Making a Career Out of Art
It’s All Business
Two Main Categories- Mix and Match
Commissions (Service)
Private Clients
Industry Clients (Freelance)
Industry Employment
Products
Entertainment
Education
Functional
Collectable
Commissions
Private Clients
Individuals who want art made
Typically DnD, Pets, Furry, and/or Fan Art
Industry Clients
Companies want to profit off your work
Wide variety of fields
Outsourcing of crunch
Private Commissions
Positives
Low bar to entry, anyone can offer them
If you make what folk want, you will be hired
You don’t have to take direction from ADs
You can start at $20-30/hr and go over $150/hr
Instant payments (50% upfront, 50% finish)
Negatives
Marketing has a big impact on prices. Those who are worse at marketing will have a harder time finding better paying clients
If you are producing in a niche that doesn’t have high paying clients, you need to change your target market
Advertising on social media will be never ending
No clear guidance on how much to charge
Many clients ghost after seeing your prices aren’t low enough for them to exploit
There will be clients are total nightmares and will make you hate every minute of the process. Some will try to scam you. Others will order you around, even though they don’t know what they want or how to reach their goals, and/or will communicate poorly.
Low paying clients more likely to treat you worse
Have to factor in 30% taxes into your prices or you’ll be in for a shock
Can be difficult to generate additional income from the product
It will be a treadmill, you will always be doing work today for today’s bills
Industry Commissions
Positives
Get to work with IPs you enjoy
Prestige that *may* boost your other sales
At the high end, they pay very well
In some cases you can sell the original paintings, MtG secondary market pays better than WotC, same with Marvel/DC comic covers
A few small companies are willing to pay well for mid-level work, can be very rewarding when found and the negotiations work out
You do NOT need a social media presence
Negatives
At low/middle low end, pays below poverty level
It can be difficult to break into, many artists have the skillset but can’t get the work they seek for an unexpectedly long time - it may take networking to get in
If you’re not a good person, they will be less likely to continue returning to you for more work, and word will spread about you
Potential nightmare scenarios where they hold your payment hostage until you do more work
Can delay payments (90+ days after completion)
Larger companies do not negotiate. If you don’t like their prices/terms, they don’t need you
One-and-done payment. Secondary market in some specific examples aside, you do the work and will not continue to generate income from this work
At the low end it is impossible to sustain. At the high end it is a treadmill, but it will at least be worth your time
Products
Positives
Products continue to provide income over time, not just one drawing for one payment
Freedom from time=money, after substantial up front effort, you can make money without as much additional work
Usually other people hire artists to make them money- you get to make that money
You’re in control of your business and marketing, decide what to make
Negatives
It isn’t always easy to figure out what products you can offer that both interests you and enough people to pay for it
You have to either pay someone to handle the shipping and handling, or you have to do it yourself (which may mean learning)
Some people don’t like the idea of selling things, would rather just do services
The buck stops with you. If things do not go well, it is your responsibility
Entertainment Products
Apply your art to products that people will enjoy using
Art focused products- playing cards, jigsaw puzzles, artbook
Games including art- video game, TTRPG product, board game, card game
Comics- a lot of work, but if you are also a good writer, may work
Coloring books are often easy to set up once you figure out how
What forms of entertainment do you enjoy, maybe there’s a good fit?
Functional Products
Mouse pads, desk mats, shirts/hoodies, coffee mugs are fairly commonly sold
Keycaps- replacement keyboard keys, less common niche interest
Stock Art- Make assets that can be purchased inexpensively for many other people to use in their own products; ie video game assets or TTRPG characters
Brush Packs- Many people don’t know how to make their own brushes or prefer not to. It’s possible to make thousands per month selling brush packs if you have the audience.
More difficult to find ideas for, but if you hit on something, larger potential because people only have so much room for physical art in their house, even if they really enjoy looking at it
Education Products
After you learn art, you can make income teaching others.
Sell pre-recorded packs on Gumroad, Artstation, Udemy, Patreon
Passive courses- Earn money from views, referral links for trials, for Skillshare
Mentorships- One on one tutoring, guiding them
Live courses- Create a course that you teach live, effectively group mentorship
You can record the live courses and sell those later as packs or on Skillshare, or continue running them year after year if they maintain interest.
Collectable Products
Prints/posters, stickers, pins, plushies, postcards, tarot/oracle cards
Some customers are excited to buy more of something they already have a lot of
Prints are something that can sell well or sell horribly, depending on your niche and marketing. Some people are more selective about what they put on their walls… Environments and/or cute animals may be more likely to grace the dining room than an illustration of an orc charging at a zombie dragon
Keep an eye on trends, ideally things that you can produce inexpensively
Typically they cost less to buy manufactured items in bulk
Product Scopes
Each product suggested in prior slides takes a different amount of time
Each artist will also take a different amount of time relative to other artists for the each of products, what takes person A 5 hours may take person B 5 days
Artists can mix and match to maximize the return on their time/money investment into the products that they produce
Always seek input from your peers, generally speaking, everyone is open about their production pipeline and is happy to share the secrets they have found along the way to decrease their time and/or monetary investment
Where to Sell Products?
Conventions- Before Covid, many artists made their living traveling the country going to gaming and comic conventions, selling in artist alleys. We’ll see if that comes back.
Kickstarter- After you have a finished product, you can get orders to fill through Kickstarter. It’s not for funding the development of the product anymore, Kickfinisher is a more apt name.
Webstore- Many artists have their own website with a webstore plugin. You will need to learn Search Engine Optimization to drive traffic to your site with Google.
Third party sites- Gumroad, Amazon, Redbubble, etc depending on product.
Perfect Product Paralysis
You have to make and sell products to get better at making and selling products
Your first product creation/release won’t be perfect, that’s OK.
Spending too much time on your first product, it may be too large in scope, focus on the minimum viable product and get that done first before branching out
Don’t start with making your “dream”, it may be too precious
Make sure the product you are making fits your existing skillset- otherwise either outsource the work that doesn’t, or actively work to improve in that area
Think about what that you could do in the timeframe of this month, not this year
Later, after you have similar products under your belt, be more adventurous
Top 10 Marketing Tips: 1- Find Your Superpower
Figure out what you do best, and focus 80% of your effort on that
IE: illustration, graphic design, characters, creatures, etc
Whether it's doing that, or doing things that support it (studies, business/sales, marketing, etc)
And the other 20% for trying out other things to see if they may be part of your strength but you don't know it yet
2-Your Strength+Pop Culture+Relatable = Winning Strategy
Take that super power, associate it with something pop culture (such as DnD, Warcraft, Pokemon, whatever) and find a way to make it something that viewers will find an emotional attachment to.
It may be making them cute animals like in Humblewood, or maybe injecting current political events into a high fantasy setting. The relatable part is hard, and most people don't figure it out!
Think up some examples of successful artists/products- how do they fit the formula?
IE: Exploding Kittens was a hit because it was stylized art + viral comic + kittens.
3- Better Together
Find a group of peers to help eachother out. Share your communities together.
The more cross sharing, the more each community will grow. The idea being a rising tide lifts all boats. It's also in the form of shoutouts to other artists, or raiding/hosting/retweets on Twitch, Twitter and other social media platforms.
Don't just focus on those with bigger followings than you in hopes that they will reciprocate, they probably won't if they don't already know you, but if you sincerely love their work and not just want their followers, feel free to.
People with about the same size, or smaller, audiences will appreciate your shout out more anyway!
4- Get Digital
Find the places that talk about what the types of things that you make and join those communities. Participate in the discussions, help them out, etc, and find the other places that they go to talk about these things.
Then later they can see your work and be supportive of you as one-of-them rather than someone who is just coming in to peddle their wares.
Just like networking with peers- people can tell when you’re genuine or shilling
5- Make it Shareable
Put it on Twitter or somewhere else that can easily be shared with others rather than just on a portfolio site. Retweets and similar mechanics help spread your work. Being something people can link to is not enough!
Pinterest is also a surprisingly good place to share your work, other people can pin your pins into their own boards, multiplying the chances that your pins will be discovered.
Share it other platforms as well, but definitely don’t miss out on posting places that have a strong culture of signal boosting
6- A Great Idea is Better Than a Great Opportunity
Don't spend all of your energy chasing the recent meme.
If, however, you have a great idea that fits the current hot thing, like a few years ago- a film noir version of Detective Pikachu, that's great, but don't just do a standard pikachu in a hat because that's what everyone else is doing.
If it's a low effort thing, like making a collage of your previous work and your real life face in the middle of it, or being part of #portfolioday #artvsartist or #visiblewomen when those spark back up, or something more impromptu like #under10kgang, go ahead and do it.
Good ideas can create new unique opportunities that are more worthwhile.
7- The Netflix Model is Real
Make your art/work bingeable.
It's better to share a bunch of related things at once than to post them out continuously over a longer period of time. Or at least share the old stuff when you share the new stuff. Add to your own Twitter thread so people can see the past content.
Make a big event of releasing new products at the same time, hype people up leading up to the date so they are already lined up come release day.
If you plan to make a handful of mermaids for mermay, post them over a shorter timespan than stringing them out over the entire month. Let the people dive in and fall in love with your new concepts.
Diving deep is what lets them fall in love.
8- Focus on What a Few People Love, Rather Than What a Lot of People Like
Things that are super specific for your audience will speak directly to them, rather than something that may be broadly appealing to everyone a little bit.
If you are going to be doing a piece of fan art, find something that will show you are a fan and understand/enjoy something specific about that franchise. It will resonate more with that audience than a generic “May The Force Be With You!” reference to that everyone will understand, even if they’re not Star Wars fans.
“This person gets it” is very powerful. It doesn’t feel like someone just swooping in for their wallets, and it makes them more interested in showing that they too are someone who “gets it”.
9- Communities Find Problems, Not Solutions
The public can find flaws, but they may not always communicate them directly, and instead make suggestions on how you can improve or do new things.
Don't just listen to direct requests (unless they're paying you) or suggestions on what you could do in the future.
If multiple people request/suggest similar things, that's a sign to evaluate what is causing them to give you that input. Look at the general themes of things people are asking you for, rather than fulfilling requests.
If one person requests pikachu with an omelette on their head, that's weird. But if several people are suggesting you put various breakfast foods on to various cute animals, maybe there's a market for art of breakfast foods on cute animal heads.
10- Learn From People You Admire
Look for videos/talks/presentations/blogs from creators that you admire, they often have already given advice out there.
Consider listening to GDC youtube talks while you're drawing, maybe Proko, Marco Bucci, Bobby Chiu videos, or check out Twitch artists who talk about their careers or processes, etc while they stream (If you want suggestions I can provide some).
Don’t be shy to ask them questions while they’re streaming, or on Twitter.
Maybe they offer mentorships?
Study their businesses, if applicable, figure out why they do what they do.
Potential Pipeline for an Independent Artist
0...) Find your superpower and hone it
Other potential areas to look into
Licensing - Renting out your art for other publications to use. More relevant for some fields than others.
Galleries - For the fine art work specifically, some artists did make a career out of this before Covid, we’ll see if it comes back. Galleries take ~half of your sales. You will likely need a mentor to show you the ropes and introduce you to the people that you need to know in order to get anywhere in the field. It’s its own very different world.
Marketing - Since you will likely have to be playing the social media game anyway, in the event that you gain a very large following, some companies will sponsor you to do work for them. Not just shilling tablets for XP Pen (doing the review with the tablet they send you and then ebaying it), some companies that desire your specific audience will pay you to do artwork for them to use in promotional material and post on your socials.
Last Word - Social Media
The algorithms are always changing, and what they promote and what they exclude will shift month to month, year to year. There could be a 2 hour introduction lecture just as a broad view to them, but things will likely change by the time you are ready to start building your brand. So here are 10 second versions:
Twitter- It’s networking. Be supportive and reply to other people’s posts positively. Post your own stuff, shareable. Don’t be a jerk.
Instagram- Can be a pain. They want you to use every feature many times a week, consistently. Difficult to get them to leave the platform to support you elsewhere.
DeviantArt - Weird place, most people have moved on, mostly young low paying clients, there may be some exceptions.
YouTube- Evergreen content. Wide reach, potential for big growth.
Tiktok- Big potential for growth, but how do you get them off of that platform to support you elsewhere is a lingering question
Twitch- Gain a small following of quality followers.
Pinterest- Evergreen content. Have the pins link to where you want people to go (your website?)
Facebook- Don’t pay for ads unless you have a pro handling it. Find groups that have the communities that you use. ‘Go to clients’
Reddit- Another ‘go to clients’ platform. Find subreddits that have the communities that you can use.
More Info
This Twitter thread contains more detailed information about best practices for private commissions and some information in regards to freelance work, as well as some generally applicable career information for artists.
https://twitter.com/MooCheese/status/1381635299604901893