Whether you love drawing Japanese manga characters or you have a real eye for drawing still life pieces, you will find that there are a number of ways for you to make money from your drawing skills. While keeping in mind that art can be competitive business, and that there are always going to be people out there who are more experienced than you are, you'll find that it is possible to make cash from your skill. This can tell you a lot about whether you want to do art later in life and to what extent you may want to make it your career.
When you are thinking about making money with your art skills, the first thing that you are going to have to think about is getting online. If you do not work solely in digital media, you are going to need a scanner. Consider getting one that is used and still in good shape. This is where you can begin the search for art jobs, and where you can start learning a little it more about the field itself. Take a look at forums that like to draw the same things that you do and figure out what the other artists' work is like. It is always important to figure out what is out there and how your work stacks up.
When you are looking for illustrating jobs, make sure that you check out places that will talk about freelance illustration jobs. Whether or not these are over your head is something that is completely reliant on your skill, but this can show you what jobs are out there. You can get jobs for everything from newsletters that need clip art to gaming books that need black and white line art.
If you are just getting started with trying to get money from your drawing skills, however, you may want to start with commissions. Essentially, commissions are pieces where people tell you what they want and then you draw it for them. Compare this with working on spec, which is short for speculation. When you work on spec, you are creating work and sending it out to people who may have sent out a call for content. You can be more creative when you are working on spec, but if you have been commissioned, you can be sure that you are getting money.
One great way to tiptoe into making money online is to put up a gallery. When you have work out there that other people can see and comment on, you'll be able to point prospective clients to it if they want to see what you can do. There is a lot of free hosting out there, and when you joint a community of other artists, it's a great way to trade tips and to really enjoy yourself and a great way to start as entry level writing jobs.
Take some time to think about how you can make money from your drawing skills. There are lots of opportunities out there, so make sure that you keep yourself open to them.
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