Here are a few tips that I’ve learned while being a freelancer. Hopefully, they’ll help you make a little bit extra.

Keep Looking for Work
I know this seems obvious, but it’s easy to overlook. When I first started freelancing, I relied too heavily on a single client or a single job. This always led to downtime in between jobs. My strategy now is to look for next week’s work this week. This strategy may take time to get rolling, but it helps keep the jobs constantly flowing in.

Take on Jobs that You’re Good At
Sometimes it’s nice to challenge myself with something new, but for the most part I’m on the look out for jobs that are easy for me. It makes it simpler to quote a price, and you know you can complete them with very little stress or problems. As an artist, I always try to play to my strengths on paying gigs and work on my weaknesses in my free time.

Sound Billing Practices
Another freelancer once told me, “It’s all about the invoice”. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the artistic side of things, but remember you’re doing the job to get paid. Try to stay consistent and be professional with your billing, record keeping and prices. Clients are only human. They’ll forget to pay a bill or misplace your project quote, so be organized and send out reminders. Set up business practices that make sure you get paid. I usually like to get half upfront and get the final balance before I send out the print ready artwork.

Experiment with New Ways to Find Work
The industry doesn’t stand still, so neither should you. Go out and read magazines, forums and blogs to see what other artists are doing to get work. Take their suggestions and see if they’ll work for you. I’ve tried sending out postcard mailers and have never gotten great results. But, I still like to experiment every so often with a new mailer. I’ve tried a few of the freelancer job sites out there. Some have worked and some haven’t. My point is that things change. Maybe, your artwork gets better, your website is more professional or your style is suddenly trendy. What didn’t work for you in the past may be successful for you in the future.

Create Additional Revenue Sources
There are only so many hours in the day to work. Let your artwork work for you. Sell stock art, sell prints or get royalties from an illustrated book. Whatever your plan is, experimenting with a good way to get passive or residual income can really help fortify your annual salary. Companies like iStockphoto have really made it easy to jump into the world of stock art. I know it has worked out well for me.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.

In case you didn’t know, IllustrationFriday has a weekly topic to illustrate for fun. This week’s topic was Sail. I wanted to draw upon my vast knowledge of the great outdoors to create a masterful wildlife illustration. Then, I realized that I don’t have a vast knowledge of wildlife or wildlife illustration, so I created a fun cartoon sailfish.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.

Below is a tutorial I’ve written for adding gradients to a cartoon character in Adobe Illustrator. I start with a flat color drawing in Illustrator. If you’d like to see the techniques for creating a cartoon like this in Illustrator, feel free to check out my cartoon tutorial to see how I create the lines and shadows.

Next, I start adding gradients. For the glass on the cockpit, I use a radial gradient with a variety of blues. I use the the Gradient Tool on the toolbar to get the light colors on the top and the darker colors on the bottom. If you’re not use to using the gradient tool, I’d recommend playing around with it. To use the Gradient tool, select it and click the area where you want your gradient to start. Without releasing, pull the gradient in the direction you want it, then release when you get to the point you want the gradient to end.

Next, I add another radial gradient to the alien’s face. This gradient is a green color. You can add different colors to your gradient palette by dragging them in from the color palette. I like to keep the two palettes attached together for that reason. If you’d like a little gradient theory, feel free to check out my 4 step gradient tutorial.

Now, I want to add a gradient to the highlight on the glass. This time, I’m going to use a linear gradient. You can create a new gradient or you can modify the original cockpit gradient. If your going to modify the existing gradient, select the highlight shape and use the Eyedropper tool and click on the cockpit shape. This adds that color to your highlight shape. Since I don’t want the highlight shape as dark, I want to remove the darkest color. To remove a color from the gradient palette, simply drag it off the palette.

I add another linear gradient to the highlight on the face.

Next, I add a radial gradient to the inside of the cockpit. For this one, I’ll need to add a slightly darker color to the bottom of the gradient. Another way to add a color to a gradient is to duplicate an existing color. To duplicate a color, click on the color in the gradient palette you want to duplicate and hold down the OPTION key and drag it to another spot on the gradient palette. With your new duplicate swatch, you can tweak the color in the color palette.

I create another radial gradient for the alien body.

Finally, I add gradients to the ship.

Here is what the illustration looks like when I’m complete.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.

Zazzle launched their new product this week, SHOES!!! That’s right custom Keds shoes. A representative from Zazzle called me a week ago to ask permission to make a few products in my store for their launch. They did a few designs using my artwork and put them in my shop. I can’t say I was really crazy about any of them, but that is probably just the picky art director in me. Anyway, here is one I designed, so check it out!

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.

July’s earnings were a little down, but nothing Earth shattering. A few things of note this month: I closed my Cafepress account and my Snapvillage account. They just weren’t very profitable. In the case of the Cafepress account, I was losing money. Also, Stockxpert announced their partnership with Photos.com, and the angry mobs came out of the woodwork to protest the new terms. Hopefully, there is a peaceful resolution. Anyway, here is the breakdown of my earnings for July:

iStockphoto – 33%

Shutterstock – 28%

Dreamstime – 15%

Stockxpert – 9%

Combined Affiliate Earnings – 6%

Fotolia – 5%

123RF – 1.5%

Big Stock Photo – 1%

Adsense – 1%

Zazzle – 0.5%

Crestock – 0%*

*Crestock did earn money for me this month, but the total amount was less than 0.1%.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.