Artist Advice: Early in my career, should I focus on building my portfolio or taking on small jobs?

 


This is extremely important:

What you draw today is what you'll be hired for tomorrow.

  • If you draw spaceships, you'll show up on searches for spaceships.
  • If you draw dragons, you'll be sorted with the dragons.
  • If you don't want to draw spaceships or dragons, don't post them in your portfolio.

As an art director, I have to search through hundreds of portfolios for each project, looking for the right potential candidates. If I don't see what I need in your portfolio, you don't even appear in that initial search, let alone get further consideration. 

If you're in a financial position to just work on your portfolio so you can build up your skills, that's totally valid. Just make sure you're posting consistently and that your best work is visible first. You can also delete older work that doesn't show your current skill level. (I see a lot of portfolios with years-old freshman-level work that never got cleared out.)

To get paid will building your portfolio, search for jobs with licenses or themes that will fill your portfolio with the type of work you want to keep doing. If it pays a little less, but the client pays on time, offers good direction, and it beefs up your SEO, then it might be worth it. Just be prepared to charge higher rates as you move up in your career. You're worth it!

"Small" jobs should still pay!

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