How To Become a Professional Freelance Artist

The digital age has created numerous opportunities, one of which has been the emergence of readily available and affordable digital art tools and outlets. This has given amateur artists the ability to pursue a freelance career online, but this can be a difficult career path for those who aren’t prepared. Here’s what you need to know in order to successfully pursue a digital art career online.

The Tools You’ll Need

Digital art requires a different set of tools than traditional art, as you can imagine. First and foremost, digital arts make extensive use of drawing tablets. Despite your chosen medium in traditional art, “drawing” tablets are the end all, be all tool for digital artists, because they emulate not only drawing, but also painting. This is because these tablets serve as an interface for art programs such as Photoshop that offer a wide variety of “brushes” that can serve as imitations of pens, pencils, charcoal, or paint. Because digital art requires you to look at a computer screen for hours on end, you should also invest in some Blue Free Optical eyewear to protect you from the negative effects that blue light LED monitors can have on your ability to fall asleep at night.

How To Develop Your Skills

Generally speaking, digital artists will have had some experience with traditional art tools and techniques, some of which will carry over into their digital equivalents. However, adjusting to a drawing tablet will take some time. This is because digital drawing interfaces are incredibly precise, so much so that even imperceptible hand jitters create jagged line work and need to be corrected via stabilizers built into the software. Practicing is an important part of making the switch to digital art, but that’s okay. Practicing to hone your craft is essential if you want to turn your creative hobby into your dream job, so you’ll need to spend a lot of time practicing no matter what. Regardless of the style you like to work with or what your clients might typically ask for, you need to practice a wide range of styles. Realism in particular is a good style to practice often, because working in great detail can benefit everything else. Even very simple or cartoony styles can be improved upon by studying and practicing realism. Shading in particular is best learned by studying the way light and shadow work in a realistic setting.

Making a Name for Yourself

In order to find a way to make money off of your artistic passion, you’ll need to develop your reach. The most effective way to do so is to gain traction and show off your artwork on social media. Social media platforms of all kinds offer entrepreneurs some potent marketing tools, and Twitter and Instagram in particular have robust, thriving artistic communities. Regularly posting your artwork to Instagram, for example, can help you generate buzz and develop an audience of regulars, all of which will help potential clients find you more easily. In order to be as visible as possible, you need to master the art of the hashtag. Hashtags are a form of SEO (search engine optimization) that will make your account visible when certain search terms are used. Finding the right mixture of accurate and commonly used search terms will allow the highest number of interested parties to find you and follow you or even request your services.

Be Consistent

The internet can be a fickle crowd, so you need to maintain a strong online presence in order to have a lasting impact. Posting your work regularly and frequently is key to growing your audience at a steady pace, and it can also ensure that you’re not abandoned for the next big thing.

Becoming a professional artist is the dream of many, but the pleasure of relatively few. You can live the dream for yourself, but only if you use these tips and commit yourself to this goal.