Musings about art careers
Two final thoughts before I go to bed.
1) When someone comes up to me at a convention and says “I want to be a freelancer, do you have any tips?” My first question is always “what kind of freelancer?”
Do you want to work in animation, video games, tabletop games, childrens books, comics, card games, etc etc? Do you want to do character art, environment art, story art… I ask all these questions to prompt them to start thinking more deeply about the direction they want to pursue.
Ive been there, the young person wanting a career but not knowing where to start. Step 1 is research. Just learning about the options out there, the various job titles, and the pipeline is so important. Finding artists who do the sort of work you want to do is equally important. It will be enlightening. You will suddenly be able to ask targeted questions. “Is this portfolio piece good for targeting a fantasy game company?” I think a huge step forward is figuring out what specifically interests you, inside the broad title of “artist”.
If the person at the convention answers back “Id be happy doing any of those things / all of those things” my recommendation is to sit back down at the drawing board and find an area to hone in on anyway, at least just to begin with. A portfolio with 3 character paintings (one horror graphic novel style, one cartoon, and one anime fantasy) 2 logos for local businesses, 5 background paintings (some horror sci fi and some in adventure time style), 2 life drawings, fanart of Pacific Rim, sketches from your trip to Germany, an oil painting of your dog, and a turnaround of a weapon design from your college class is going to be mind boggling to someone encountering you for the first time. But Ive seen many portfolio websites that look like this. And Ive seen even more artists who dont have a portfolio website. Guys! Make a website! Use Wix or Squarespace, its easy, I promise. I made mine using Squarespace in a day. Keep it simple and clean.
To be clear, Im not telling you you shouldnt do all of that art I listed above. I do WILDLY different artwork all the time. And Ive actually got multiple pages on my website that have different curated selections of my work. Only 2 are visible now, I hid the rest, but you can see environments and illustration. Once the show im working on is out and not under NDA it will need another huge overhaul, along with some other various NDA projects. Keep your websites up to date! Ok website psa over.
Make it clear what you can deliver to a company. Offer curated selections of your work to match the type of job you want to get.
Im sorry if I ever come off cheeky, I really sympathize with how HARD it is to get this ball rolling. Seriously guys, it is hard work and a ton of trial and error. You guys are all incredible for going out and working on making it happen, and Im inspired all the time by artists who reach out to me. This stuff is not crystal clear. There are people giving contradictory advice all the time.
And that brings me to point 2 actually.
2) There really is no single golden roadmap to success. There are no best practices that will work for every single person without fail. There are people who got where they are COMPLETELY differently than any way Ive encountered.
Im just a person and I only know the life Ive lived. When you read what I write, take it with a grain of salt and go find 5 or 10 or 20 other opinions. There is no shortage of opinions about art things on the internet. Make sure you vett the people you get your information from though! Thats a very important part! Are they qualified to be giving advice on whatever topic?
Ok so we’ve got this huge varied market and a hundred artists with a hundred paths into it. Where now? Well, thats the exciting part. You get to make a spreasheet of all the various outlets and methods for you to pursue and then chart your own path. Youll probably even find some of your own and come back to me and go Devin, you fool, you’ve been missing THIS the entire time! And I’ll go “good god you genius, Im adding that to my long list of possible suggestions right away!”
Go seek out opinions from the many many artists all over social media. Youtube videos, podcasts, written interviews, blogs, instagram, twitter, whatever else. I bet you can find someone successful who disagrees with something Ive just said here! Fantastic! Now keep both of those thoughts in your mind and remember that you are charging ahead on your own path, never before tread.
Ive met hundreds of artists and I am blown away by how varied their paths to success are. Guys, there are so many ways to find stability and a steady income in this vast artistic world.
Ok its midnight and Ive been up since 6 am so Im gonna get to sleep. Ill edit this tomorrow. Night guys!
stormborns
romaincrisis
2087
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
andulkaphoto