The Unique Hardships of Freelancing (Patreon)

I adore freelancing. I do this entirely fulltime and expect to do this for a significant portion of my career...but there are many underdiscussed downsides other than "instability" and "you have to find health insurance" and "it's hard." 

I've learned a lot in the time that I've been freelancing and found pitfalls that I didn't realize until I was in the deep of it. Hopefully this explains some of the things you should consider before taking the leap.

Creative isolation

It often goes unsaid how isolating freelancing is from a creative standpoint. When you're working in a studio, you're surrounded by other perspectives and voices and ideas. You can pass back and forth references and random things that you know, you have more starting points for your concepts. 

When I was starting new sets of concepts in-house, my teams would often have a few unique things for me to look into. "Oh hey, I have this book that might be helpful" or "you should look into this! I saw it in a documentary" are phrases often said at the beginning of a project. Having multiple minds in the same room organically results in more diverse ideas.

When you're self-employed, you have to come up with all of that yourself. That makes it more important than ever to look for inspiration outside of games so you're not just doing the same set of ideas over and over again. Having an affinity for research is one of the best traits for concept artists. Watch random documentaries on Youtube about nature or cultures. Read classic fiction and go to museums. Sketch outside. Take weird classes or workshops in other art forms. When working alone, diversify your mind and experiences to fill in the gaps that a team cannot.

Lack of everyday mentorship

Once you're freelancing, you're almost entirely on your own from a growth standpoint, too. Both small and significant opportunities to be mentored go out the window: moments of guidance or training that you'd often have access to when working in-house. So suddenly...what are all the things you have to truly and entirely learn on your own?

Style matching: You have to be able to dissect the style of a game and assume you'll get minimal actionable feedback on your ability to do so. Being great at style matching isn't just imitating the lineart of their core artists, it requires you to be able to mentalize an actionable set of descriptors to match the visuals of their project. How much guidance you'll get in this context may vary heavily.  Sometimes, you'll get a detailed, specific style guide that does a lot of this work for you. Other times, you have a very short description and you're practically on your own. This is a big part of building up your essential ability to adapt as a freelance artist.

Fundamentals improvement: The potential moments in which a senior artist could point out consistent fundamental weaknesses and provide guidance in your work are now gone. It entirely falls on your shoulders to seek external mentorship, training, or resources so you can tackle the problems in your work. Some growth will happen in your client work, but in order to get external feedback, you have to apply those lessons in personal work that you can actually share.

Soft skills: Working from home doesn't mean you can skirt around soft skills. If anything, they're more important. Networking, seeking clients, self-motivation, and communicating throughout a contract are all essential skills for a sustainable freelance career. Actively seeking out ways to interact with other artists, game developers, and recruiters online and in-person helps you learn how to communicate, collaborate, and network.

Being in a feedback bubble

One of the best things about working in-house or creating personal work is that you have other voices and perspectives to chip in on what you're making. You can just swivel around in your chair and ask for another pair of eyes on your work, or you can share your WIPs online. 

Can't do that when freelancing. If you're lucky, your clients will be able to provide actionable feedback that helps you make the right choices, but that doesn't always happen. It entirely depends on who you end up working with.

This doesn't only apply to constructive critique, but also to positive feedback. You also don't get the validation that comes from healthy collaborative environments. When working with a team, you get moments in which other artists look over your shoulder and tell you "hey this looks great!" or "you've made a lot of progress!" I miss those moments like crazy. I miss the tiny conversations had while you're working around other artists.

By being in a studio, you're also able to put your art next to the work of your coworkers and know if you're on the right track for your goals. This helps you reflect and get a strong grasp on where your skill level is.

I'm in a multitude of private Discords and online communities to help out with this, and I try to try to set aside time to keep creating personal work. This allows me to challenge myself, demonstrate my growth, continue to share my art online, and have fun painting. 

 And the more commonly discussed pitfalls:

I just shared the 3 most unique hardships in my mind, but also wanted to list off some of the stuff that is talked about more often.

• Having to pay out-of-pocket for health insurance and expenses (in the US)
• Must be strong at time-management and self-motivation
• Finding clients can be arduous and difficult
• Having some sort of online presence can be practically necessary for networking
• Determining and negotiating your rates often
• General financial instability

I hope I haven't painted too bleak of an image, but the purpose of this post is genuinely to share the things you must consider before striking out on your own. Some of these points were stuff I wish I'd realized sooner!

If you're considering freelancing before ever working in studio, keep these things in mind and build up habits that strengthen you in the long run. This stuff isn't easy, but if you intentionally lay a strong foundation with these hardships in mind and have a plan, a healthy freelancing career can be within reach.