New young freelancer needing HELP!

I am a 20 year old college student at Metro in Colorado. I currently work at Best Buy, and my manager just told me that I must start working on the weekdays if I want to keep my job. There are many reasons why I don't want to give up my weekdays, but the two most important reasons are 1) I have been tired of working for a company and have been researching freelance for a long time now, and 2) I can't make any room for work because I am a full time student taking four (almost five) classes. If anything i'm considering applying at a couple jobs that will fit around my class schedule like hobby lobby or micheal's (some art store). I have a deep passion for art and I want to be a freelance digital artist so that i can get paid to better my skills, and make enough money to go to cali and study animation. I work with photoshop, corel, flash and illustrator. I know a good amount about freelancing, have read many books and have been learning everything I can about it. I want to know the best way a digital art college student can get started in this field. As far as finding clients, what things most clients look for in a digital artist, and what I should be doing everyday to help myself. I know there have to be clients out there willing to give a begginer freelance college student a chance. I work on adding things to my portfolio everyday, and enhance my skills. The only time I dont do anything art related is when im at work (although even then, im sketching and practicing on a clipboard). Any advice helps!

After reading that I'm not sure what you are asking for, you didn't ask a question.

If you're just looking for general advice I'd say don't quit your job until you have been freelancing for a while. You don't want to jump off then realize for whatever reason this was a bad idea.

To promote yourself you can start to offer designing free of charge, this will add to your portfolio and line of connections, that if your work is good or become better in time then work on larger projects and demands. If you already think you are good enough and have previous work to impress potential clients then advertise your services here and on other similar forums.

There are always clients looking for something and it may be your work. At early stages in to freelancing there is rejection, but if it is your passion keep pursuing it. The more experience, quality work and delivery the better.

Keep your job for now or find the one that you can be flexible with for your classes. I'm in a similar situation to you, I'm 16, and doing freelance work with school (I also have four classes) which is a bit hard. Just organizing myself was all the help I needed and experience comes to naturally.

My advice may not be the best, but there's many ways to approach things, and I'm also still learning.

Never work for free, even a discounted rate at first is OK but never work for free. You will find that clients who go for free labor are the most rude and ungrateful bastards out there, aside from that you are simply wasting your time because you are making no money. Even with one or two example you can just make for yourself (and sell if you please) you will be able to pull in work.

I think you can try be freelancer. And at the beginning of work for a company

Originally Posted by Village Genius After reading that I'm not sure what you are asking for, you didn't ask a question. If you're just looking for general advice I'd say don't quit your job until you have been freelancing for a while. You don't want to jump off then realize for whatever reason this was a bad idea.

It was not my plan to just quit my job, just look for a new one that can allow me to work weekends only until i get steady clients. And my main question was "what is the best way to get started in this field?"

Originally Posted by acceptable To promote yourself you can start to offer designing free of charge, this will add to your portfolio and line of connections, that if your work is good or become better in time then work on larger projects and demands. If you already think you are good enough and have previous work to impress potential clients then advertise your services here and on other similar forums. There are always clients looking for something and it may be your work. At early stages in to freelancing there is rejection, but if it is your passion keep pursuing it. The more experience, quality work and delivery the better. Keep your job for now or find the one that you can be flexible with for your classes. I'm in a similar situation to you, I'm 16, and doing freelance work with school (I also have four classes) which is a bit hard. Just organizing myself was all the help I needed and experience comes to naturally. My advice may not be the best, but there's many ways to approach things, and I'm also still learning.

Your advice is wonderful. And there is no way I would just stop working since I live on my own and have bills to pay. But I do have a little over a month to find a new job that will hire me for weekends only. That being said, I am now open for free designs for anyone who happens to read this post.

Originally Posted by emeyex It was not my plan to just quit my job, just look for a new one that can allow me to work weekends only until i get steady clients. And my main question was "what is the best way to get started in this field?"

If you don't have a PayPal account you'll want one because that is how most payments are done online. And I'll say again, don't work free; have something to show for it all. Other than that just go for it, make a thread in the marketplace offering your services and do it. You'll get a decent portfolio together pretty fast and gradually get higher paying clients.

Originally Posted by Village Genius Never work for free, even a discounted rate at first is OK but never work for free. You will find that clients who go for free labor are the most rude and ungrateful bastards out there, aside from that you are simply wasting your time because you are making no money. Even with one or two example you can just make for yourself (and sell if you please) you will be able to pull in work.

Yes but the only problem is, is that my portfolio doesn't have much in it. Here is my link to my portfolio on deviant art -----> http://emeyex.deviantart.com/

But I know what you mean by those clients. The first (almost client) I had wanted me to design this logo for him. He said he would pay me and although I worked very hard on it showing him updates from time to time, he eventualy stopped texting me back when I tried to give him a price of $40. If it's a logo for a clothes line, then i thought that would be a reasonable price. I used to work with him at Best Buy and when I saw him visiting the store, I said hi to him and he gave me a very dirty look and said hi back. Anyways, I do kind of think getting used to drawing and painting what clients want would be great for experience and my portfolio. But do you really think I could at least get clients that would be willing to pay maybe 5 or 10 bucks for my art?