How to Become an Illustrator Without a Degree
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Have you ever thought about getting into the illustrator's work field? If so, then you might be wondering if it is possible to become an illustrator without a degree?
There are hundreds of resources online, many of them completely free that will give you the skills you need as long as you are able to work hard and stay committed. You could probably learn everything from YouTube but there are many other options as well.
So, read on to learn about becoming an Illustrator without a degree.
How Do I Start Learning Illustration?
Starting to learn illustration can be easy, moderate or difficult depending on how much experience you have drawing. There are options for you to start developing your skills to become the best illustrator you can be.
Ensuring that you take the time to invest in yourself and talent can make a large difference. Here are a few options you can use to start learning illustration:
Practice drawing daily, either digitally or traditionally
Take classes in person or online about illustration, the topic
Take classes in person or online about business and freelancing
When you are ready, begin building a portfolio
They say practice makes perfect—this statement is especially true when it comes to becoming an illustrator. The more you practice, the better your skills will be. With consistent practice and effort, you are sure to improve as an illustrator and elevate your skills to the next level.
If you take courses online or in person about the topic of illustration, this can help you learn about the career field. This also can provide you with beneficial tips to starting your new career in the best way possible.
A way that you can learn about illustration at home is to purchase books and dive into the words on the page. Educating yourself leads to success. Some books you can purchase and read are:
How to be an illustrator by Darrel Rees: priced on Amazon between $17.59 to $24.95 depending on if you have Amazon prime or not.
Thinking Visually for Illustrators by Mark Wigan: priced on Amazon for $34.95
Steal like an artist by Austin Kleon: priced on Amazon from $9.79 to $17.20 depending on if you have Amazon prime or not.
Illustrating Children's books by Martin Salisbury: at this time, you can purchase a used copy on Amazon for around $36.95
These are some great examples of books you can find that will help start your illustration education. Currently, authors are still creating new books yearly on illustration, becoming an illustrator and the illustration business in general. The point is that there are many books on this topic to educate yourself and prepare you for the start of a new career as an illustrator.
What Qualifications Do You Need to Be an Illustrator?
To become an illustrator, one of the biggest qualifications you need can be talent in the drawing field. Creating a portfolio with your work that demonstrates your talent can be beneficial to getting noticed.
Many Illustrators do have a degree related to their scope of work. This does not mean that you have to have a degree to get into this field. Do not let the talk of degrees discourage you if you want to be an illustrator, you can still pursue it.
You may not have a degree in the beginning of your search into the illustrator field, but that does not mean you cannot get one at a later point if you wish. The process of obtaining a degree could be a good learning experience for you and improve your skills. You may want to work towards having a degree, but not immediately.
When someone is talented and has good work, anything can happen. If your illustrator portfolio contains good work and you advertise, you can get into this field and be the one that is in demand. This will require the mastery of some marketing skills, as there is no better way to establish a steady client base than properly marketing your illustration skills.
Is Illustration a Good Career?
Illustration can be a good career for you as long as you make the effort. You may have days that you feel defeated, exhausted, not in demand, and like you are not making progress. You have to continue to pursue your career and promote yourself to get noticed.
People who are in the illustration career and make the effort to become in demand make decent money. This means that you can enjoy creating good content and an income for you and your family.
If you are a creative person and like to display your creations, why not sell them? An illustrator position gives you the place as a creative minded person to make art for many places and forms of content.
Are Illustrators In Demand?
Illustration is a very much in demand career at this time with as much technology and books being produced every day with some form of cover.
Being an illustrator, you do not just create book covers for people to read in their hands. You will create content online as well using different applications.
The illustration career and being an illustrator are also a career that will be around no matter what. With the world changing and evolving daily, there is always a need for new content on books, magazines, and anything with a cover or pictures.
Where Can I Study Illustration Online?
When it comes to the internet, it is forever evolving and creating new content. This includes online courses and schools that can assist with learning certain topics or degrees.
When it comes to classes on illustration, a majority of them are for degrees and are promoted by colleges across the nation. Even though you may not have a degree at the moment, this can be an option that you think about in the future.
You can take online courses about illustration to help further your knowledge in this line of work. If you do not want a degree but want just a few classes, there are always options for you on the internet! These are several sights that you can look at that normally offer free options:
Udemy
Youtube
Artyfactory
Skill share
Adobe illustrator
Here are a few online options that you can do research into about their courses. Online sites and schools can change their classes that they have available frequently and you may have to keep up with the upcoming classes that they offer.
How Can I Learn Illustration for Free?
There is always a way to learn something for free, you just have to search for it. Illustration is no exception.
The best ways to learn illustration for free will be YouTube and free books online or from the library.
There is hundreds and hundreds of hours worth of YouTube videos that deal with the topic of learning to draw and learning illustration. Start with the obvious search terms like “how to learn illustration” or “illustration for beginners”. Also learn what the fundamentals of art are and find ways to study them by searching YouTube videos. I wrote an article about the 7 elements of art that you can read by clicking here. That article will be a good primer on the basics to start with.
Some YouTube channels that I would recommend right away are:
Once you start becoming acquainted with what skills will be required you can start looking for other resources that you will want immediately accessible on your desk or on your computer. It will be very helpful to have a few books in your library that will lead you in the right direction toward learning strong fundamental skills.
A collection that I would strongly recommend immediately are the classic books by Andrew Loomis. Do not be put off by their older publishing dates. Loomis has presented in these books a timeless and nearly flawless way to learn fundamentals and strong illustration skills and all his books are available for free in PDF form as public domain.
You can read all his books online or download the PDFs by clicking here.
What Are the Career Opportunities In Illustration?
When you are becoming an illustrator, there are many career options depending on your style of artwork and creativity. The list varies from children’s book illustrator to a forensic artist.
It all depends on you and what you enjoy drawing or think that you are capable of completing.
Children Book Illustrator
If you love children and love the children's books you read growing up, being a children's book illustrator might be your choice. Being a children's book illustrator is about creating content for small eyes that they will love.
You can put yourself into the minds of a younger person and demonstrate things to them. This can be for just a book like princess or princes all the way to teaching books.
Book Illustrator
A book illustrator can be for all kinds of books that are written. The author may need a cover illustration created or illustrations throughout the book.
Whatever the case is, there is always a demand for book illustrators as authors produce books every year.
Forensics Illustrator
Being a forensics illustrator might be your choice if you enjoy diving into science related topics. Forensics can be a wide range of things from chemical processing, fingerprint identification to crime scene investigations.
This form of illustration can help individuals learning about forensics to have a visual of the topic they are studying.
Advertising and editorial illustration
Being an advertisement illustrator is always a high demand field. This is when you will create content for companies and small businesses.
They may request that you create advertisement drawings, flyers, website designs, and many more things to assist with advertising their company.
Medical Illustrator
Becoming a medical illustrator will assist medical students and people that enjoy learning about medical topics. This allows you to create illustrations to have visual interpretations for people as they are learning.
You pretty much can be an illustrator for any field, career, location, book or person. When you are an illustrator, you are bringing to life something you can not see into a picture that someone can view with their eyes. This allows people to understand a topic through illustrations and not just read words on a page.
What Skills Do Illustrators Need?
With any job, there are a set of skills that you may need to be successful. You are the person that can decide if you have the skills to work and promote in the career field you pursue.
The skills that most illustrators need to have are:
Artistic abilities with drawing and creating content
This means a strong grasp of the fundamentals!
Composition is very important in illustration because you have to tell the whole story with the images
Confidence in your self!
Strong work ethic to promote yourself
Creative mind to see what a client is trying to portray and be able to create it
Becoming an illustrator will be determined by how hard you work. You can not expect a business to advance if you are doing minimal work.
Utilize your creativeness, confidence and promote yourself and your business.
Do Illustrators Make Good Money?
Yes, Illustrators do make good money. Typically illustrators will bring in at least over $30,000 in a year, but this is on the low end of the spectrum. Deepening on the area you live in, you could make a large difference in income.
Highly skilled Illustrators can make 6 figure incomes per year or more depending on how you promote yourself and create contracts with people. Some very popular illustrators make far more than $100,000/year.
You can also supplement your income with personal art promotion, online sales, print on demand, NFT’s and a wide range of other possible side hustles.
How Much Do Illustrators of Books Get Paid?
The amount of money you make illustrating a book can depend on if you have a single book you are doing or if you are doing multiple books throughout the year. When you are doing a smaller amount of work, your income will be smaller. This also means if you are doing multiple book illustrations you will get a larger income.
Book illustrators can be paid by royalties or by a flat rate. This will depend on what form of a contract you complete with the client that you are producing the book illustration for.
Royalties
When you think of the word “royalties” you are probably not thinking of money and percentages. Most of the time when people hear this word, they think it is something associated with a royal bloodline. With illustrations in books it has a different meaning.
Royalties when it comes to book illustration is when you get paid a certain percentage during the production of the book.
What we mean by this is, if a book is printed multiple times, then you will get that percentage during the time that it is produced. If the book only has one printing, when the last one is sold the royalties would stop.
The percentage of royalties can vary depending on the situation and the contract that you establish.
Flat Rate
A flat rate is just how the words sound, flat. When you agree to a flat rate, you will only get the one rate and nothing more. This means exactly what you are thinking.
If you agree to do an illustration for one price, say $2,000 for a book that is all that you will receive.
If the book sells out multiple times, you will not continue to make a percentage like with the royalties option.
How Much Do Freelance Illustrators Make?
Depending on the site that you fall upon with this question, can determine what kind of answer you get. Some say that in 2021 within the United states it varies from $40,000 and up.
The type of work that you are creating and who you work for or with can depend on the income as a freelancer.
Where you reside can also determine what type of income you will have as a freelance illustrator. Smaller areas may not have as high of a demand for this type of work. Larger states such as New York and California with a larger population and demand may bring you a higher income.
How Do I Start Freelance Illustration?
Freelancing is a way for people to start working but not have a specific company that they are working for full time. It allows you to create content for multiple people, businesses or locations.
If you want to be a freelance illustrator, you can create a portfolio for businesses and people to see. This will assist in showing that you are a good candidate to work with and create the content that they need.
Becoming noticed while trying to begin freelancing can be frustrating as it takes dedication on your part. Do not get discouraged, hard work will pay off.
It is recommended when you are beginning in the freelancing realm that you pay attention to pricing. You may need to initially have a lower price to draw people in and then raise your prices as you advance in your freelancing illustrating career.
Final Thoughts
Becoming an illustrator without a degree could be an incredible journey and make you money. If you have the talent to draw, why not make a career of it and enjoy working. When you decide to enter this career, it will be difficult at the beginning, but can be very rewarding once you achieve your first taste of success.
You may doubt yourself during certain times as the field is very demanding and takes a lot of dedication to get started. With hard work and consistency, you will accomplish great things as an illustrator. People often get personal gratification from the effort that they put into their work, and it is no different when making illustrations.
Thanks For Reading!
If you ever want to ask questions or discuss anything you read here please feel free to reach out through the contact page or visit my Twitch channel and ask me anything in real-time! I stream Wednesday-Friday 10 am-3 pm PST.
I also co-host a podcast for artists called Art Condition where we discuss the business and mindset for artists. Click here to see past episodes and subscribe on your favorite platform.
