12 Things I Learned as Freelance
Jul 20th 2022
1. Do just a little bit more than they ask and clients tend to come back.
Try to find something that wouldn't give you any work to do but makes the client more happy to receive the material.
2. Mistakes are part of the process.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes, if you feel you are not on the right path on the project, ask for help or feedback from the client as soon as possible.
3. Avoid messing around with system settings during a project in progress.
Avoid as much as possible make alterations on the system, driver updates and things like that. If anything goes wrong, and usually it happens on the worst timming as possible, you can loose a deadline or worst.
4. If there is no concept or sketch, ask for references to guide your work.
You need something very clear of what need to be done, to estipulate you budget as well. Don't start a work for a cliente if you didn't receive something concrete to work with. In the best scenario you will receive a concept art and a model sheet with different views. Solid good references works for some situations.
5. When learning something new, try to understand the process.
Watch tutorials and trainings with an open mind and try to visualize other situations were you could apply what you've learned to solve things.
6. Pomodoro Technique can increase your productivity.
This could help you to be more focus for short period of times and in my experience, when you use Pomodoro on the working days, you feel less tired at the end of the day.
7. Don’t render an entire image if there is no need.
Avoid doings full renders when working on a project, unless it's really needed, use border renders, render layers and things like that, to gain time.
8. Save new versions of files for every send to the client.
For every email you send to a client with a working in progress, save a new version of your file, the client may decide at some point that he liked more that other version you sended some emails ago and you better have that file or you will need do some work again.
9. If the render time increases too much, maybe there is something off.
Sometimes your render time could go crazy for whatever reason, so it's a good skill to know how to debug the file to see what's happening. A lot of times you just need restart your computer or even import your scene into a new fresh scene.
10. Talk to the artist responsible for the next step.
Communicate with other members of the project could help prevent future issues and it's a good practice to think on how your college would like to receive a file to work with, so ask if there is any suggestions or if there is any preferences on certain things.
11. Specify exactly what you will be doing at work
This is a very good practice, clarify everything that needs to be done at the very beginning of project and record everything via email, in case further on something goes different both of you could check what was agreed and maybe renegotiate the budget.
12. Know when to say no.
Make sure at some point on your journey, learn to say no to some offers and try to direct things for the path you wanna follow. Hopefully you will have more offers than you can tackle and it's okay to not accept everything and take care to not get overhelming with too much work. In this situation, if you like, you can recommend a qualified friend for the job.
Try to find something that wouldn't give you any work to do but makes the client more happy to receive the material.
2. Mistakes are part of the process.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes, if you feel you are not on the right path on the project, ask for help or feedback from the client as soon as possible.
3. Avoid messing around with system settings during a project in progress.
Avoid as much as possible make alterations on the system, driver updates and things like that. If anything goes wrong, and usually it happens on the worst timming as possible, you can loose a deadline or worst.
4. If there is no concept or sketch, ask for references to guide your work.
You need something very clear of what need to be done, to estipulate you budget as well. Don't start a work for a cliente if you didn't receive something concrete to work with. In the best scenario you will receive a concept art and a model sheet with different views. Solid good references works for some situations.
5. When learning something new, try to understand the process.
Watch tutorials and trainings with an open mind and try to visualize other situations were you could apply what you've learned to solve things.
6. Pomodoro Technique can increase your productivity.
This could help you to be more focus for short period of times and in my experience, when you use Pomodoro on the working days, you feel less tired at the end of the day.
7. Don’t render an entire image if there is no need.
Avoid doings full renders when working on a project, unless it's really needed, use border renders, render layers and things like that, to gain time.
8. Save new versions of files for every send to the client.
For every email you send to a client with a working in progress, save a new version of your file, the client may decide at some point that he liked more that other version you sended some emails ago and you better have that file or you will need do some work again.
9. If the render time increases too much, maybe there is something off.
Sometimes your render time could go crazy for whatever reason, so it's a good skill to know how to debug the file to see what's happening. A lot of times you just need restart your computer or even import your scene into a new fresh scene.
10. Talk to the artist responsible for the next step.
Communicate with other members of the project could help prevent future issues and it's a good practice to think on how your college would like to receive a file to work with, so ask if there is any suggestions or if there is any preferences on certain things.
11. Specify exactly what you will be doing at work
This is a very good practice, clarify everything that needs to be done at the very beginning of project and record everything via email, in case further on something goes different both of you could check what was agreed and maybe renegotiate the budget.
12. Know when to say no.
Make sure at some point on your journey, learn to say no to some offers and try to direct things for the path you wanna follow. Hopefully you will have more offers than you can tackle and it's okay to not accept everything and take care to not get overhelming with too much work. In this situation, if you like, you can recommend a qualified friend for the job.