Where do you get commissions and gigs?

[DarJodo]

What websites do you use when buying or selling freelance services?

[darthmongoose]

My best successes have always come from having my own dedicated website and posting on Facebook (good for getting commissions for portraits from people who don't often commission artists and wouldn't know where to look) and Twitter (good for getting big gigs, often related to tech or tabletop RPGs for me). Going to events and giving out business cards can also be remarkably effective.

People with prettier styles that appeal to a younger demographic might find places like Tumblr or Insta better though.

Only use People Per Hour or Fiverr if you can do the work super-fast/cheap and don't mind working with cheap assholes who don't value your work.

[DarJodo]

Jodo is not very good at selling his services. He just wants to work and work and have the money come in just as steadily.

[darthmongoose]

Jodo is not very good at selling his services. He just wants to work and work and have the money come in just as steadily.

Ahhh, don't we all, friend?

Unfortunately with commissions, the income is rarely steady; it will come in in batches or big lumps of work, so it becomes very necessary to manage your workload and your money very carefully.

My main piece of advice is "look for work where other artists/writers aren't". A lot of my best gigs have come from my rock climbing hobby or my grounding in tech and coding, which mean I can hang out in circles where I might be the only pro-level artist, while competing to be seen in places with lots of other artists is much harder.

[thedude3445]

As an author who commissions artists often, I find almost all artists from Twitter, thanks to artists who retweet/follow other artists and create a chain of different accounts with all sorts of art styles. It's a nice place.

[TAMAnnoying]

I get most of my commissions form my D&D community honestly. Being a part of a community can really help you branch out and meet people. I post and chill out on places like Twitter and insta but I've never in all my years have ever met someone random off the internet who wanted to commission me. Most come from friends or friends of friends using Word of Mouth.

now I have a horrible time looking for people to commission on the other hand. Only ever had one good commission experience searching for artist on twitter and DA in the past. I've started doing the Word of Mouth thing backwards now and looking for artist that my other D&D friends have commissioned because then they have had experience and know what the artist is already comfortable drawing so we dont have to play the 20 questions game X3

[GesuGesu]

Usually friends I have around my various communities will come to me with jobs!

I hang around too many communities with different skills valuable for each community, so my commissions are not just limited to drawing, at least.

[demthorshie]

As others have already mentioned, I get most of my commissions via email, directly from my website or DMs through twitter or Instagram. I get on average about 2-4 commissions per week from twitter just by being active, that platform is my strongest tool in the tool box.

Other than that, there's always freelance websites like Fiverr, People Per Hour, etc. I personally really, really dislike Fiverr a lot and don't recommend offering your services through there unless you don't mind charging super low rates and having Fiverr take a huge cut from your earnings.

[SagaHolmgaard]

I'm not OP but I'm curious, do have a commission sheet linked on your twitter, or 'commissions open' in the nickname, or are you literally just being active on the platform?

I don't have a lot of twitter followers and I don't love the platform but if it's a viable way to get commissions I'd be interested in what the best approach is lol

[demthorshie]

Personally, I've never had to place the 'commissions open' title in my profile, but I do have a lot of friends that do this and it does help them to get commissions. I'll be honest, I've been doing commissions via twitter for a while now so a lot of my customers are either referred to me by a past customer I've worked with or they are a repeat customer. I usually create and pin a post on Twitter from time to time and it usually gets liked and retweeted. Sometimes people even share the post with their friends/family who might be looking for someone to commission art from. I also participate in a lot of art discussions and webcomic/art hashtag events on twitter as often as I can.

I don't have a huge following either (I have a little less than 830 followers) but my commissions are somewhat niche based. I used to advertise my services on my Twitch channel (I used to do stream art stuff a lot) and the amount of foot traffic I got to my website was overwhelming to say the least, so I think my past Twitch history as helped a lot. I do mostly character designs, Twitch emotes, panels, loading screen designs and sub badges, so usually people I've made emotes for, for example, will send other Twitch streamers my way via twitter. I hope that makes sense.

[SagaHolmgaard]

Yeah it does, thanks for answering!

[thedude3445]

The "commissions open" title, or at least a pinned post for commissions, has been incredibly helpful in helping me to find artists from time to time.