paying the bills throguh illustration

[sirfrancisdrake]

hey everyone, im new here. new to this thread, adn new to the illustration industry. right now i am a senior in college, and will graduate in december. i have alot of student loans, rent and car insurance etc, and i am worried about making illustration as a career work. i probably shouldnt worry, but i really dont want to work some stupid dayjob. How many of you out there illustrate full time? do you find your slef with no free time? im perfectly willing to make sacrifices in terms of lack of food, sleep etc, im just wondering how hard it is to make it work.

mike

[MetalMan]

I'm going to be the downer...

GET A DAY JOB

... either that or find some other illustration outlet as your primary source of income. There are very few artists who can pay the bills from doing RPG work.

As someone who is also feeling the pain of student loans, you won't be able to pay them off of genre illustration (unless you suddenly stun the world and start having people beating down your doors for cover artwork to novels.

[fireMonkey]

As Metalman said, the business is tough. If your skills/talent is in the top 10-20% then I would say definitely go for it. If you are in the 20-50% category, then you could also make a decent living but you will have to work a little harder for a stable income. Anything below that you would need to get a day job or at least a part time job. With enough skills and dedication most folks can make it. But it also helps to have a bit of luck. No matter how good you are not all art directors are going to like your style. Sometimes it helps just being in the right place at the right time. Personally I would play it safe and get a day job and work on my portfolio in my spare time. Once you start landing the bigger jobs then you can think about going full time. I took a blind leap of faith and was really sweating it out for a couple of months. :D

[sirfrancisdrake]

hey guys,
thanks for getting bakc ot me on this. I plan on getting a day job, since i will need benefit etc. But specifically how well do you guys do? are you able to make this work without a dayjob? how hard was it to get gigs from the companies? im incredibly curious about this topic. any details or anecdotes would be greatly appreciated. as for me im working on all the interior artowrk, as well as the cover for an rpg that shoudl be coming out next year. its alot of fun, and i really hope to be able t continue this kind of work. i find the best thing is the challenge of the work, and seeing my skills improve so drastically, i wish i could show you guys some work, but i signed an nda, so thats out of the question... thanks

mike

[fireMonkey]

Like I said, it all depends on the individual artist. Your level of skill determines how much you make (if you work fast you can take on a bigger load.) Not everybody gets paid the same. If your skills are on par with Donato Giancola, then I would definitely say that you wouldn't have too much problems paying your bills. ;)

[aprillee]

Right--if you're Donato or Brom you can pay your bills pretty well just from free-lancing.

You should be able to judge how it will go if you're already getting jobs. You have an idea of how much they pay and how frequently you can get them.

It often takes a while to build up your clients. Just see how it goes and if you need to get a part-time job or a full-time one, then just do it. If you don't, then you don't. It's not the end of the world to have to do a bit of part-time.

Many illustrators will go in-house instead of free-lance, because they do want to regular paycheck and the benefits.

There are lots of options. Just make sure to check into them all and see what you think you'll like.

I free-lanced a while (making next to nothing), then went in-house for the money and the benefits (but continued to free-lance). But I may move back out again soon and just free-lance for a while. It's not like you're stuck doing the one thing forever.

[sirfrancisdrake]

thank firemonkey and april lee. hopefully im good enough to make a go of it. April lee where did you do in house work? that sounds like a good gig. i thoight of working for a video game company but i know they like people who can draw and model in 3d, which i can not do yet. do you guys know of any in house places that hire illustrators? how do you like illustrating freelance?

mike

[sirfrancisdrake]

i just checked out your sight april, damn you have some great paintings. and youve worked on some of the coolest games! i used to play heroes of might and magic 3 with my brother all the time, what did you design?

mike

[AndyHep]

As far as freelancing goes... No reason why you have to freelance exclusively in the RPG field. No reason why you can't do advertising work, comics, book illustration, etc as well doing RPG work. You should actively attempt to broaden your fields of view as much as possible, build a stable base for your business, not rely on a single field. Something like a pyramid is cool, but mine looks a little bit like the Tower of Pizza ;)

Andy

[aprillee]

i used to play heroes of might and magic 3 with my brother all the time, what did you design?

Hmmm... it's been years, so I can't quite remember. I did the Gnoll (model, texture, animation) and some concepts and bits and pieces...

Page of a few H3 art samples (http://aprillee.tripod.com/gameh3_files/portgameh3.html)

I've been in-house at computer game companies for nearly ten years. It's been cool. Right now I'm working on the DragonShard (D&D/Eberron) real-time strategy game that will be published by Atari (they have the license from WotC), next year.

As you can tell, I know how to model and texture in 3D... I only had illustration skills when I first started working--but it was easier then because there were no schools and the programs were just being written; the common 3D programs weren't created yet.

A way to get in is by being a concept artist--although, as you can guess, it's highly competitive. And it helps if you know 2D and some 3D, even then.