Tell us a bit about yourself, what's your background?
Kia ora, I'm Josh, a 23 year old illustrator based in Tāmaki Makaurau, New Zealand — I freelance part-time in addition to a regular illustration day job that keeps the rent paid but am looking to make the jump over to full-time freelance or an in-house role in animation as soon as I get the guts to!
Tell us about your journey as a freelancer.
My first real freelance project was actually one I got passed on by my illustration tutor at Wintec (shoutout to Loryn Engelsman, one of the sickest illustrators out there!). It was a series of horoscope icons for the Waikato Uni student mag Nexus — the rate was pretty low and they didn't have the time so it worked out perfectly to be my intro to illustration as a job.
After that I began to realise that it was something that people would genuinely want from me, and that I could try and make it something I did regularly outside of my sketchbooks or personal projects.
From there I've managed to work on some pretty exciting stuff with cool people, figuring out how long things should take and how much my time is actually worth has been an ongoing process, particularly when navigating having a full-time job in addition to freelance work.
What is the personal or freelance project you are most proud of? Why?
Working in animation has always been a dream of mine, it was one of the first things that got me into drawing in the first place. In 2020 I got the chance to draw backgrounds for The Vloggingtons, a short-form show with a company called Yoozoo (it's now playing on Sunday mornings during What Now! which is the most surreal thing ever).
It was a super challenging project as I was essentially doing full time work as the sole background artist for this show, while also working my regular day job at the time in a graphic design studio in Avondale. It meant I didn't get a whole lot of sleep for around 6 months, and didn't make me a whole lot of fun to be around I'd imagine. I would wake up, work on the bus on the way to the office, do my day job, work on my lunch break, finish the day, work on the bus on the way home and then work through the night — it was an intense process and taught me a lot of valuable lessons about how much capacity I actually have.
I couldn't be more proud of how it turned out though, and the rest of the team did an amazing job bringing it to life.
What would you say is the most rewarding part of being a freelancer?
It's probably cliché to say "the final product", but I genuinely think that feeling of finishing something is so good. Especially for me, closing a photoshop file and knowing that I probably won't have to open it again is so satisfying.
I think you can get that from breaking what you're doing down into little victories, that will help you keep motivation up particularly on longer projects.
What is the most challenging part of running a freelancing business?
Time management has historically been the biggest killer for me. I'm pretty easily distracted, and even jobs that I know are fairly quick to do, if I'm not in the right space to do them it won't happen. I've managed to set up processes for myself to ensure I actually work on things, cause I know I'm a relatively fast illustrator when it comes down to it, I just need the right amount of time to work through what I'm doing in my head before I get to actually drawing.
Everyone has their own process, regardless of what the profession is — if you can figure out what yours is it'll make doing the work so much easier.
What has worked best for you when it comes to finding new clients?
It's probably not helpful, but I get 90% of my freelance work from people reaching out to me online — I almost never go looking for work, and when I do it usually doesn't work out. I find that if I just make the kind of work that I want to be getting more of, people will notice and get you involved.
What advice would you give anyone wanting to start freelancing?
Figure out what you want to do, and what kind of work you really enjoy and then make heaps of it. Especially with something visual like illustration, people are going to hire you based on what they've seen, and their understanding of what you can do will be largely based on this.
If you make a bunch of stuff that you don't like doing but think it'll get you work, that will end up being what you get most of, and it won't be fun. No matter how niche, I feel if you make the work that makes you feel the best, someone out there will be keen to work with you.
In short — make cool shit, and people will notice.
How can we learn more about you and your work?
You can find my work over on my website joshprobably.com and follow me on Instagram at @joshprobably for semi-regular updates on what I've been up to — also obviously hit up my UF profile and send me an inquiry if you're keen to work together!
