After airing our interview with Lydia and David Sherrer, we had one of our listeners reach out to us asking how to become an illustrator in the games industry. I reached out to the tabletop communities that I’m still a part of, and here’s the answers that I got.
- Have an online portfolio – Opinions were mixed where it should be, but it wouldn’t hurt if it was in multiple locations, Deviant Art was one suggestion.
- Have a price sheet – Publishers want to know up front what your fees are.
- Be active on Social Media – One of our respondents mentioned that they found most of their artists from following them on Twitter (X).
- Approach the publisher you’re interested in working with directly. Several publishers have dedicated contact pages/forms specifically for artists to submit their portfolios for review.
- Establish a reputation as respectful and professional. The tabletop publishing industry is small, and word gets around. To wit…
- Communicate. Keep your clients up to date on where a project is at.
- If you sell at conventions, potential publishers may approach you there.
- See if the publisher has a Discord server, and if so join it.
- Join any of the several Facebook groups for tabletop games publishers and freelancers.
- Finally, an edge case. If you publish stock art through Drive Through RPG, you can join the DTRPG Publisher’s Discord. Publishers often look for writers and artists within this community.
I hope our readers find these tips helpful, and I personally want to thank the members of the Creative Indie RPGs and The RPG Brain Trust Facebook communities for their suggestions for this list. — Spaceman