Love to see it!

I think what gets me most about replacing concept artists with AI is that like, on a 100+ production team, you only have a couple of them anyway? Like they're basically a rounding number in terms of 'cost', but they're immensely talented and underpaid and inject creativity right from the start? smh

Freelancing for artists has been really difficult as of late and probably won’t get easier. Rather than being discouraged, I would suggest:

1) being kind to yourself, taking care of your mental and physical health
2) figuring out how YOU can pursue this ‘long-term’

Tune in next week for a Q&A!

Persistence

IMO freelance is a long, long game. The way to ‘make it’ is either to be born with insane talent (which, let’s face it, most us are not) or keep at it long after most people would have given up.

Pricing

There’s a lot of differing and context-dependent advice around pricing. In lieu of concrete numbers, I present two universal suggestions:

1. If you’re fully booked more than 6 months out, raise your prices
2. Do not accept full copyright transfer/work-for-hire without additional fees

How do you do this? Here’s a guide from an actual art director: www.muddycolors.com/2022/12/how-...

If a company has a contact form, you can also use that.

Self-Promo

If your portfolio matches the criteria, cold email the art director. Every six months if you have new material.

With social media the way it is, there is no better way of discoverability (unless you know a way of consistently going viral, in which case, please DM me).

If you’re unsure, ask! Many artists are happy to help out if you’re genuinely open to feedback.

E.g. for book covers, I would look up the bestselling books in a genre on Amazon/Goodreads, analyze what the covers have in common, and make sure I have a portfolio that reflects that.

Targeted Portfolio

For anything you’re applying to, do you have at least 3 (ideally 8) pieces that would fit in among the existing product? Consider composition (horizontal/vertical), subject matter (fantasy/scifi/realistic), art style (cartoony/realism) and overall quality.

Another good way of researching is the reverse – look up award-winning artists and see what clients they’ve worked with (Hugo, Nebula, IBA, Beautiful Bizarre, Society of Illustrators to name a few)

For example, if I want to do book covers I would go to the bookstore, pull out 20 popular books in the genre I’m interested in, note down the art director/designer/publishing imprint and look them up online. I also follow authors on Threads to see when they post open calls looking for artwork.

Once you have a list, research who worked on them—the companies, art directors, artists, etc. gently stalk their website/social media for contact forms, artist calls, upcoming releases, and the like.

Research

Where do people who are interested in books hang out? Are there relevant stores, subreddits, discords, news sites, youtube channels, kickstarters? Where would you find an overview of new releases or popular products? Are there awards, year-end reviews that collect the best books?