When you find your niche, though, you don’t want to become creatively stifled. That’s how I got my first client as a character designer.” With the knowledge I built up from educating myself, I started posting my portfolio weekly to show on Behance. “Slowly, I found my way to create my own design. “For the first three months, I tried out many different styles of tutorials,” she explains. Jungmin Ryu, a Korean illustrator working as a freelance 3D illustrator and animator in the Netherlands, followed this exact path. At least in the early stages of your freelance career, it’s a good idea to experiment with different directions until you settle into the niche you truly love. But you shouldn’t be in any rush to get there. One of the best ways to find success as a freelance illustrator is to develop a unique style and become known for it. Follow these ten tips, and you won’t go far wrong. With that in mind, we’ve teamed up with Playbook – a new platform that helps creatives organise their assets more efficiently – to give you this advice on becoming a successful freelance illustrator. It’s also crucial to get the right tools to help you stay organized so that when you are on a deadline, you have the time to be creative and don’t get swamped with other things.

That can lead to sleepless nights, missed deadlines and ultimately a bad reputation, so it’s important to strike the right balance between keeping busy and overextending yourself. As a result, it’s common to overcommit and take on too much work.

Alright then keep your secrets