5 key lessons to follow from the start as a digital artist

Hey friends👋, being a freelance digital artist is tough! I talked to one of my friends who is a freelance digital artist. It helped in understanding more about what his work involves and how can anyone get started.

Anmol Anand is a freelance digital artist with whom I had a conversation about how one can get started. In this conversation, we talked about he talked about how one can get started along with a lot of resources.

The journey of Anmol was interesting. He started posting travel photography from his mobile on Instagram. Then started making photo manipulations. He later got the poster designs for a college fest while studying. Finally, during the lockdown, he started this series called Kursam. Which is a blend of portraits and digital art.

Now, he is working as a freelance digital artist and I had a chance of having a conversation with him. We chatted in a zoom call for over an hour about how he made certain works of his, where does he learn from, and more. I took down five important takeaways from the conversation below.

These were the 5 key takeaways I took from the conversation 👇

1. There is no such thing as the original. Everything that we come up with is a remix or remake of the older things that existed. (Don't copy the entire work of others, take inspiration from it and make something of your own. Read this from the book - Steal Like An Artist.)
2. Observational skill is the core skill to develop in the learning years. Learn to take references and understand color theory.
3. While freelancing, contracts are everything. As an artist, the work you do is your sole income, so you need to be sure to have a contract to be on the safer side.
4. Practice every day. This advice applies to all fields of work.
5. Never ever limit yourself. Keep exploring. Try all kinds of things. Take up projects that are larger than your scope of work and keep doing the work.

Things will be hard while getting started, no matter the field of interest. Taking the time to understand how one got started and following the simple key steps can set you apart.

That is the reason why I started asking questions to people from different fields to learn. You can check out the entire conversation and the written version of it from the link below👇:

Conversations With A Digital Artist | Melvin Raj

A conversation I had with one of my friends, who started out as a photographer and now is a freelance digital artist and an animator.

Melvin RajMelvin Raj

Thank you for reading.