Freelance Artist Examples

Mr Xerty [Mr Xerty's Portfolio]

A freelance graphic designer/illustrator based in Paris, France. Self-taught, he originally experimented with graffiti before settling down with graphic design and photoshop. He used to work as a graphic designer for an automotive company before deciding to turn to independence, and has since worked for clients such as Sony and Fotolia. 

His style is influenced by urban life, underground culture, and vintage styles (all very visible influences throughout his work). He likes to play around with textures, colours, and - most of all - 3D shapes. His work explores the surreal, leaving behind bizarre landscapes from vivid imaginative scenes.

Example of work taken from here.

Iguanamouth [Iguanamouth's Blog]

I found no information available online about Iguanamouth, so I emailed her requesting a small interview - the request has been approved and the following questions have been asked:

1.What media did you originally work with before digital?

2.What are the main influences for a great body of your work?

3.Could you possibly share a brief look at your creative process?:

4.​Has your work ever been plagiarized?

5.(If yes to the above) How did you deal with this and was it resolved?

6.What kind of reaction are you typically looking for from the people viewing your work?

Her Reply:

1. Well digital drawing was sort of something I've always kind of messed with growing up - I've spent a whole lot of hours fiddling around in MS Paint and scanning bad anime characters into photoshop, so there wasn't really a sudden transition between traditional and digital media that I went through, but before I picked up a tablet a few years ago and was finally, FINALLY able to get out of drawing with a mouse, most of the things I did were either inked and painted in an enormous sketchbook, or scribbled in the margins of homework from when I was still attending school.

 Honestly the whole freelance thing is relatively recent for me, and it wasn't until last year that I could even really consider supporting myself entirely through art - I just sort of fell into it!

2. Monsters! Mythology! Magic! Other words that start with M and fall into the same categories! There really isn't a specific person or collection of work that I go to for ideas or anything, but the idea of the unreal has always been fascinating. You've got the potential to create entire universes out of nothing, make characters and concepts that only exist in one space and thus follow the rules you set down for them. Even if i never actually flesh anything out beyond a single design, just making something that doesn't and can't possibly exist in this world is incredible! 

There were definitely books I had growing up that were a huge influence on my interests though - Ken Sugimori's original Pokemon watercolors were the peak of art, as far as 10-year-old-me was concerned. Then there were the illustrations from the Dragonology handbook - I spent a lot of time in my early teens trying to emulate that style.

3. Aha, geez, there's not really a lot to say - mostly things spawn from a single idea, or another persons' drawing prompt, and I end up spending the next 20 minutes reworking a messy sketch until I can sort of see where the lines will fall. It's definitely not a clear-cut process either, as if each step was a series of points on a straight line that I have to work through. Sometimes I have to change everything halfway through colouring because I've had another, more interesting idea. Sometimes I spend over an hour just working on the sketch because I can't get the damn thing to look right - it's a lot of trial and error, probably the same as anyone!

4.-5.  Well while I've never had anyone outright trying to claim they drew something of mine (or if they have I don't know about it), every once in a while I'll get a message from someone saying so and so threw up something of mine without credit up on their facebook or tumblr or what have you.

I don't really mind much as long as my url is up on the image somewhere, but there was one person on imgur, who posted a fairly large comic set I did with two of the panels in the wrong order. And the page got really popular! So thousands of people are probably out there thinking "HUH WOW THIS SURE WOULD'VE READ BETTER IF THESE TWO THINGS WERE SWITCHED AROUND WHAT A DUMB MISTAKE THAT ARTIST MADE" but I didn't!!! I didn't do it!! It wasn't me! They never responded to my pleas to put them in the correct order, either, so I'm sort of just resigned to it. Oh well.

6. Either "this is great" or "what the hell is this". That's it. There are no other favourable outcomes. Its' either a positive response or outright confusion, and I love putting a ton of time into ridiculous ideas that should never get off the ground. Recently I did a twenty plus panel fully coloured comic on two memes having a wizard duel. Life is incredible and weird and I'm just glad to contribute.

Example of work taken from here.