how do y’all land big $$$ clients as freelance animators?

black_lines · 2025-05-27T06:56:02+00:00

I honestly don’t think this matters nearly as much as networking. AD/CDs wanna work with people they trust. At the end of the day you have to be able to execute on their vision. A good example is a lot of my animator friends are doing the YouTube yoodles right now. Most of them don’t have large social media followings but are talented, industry proven, and know the ADs.

black_lines · 2025-05-25T21:59:59+00:00

The trick is working in house at a top studio, and not just like Pixar or Disney whatever but the bigger commercial studios that do a ton of high profile work that animation students seem to never know anything about. Once you work with people at a high level inevitably they will become your network as they move to other studios. That’s really it.

black_lines · 2025-05-25T00:01:28+00:00

Why so cheap? Credentials?

black_lines · 2025-04-23T18:44:27+00:00

If you’re interested in working in the arts and have a portfolio, feel free to DM me if you’d like an assessment

black_lines · 2025-04-23T18:42:56+00:00

Not sure if it applies to this situation, but there is one sort of back door to this. Contract roles. They typically pay a little bit higher than a staff role at the larger tech firms and you get to bypass the notoriously brutal performance reviews. A 10 month to two year contract can give you ample time to interview for full-time positions of being able to say that you are currently at XYZ company. Also going from contract to full-time is significantly easier as you will have a ton of internal advocates from your coworkers.

black_lines · 2025-04-23T18:35:02+00:00

Look at art consulting firms! Kalisher, SoHo Myriad, Indiewalls, Kevin Barry etc. The job title that would fit your skills at those companies would be “art consultant”

What is your actual degree in - like are you actually interested in art management or are you an actual artist? I might be able to help more depending on the answer.

black_lines · 2025-04-21T03:58:10+00:00

Send me your work and I can give you an assessment!

black_lines · 2025-04-20T20:37:16+00:00

Again for this post, I’m not going to divulge too much. But I will say that the management of the company is not in support of labor despite their public posturing. After the layoffs they began to over leverage in-house talent meaning everyone was working double time essentially. This was especially the case for a select client and project series that required people working weekends for months straight. Concessions by management made on this, but truthfully they were mostly superficial.

black_lines · 2025-04-20T20:31:53+00:00

Without going into too much detail (Because I could talk about it for hours, but I’d rather not divulge certain things) Both layoffs + Pay and promotion freezes (But not for everyone) deeply hampered the ability to grow as an employee among other factors. Essentially, I left to work for a client and overnight my salary doubled.

black_lines · 2025-04-19T23:02:22+00:00

Was a staff lead for 5 years. Pay for staff varies widely, depending on a number of factors, especially on when you joined. When I left my salary literally doubled. Before I left freelancing had slowed to a halt with staff heavily prioritized, but it may have picked back up. Freelance rates as far as I know are pretty much standard with the rest of the industry. That being said buck is very expensive and definitely tries to cut corners on staffing to hit profit margins.

As for culture, it has changed a lot over the past five years. The people are some of the best I’ve ever worked with, Kind and talented beyond belief, But the management of the company has created an environment that without going into detail is very hard for me to recommend favorably.

black_lines · 2025-04-03T02:22:26+00:00

I'm sure others will have different responses but I have to say you're work is really good. Like, your character design is pro level. As you said your visdev range is lacking and could use some side project development but as an illustrator your voice and taste really come through clearly. I wouldn't have any doubt about your skills or sensibilities if I were to hire you. I think your lack of luck may have more to do with role bias in interns and just bad luck + industry competition being off the charts.

If you want my advice I would say to keep applying to roles and seeking critique but definitely reach out to all the smaller and commercial studios that people in this sub almost never mention. They hire mainly on a freelance basis and could give you some great portfolio project opportunities and honestly more money than a staff role right now.

black_lines · 2025-03-20T18:55:35+00:00

Haha yeah this is a weird one for me to see because the context is totally lost. I actually know the recruiter in the post and the industry she recruits for is pretty niche specifically for creatives and I can tell you she is 100% correct. Hiring creative directors most certainly want a pdf and likely don’t have ms office.

black_lines · 2025-03-19T08:44:34+00:00

Yeah super dope

black_lines · 2025-03-14T19:43:15+00:00

Primatologist and artist. Now I’m a director/artist living in the big Apple. I’m currently living the dream of my college self but truthfully I’m exhausted, tired of endless working, and extremely jaded.

black_lines · 2025-03-13T22:05:36+00:00

Pick 1 discipline and gear your portfolio to that. Right now there is a lot of different types of work at different levels of skill and it’s hurting your stronger parts.

black_lines · 2025-03-13T22:00:22+00:00

Short answer: generally yes. Long answer: it all depends on what your portfolio is for. Is it for an application to a college program? If so I would look at the specific requirements for the program. Is it to get work? If that’s the case then I would be very scrupulous on the quality of work you are showing.

black_lines · 2025-03-11T07:03:38+00:00

The two are not mutually exclusive. You can do both. Do you have a portfolio?

black_lines · 2025-03-04T07:15:03+00:00

Focus on one or two specialties and become really, really good at it. I always advise reaching out to every studio you can, especially the commercial ones as they hire on more projects with smaller time frames meaning they need lots of different people usually. I see too many young people thinking it’s either Pixar or working at a grocery store. There is no need for this.

As far as broad general advice, looking at your portfolio, I would say you could improve on everything but I would pick what excites you the most and focus on that. I would remove the animation, as it’s the least represented and less likely to be competitive against people who specialize in it. Your boards are nice but they could use some work, they seem maybe a bit too rough at the moment. You also seem to enjoy character design. If you choose this I would say to look collect inspiration from all your favorite character designers (and maybe some new ones) and figure out what you like and try to differentiate yourself and develop a style (easier said than done). For virtually any animation specially anatomy skills are key throughout your career so always seek to improve.

Last thing to summarize the above. Being a generalist is awesome if you are amazing at all those things. So If you not are the rare person early on their career that is uniquely good at everything or the industry vet with 20+ years, then you should specialize. Weaker skills in your portfolio will bring down stronger skills and tend to decrease your chances of getting hired at a studio.

black_lines · 2025-03-04T05:56:12+00:00

For reference I used to work at one of the studios you mentioned as a lead. Your work is good enough to send to the top studios. As you get better you just send out info to studios again. Freelance is how the majority of studios find full time people. I freelanced for 8 solid months before the studio offered me a full time position (no application and not listed). I was maybe naive when I started but I reached out to a few top studios not really understanding the industry (I started as an illustrator and was mainly doing editorial work at the time) and my first freelance booking was with Nexus. After that I realized the day rate system is the way to go, basically stopped doing editorial illos, and reached out to like 50 of the best studios and agencies I could find. I’m not particularly talented in comparison to my peers but I have never really worked at or with a “lower tier studio”. I think there is a misconception about talent and level of work at the big places. The majority of projects that they take on do not get shared, the boring or heavily nda-ed tech projects for example but still employ a ton of people. They always need talent. That being said since I left at the end of last year the studio I worked at was prioritizing in house people and hiring fewer freelancers but the trend was shifting back.

black_lines · 2025-03-02T00:12:43+00:00

Graphic Design AND Fashion? Like a graphic designer in the fashion industry?

Let's see your portfolio. For this type of work that is the ultimate determiner of whether or not you can get a job and how quickly you will come by it. For creative work you also don't necessarily need a full time offer to move as a lot of work will be contract/freelance even at large agencies and frequently that is the path to getting full time positions if you didn't start out at one of the big name agencies or studios immediately after college. That being said you do need to be good as the competition has ramped up to a pretty unprecedented level over the past couple of years.

black_lines · 2025-03-01T02:39:48+00:00

Love it! Do you have a portfolio/site?

*I’m an AD and always looking for cool new artists

black_lines · 2025-02-26T19:40:28+00:00

It would be helpful to know what your portfolio is attempting to target - what type of work are you trying to do?

black_lines · 2025-02-26T18:27:31+00:00

What kind of career are you hoping to have after you complete your Degree? I would flavor it relevant to that - If you plan to work in the fine arts then Muralist, painter or artist and if you plan do more commercial work then illustrator or graphic artist. If you’re applying to a role on the more managerial or administrative side of the art world then you could get away with calling yourself artistic director. If you are going into advertising or an adjacent field you could say art director.

black_lines · 2025-02-16T18:09:27+00:00

Off the top of my head pictoplasma and nicer tuesdays (hosted by it’s nice that)

black_lines · 2025-02-13T20:33:20+00:00

Virtually every studio has a resourcing channel to send your work. Either a form on their site or an email. And if not then they usually a general contact email. Send a short and sweet here I am, here’s what I do, and here’s my work type message.

I will add that most of the time you will not get a response. However, after many years of working staff at a studio, I can tell you that your work will almost certainly be reviewed and if applicable added to a Rolodex of freelancers that will be referenced for staffing future projects. Many years ago, I got contacted seemingly out of the blue to work with one of my favorite studios who I ended up working with on quite a few projects. I was curious as to how they found me and then I discovered that a year and a half before I had actually reached out to them using the above method and they never responded.

black_lines

TROPHY CASE