Freelancing as an Artist - Good Habits

Hey Steemers,

As some of you might know (those who read my 'introducemyself' blog) I've been working as a freelance concept artist and illustrator for the past few years.

I started out about 5 years ago as a freelancer. I've been drawing and painting for 8,5/9 years, but only when I felt I was 'good' enough to get some work, did I go out and find some... to be honest, it just came to me for some reason.

I think it was due to the fact that I was always busy, I tried to post all my sketches or studies on my Conceptart.org / Deviantart page or Facebook.
Back then I was drawing for at least 8 hours a day, so I always had something to show for.

Being that active on those artist networks shows you are taking it seriously and you have a larger chance of being seen by an Art Director or someone who needs to get something drawn. (one of my first jobs was to paint cards for the World of Warcraft TCG, an Art Director had scouted me through one of the art forums.)

For yourself, it is good to have that habit. When you skip a day you feel like you missed something and u'll push a little harder to make up for it.
Another great thing about it is that you start to 'log' all your progress, you can easily go back a few weeks and see that you were 'worse' at drawing back then.. You see to start your progress and that motivates you like crazy!

Alot of people who want to make their living out of drawing and painting .. 'art'.. start of by just drawing the things that they like.
But to get better at the craft itself, draw things you don't like. We tend to stay in our comfort zone because we feel that's what we are good at, that's what we know how to do..

But you will see that when you start studying things like anatomy, perspective, color & light, materials etc etc, you will get so much better at drawing the things that you like.

A big part of being good at drawing and painting is not 'talent' or practice.. It is knowledge.
When you know how things are, how they work, how they act in certain situations, thats when you know how to replicate it from your mind.

For example; Understanding that light penetrates the top layer of the skin, then bounces around under your skin and lights up the tiny blood vessels turning the toplayer of your skin red.. knowing that allows you to apply such things in your paintings which actually makes it more believable and gives you the freedom to use it.. which makes you a bit more creative.

The same thing goes for anatomy, knowing what muscles are situated where and what form they take on when they stretch or subtract is key in making believable and good looking characters.

I'll see if I can write a blog soon about different sorts of studies that you can do to practice certain parts.
I'll conclude with a small list of books that I think every artist should have on their shelf to learn from.

Anatomy: Andrew Loomis - Figure drawing ( this book is super old and can be downloaded for free as a PDF, just google Andrew Loomis PDF.)
Color & Light - James Gurney
Imaginative Realism - James Gurney
Dynamic Anatomy - Burne Hogarth

If you have any questions, comments or requests.. please leave them below!

Have a great day!
Cheers!
-Rogier