... Good luck!

[strata]

Anyone happen to have a list like that of Socar's but for web designers? =)

Must be a bit more difficult tho, since pretty much EVERYBODY figures they can do web design, but still... =)

[Socar MYLES]

Hm...a lot of good designers used to congregate at suffocate.org--I was part of that community for a long time, myself...but it's really gone downhill lately. Still, it might be a good starting-point for a search for design communities. I know a lot of people there had started their own places.

I got my illustration site list by doing a LOT of web searches for things like 'online gallery', 'art community', 'artists online', 'submit your art', 'art contest', et cetera. Maybe try searching for 'designers online', 'web design community', 'graphic designers community', and the like.... I don't know. I haven't been in the design scene for a while, so I don't know who's where any more. Good luck....

[Ahcri]

Thanks Socar, I was looking for sites like those, but I didn't know where to look.