The freelance 3D rendering artist scene as a vast sea of ambitious individuals who are passionate, talented, and dedicated to showing the world what their worth. For an architecture or design firm looking for quick, reliable freelancers, that sea can be a treacherous one to navigate effectively.

And whether you’re hiring a single freelancer for a small job, or a team of them for long-term employment, there are things you should be looking for when scouring resumes, assessing portfolios, and weighing the costs and benefits of engaging in such a relationship.

It can be intimidating, but with this easy guide, you should be able to quickly vet perspective freelancers and find a small collection of artists who fit your needs and help your office achieve the visual rendering quality it deserves. Here’s what to look for when hiring a freelance 3D rendering artist.

Look For Reputation

As with any service provider, the best metric for determining their value to you is their reputation. Listen to what people say about the freelancer to get an idea about not only the kind of work they produce, but they kind of team member they are. No one wants to work with someone who doesn’t buy in to the overall goal of what they’re contributing to.

If you use a job-finding service such as Easy Render to find freelancers, their profile should give a good indication of their reputation as both an artist and a worker. Typically, high-end freelancers will have a dedicated website to show off their work, which often have testimonials or previous clients who, if you wish, are available to contact and as first-hand about their performance as a freelancers.

But, sometimes it’s tough to get a solid grasp on an artists reputation, especially if it’s someone you’ve found through craigslist or elsewhere online. So, if you can’t find reputation…

Look For Talent

At the very least, you’ll want to understand the quality of work the freelance 3D rendering artist is capable of producing. Ultimately, you’ll be wanting to deliver to your client the best possible product within the budget you’ve set to get it done. The artist’s portfolio isn’t always the best representation of this as you’ll rarely see a project’s budget sitting next to the visuals, but you’ll at least gain an understanding of the high-end of their abilities.

However, talent comes in many forms, so you’ll want to scrutinize the types of projects the freelancers have worked on to make sure the job you’re looking to hire them for aligns with their past experience.

Talent, though, isn’t everything. If the freelancer can’t deliver the job on schedule and on budget, you might as well be throwing a wad of one hundred dollar bills at a computer screen and see if a rendering pops out. So, if you can’t find talent…

Look For Ambition

Young and hungry rendering artists can be the perfect blend of capability, cost-effectiveness, and eagerness that can result in a prolific working relationship. However, it’s nearly impossible to judge this flavor of freelancer without putting some time and effort into properly vetting the field. In this particular scenario, it might be pertinent to be meeting possible candidates in person, which means you’ll need someone local.

In big cities, this shouldn’t provide too much of an issue. However, in smaller markets, the pickings might be slim. Adjust your expectations based on where your business is, and hire someone who displays enthusiasm as well as skill.

Although, ambition means little if they can’t work within a budget. Most design projects have very constraining financial terms, so spending a large chunk of it on visualization work isn’t always appropriate. So, if you can’t find ambition…

Look for Value

Value doesn’t mean finding the cheapest freelance rendering artist and automatically shoe-horning them into your workflow. Value means searching through the sea of potential hires and picking one out that balances affordability with rendering ability. In fact, you might need to sacrifice quality in the name of staying within the budget, but it’s up to the firm and the client to decide where those chips fall.

Ultimately, what you’re looking for is someone who fits within the vision of the office and the individual projects. You might have to put in the work to find someone who fits the bill, but that work will be rewarded in a potentially ongoing relationship with an ambitious freelance artist who is invested in helping your projects shine.