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Hi guys! Orenmanida! It has been so damn long since I last posted. Cue the excuses: I've been super busy with end exams, work, and my newest passion digital art. Hopefully, I'm back for good this time!
In today's post, I decided to talk about how I became a freelance digital artist on Fiverr with just below average drawing skills. Yes, you don't have to be a pro artist to get orders and that's a fact! I'll be showcasing some of the projects I did on Fiverr which recieved great compliments and 5 star reviews from my clients so that you can get a better idea about it.
My First Order
I started posting art gigs on Fiverr around October 2021, and then let it idle since I didn't get any orders. It's obvious you automatically lose interest when nothings happening and my brain just made up its mind that Fiverr wasn't the place for me. But something triggered me to try once again. I think it was a post that said you had to keep uploading new gigs and renewing gigs to get more impressions. So I did just that. Meanwhile, I put bids on buyer requests as well. And one fine day, seemingly out of the blue, I received my first order on January 2022! I later got to know this person had no idea that it was my first gig, haha. So I guess I was indeed lucky to have gotten his attention out of all the freelancers who already had reviews on their profiles. Here's a peek on my artwork for my first client:
Stick figures are pretty easy to draw. You don't really have to have a good grasp on the concepts of anatomy to draw them (I STILL suck at anatomy, but I keep going!). That's why it's the perfect way to get started as a digital art freelancer.
The NFT Bandwagon
Now that I had gotten my first review, I assumed that I'd keep getting more and more orders. But that wasn't really the case. For over two weeks I didn't receive a single order and that sucked. That's when I discovered NFTs. During this period, pixel art NFTs were super popular. And that type of pixel arts were super basic and easy to draw. 100 times easier than stick figures even. The great thing was that I already had experience drawing pixel arts because that's exactly how I first started drawing digital art and how I came up with the name pyxel.kitten for my Instagram username. So I put up a gig for pixel NFTs. Mind you, I had no idea how to generate NFTs, so I clearly stated in my gig that I would only draw the traits and would not be generating the NFTs. Well, soon enough I started getting orders.
Simple Comics
Drawing comics is super hard isn't it? Yes and no. The thing is that there are many different types of comics that make use of drastically different art styles. Below is one panel from the comic gig I got and received an excellent review for:
To be honest, I was really doubtful about this piece. Hence, I sent the client a sample before she placed the order so she could decide if she wanted to continue with me or not. You cannot imagine how surprised I was when the she replied saying "Awesome, love it! Let's do the full thing :)" And she ended up tipping me as well!
Illustrations for Children
The software I use for my artwork is Krita and there's this one brush in it that I use for just about everything. That is the "_Sketching-3_Leaky" brush. This brush really makes you feel like you have more control on your lines. I really don't know how to explain why. Here are some of my commission work done using that brush:
I have used zero shading, blurring, smudging, rendering, or whatever big words you hear pro artists speak of in the above artworks. All I've done is use a base color and two different shades of that color to give the effect of shadows and highlights. It looks really good when you look at the finished work, but the line art was so amateur. Speaking from experience, everything ends up looking great after you color them. So even if you feel like your sketch looks super ugly, the end result might be awesome, especially in the eyes of a stranger!
What You'll Need to Get Started
A mouse is pretty sufficient for pixel art but when going beyond that, a graphics tablet certainly helps. The first pen table I got was a Huion H430P. It was probably the cheapest one I could find since at the time I wasn't really planning on developing digital art into a part-time income source. Honestly, it took me some time getting used to. But after that it felt like a part of my hand.
Currently, I'm using a Huion H950P pen tablet. It has a larger work surface and makes it easier to draw fine details. It's, for sure, a good upgrade from the H430P.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, none of the above art work follows a realistic art style. It's all work that's easy to recreate and takes a really short time to complete. You don't have to be educated in art and know about complex anatomy to draw such pieces. So if you're an art enthusiast looking for a part-time income, this is a great way to go! Even with skills that are below average, you can surely get hired by those looking for someone with a simple art style like mine.
If you'd like to check out my Fiverr profile to go over my gig descriptions, and sample galleries, follow this link: https://www.fiverr.com/ms_kam