Technical Illustrators.org Forum

Anybody use one? I met one in Denver yesterday and I'm not sure what to think of the whole thing yet.
thanks.

You mean like a Rep? I am not sure why you would hand your career off to some salesman. No one knows your art, schedule, pricing and capabilities better than you!

This is what I wrote in an earlier post on the Rep Thing. "Early in my career I contacted some of the larger Rep agencies back when they were still relevant and they were nasty as hell to me. Telling me no one wanted my kind of work and meanwhile they had 3 pages of women who glued cut paper into pictures of chickens and crap! I didn't get it, as I was doing some pretty high profile work at the time. I think the Rep era is over and they are trolls and thieves, RIP"

Hi,

I'm UK based and new on the forum. I'm looking forward to contributing to the forum in the future.

I've been freelancing for four years now and love it. The first year, well very very little amount of work but you just have to keep selling your self. The last few years have been much better and I have a few regular clients. The only issue is a tend to get a few days to do my work, its always last minute. Mostly CAD based, so I build my models in Solidedge and the either photoshop the lines or render in 3ds Max or Modo. I'm sure everyone has do deal with software service contracts that eat up you income, Solidedge is a killer.

I have been signed up to an agency for about six months in the past, they loved my work but after that six months, they had not sold or managed to obtain commissions for me. So we have parted company. However in that same time I had regular work gained by self promotion. I can see where an agency can sound good though as having someone get the work for you and sometimes more importantly, chase the invoice payments. This part alone some times makes we think about a full time position.

That said, love my job.

Cheers

Paul

My thoughts:

Pros

• More work (possibly)
• Greater reach, more exposure (possibly)
• Larger fees, bigger projects (possibly)
• Less non-billing time (invoicing, accounting, promotion, etc.)
• Someone to have your back if a project goes sour (or they might back their client)
• Career planning

Cons

• Paying ~25% of your gross income
• Less freedom of choice of clients, projects
• You are not their only illustrator
• Not building your own brand/business
• Have to chase them about invoices, promotion, portfolio, etc.
• Only you will be 100% dedicated to your career

I think a lot of the pros are shaky, whereas a lot of the cons are certain...

Hi James,

Love your work.

Forgot to mention that the agency wanted 50% of each commission...

I value my time/ work more than I did back then and feel I'm worth more than that 50% now, but you take what you can when you leave the comfort of a full time position with regular income.


Paul

Interesting, so whats your Title in the job market?
50% seems way to high in my opinion, I don't even do that for the clients that offer me residuals for their inventions or product design, I just do like 5 percent or as high as 10%, depending on what market they're doing the work for.

I do freelance work for companys I get laid off here and there, but I don't understand what a agent would do for me, that Im not already doing myself, does the agent get you work in the Movie industry or game industry or 1st dibs at big companys?

when it comes to freelancing are we all asking for 60k and up wages?

Hi,

Not with them anymore, it was a trial.

I do product design as well as visualisation and technical illustration and call myself a Product designer and visualiser. I do a good mix of work, I was a design engineer for a yacht manufacturer and left to go freelance. So I can build accurate 3d models and create manufacturing, assembly and installation drawings as well as visualisation. This year I have worked on two yachts, designed lots of rotationally moulded liquid tanks and support frames as well as producing product visualisations for the same products. My favourite so far is regular visualisation's for a racing car manufacturer.

Paul

oh I see. Its always good to to test new ways of working. IM glad Im hearing about this here, so I can learn from all of your experiences.

about 5 month ago I was approached by one of these contractors that help us look for work she was telling me how she could brush up my resume and put my cover letter and reume in front of the line of everyone else and have them seen by the main people hiring, it would help me avoid waisting time looking for jobs that were been taken by others. She would find me that dream job I was loking for. it sounded nice, but I had never heard contracting companies approach me this way, then at the end of her speech she informed me it would cost me 5k for her service with a 2K down payment at the time of the phone call. It was odd to me, cause no contracctor had done that to me before, my past experience was that recuiters for contracting companies didnt charge, but went beyond their way to make potential employees happy even sometimes provide lunches, that was my experience. So suffisive to say I had to let her know I would think about it, but she was pushy and persistent over the next four weeks. Eventually I let them know I was happy where I was. they eventually left me alone.

not sure if anyone has gone through that before.

I agree with Jim that the rep era is pretty much over. Back in the day when the only way to get your work in front of a prospect was dragging a folder of A3 prints around and wearing out your shoe leather - they had reason for existence. Now you work is just a click or two away.

Mike