The trend of working remotely or from home as a freelancer or 3D artist is definitely on the rise, despite large enterprises trying to bring things back to normal and their employees back to the workplace. While remote work offers many benefits for employees, it also poses quite a few challenges to employers.
Since they have no way to determine how many hours their employees have spent on remote work due to increased flexibility, employers constantly have the feeling that they could do better. However, things aren’t that black or white, as all data from recent reports indicate that remote work is the future of employment.
When it comes to freelancers and 3D artists, the demand for their services will continue to grow in the future as hiring freelance 3D artists offers clients many benefits, such as saving money and time, acquiring top talent, etc.
Take a look at a typical image of 21st-century 3D artists. You’ll see all the classics needed to support a creative worker: informal meetings with clients, engineers, and videographers, logging hours on the most popular 3D modeling programs, etc.
The world’s creative experiences are slowly moving from photos and static images to the most realistic, immersive, interactive, real-time 3D experiences, such as 3D animation, virtual tours, and video games. The remote work lifestyle has grown steadily for the past two years, fueled by the coronavirus outbreak.
Anyone that relies on the internet and computers to make a living can benefit from this business model, especially 3D artists. Let’s get deeper into the biggest reasons why more and more 3D artists will move to remote work in the future and how this innovative business model can benefit both them and their clients.
Remote 3D artists have expanded worldwide, allowing clients to expand the typical workday outside office hours. A 3D artist working remotely has the privilege of using their computers and similar devices to pass high-end projects around the world, from one artist to another, from one client to another, to meet the deadline.
Clients also benefit from this as they don’t need to invest in high-performance workstations for their employees. Since every remote 3D artist has their own means of work, they can collaborate seamlessly with clients, leading to greater levels of communication, productivity, creativity, and efficiency.
It also helps reduce errors and eliminate any unnecessary misunderstandings across the organization. At the same time, it’s also worth mentioning that remote 3D artists and clients both benefit from shared resources.
Instead of spending a fortune on high-performance computing, clients can rely on the personal hardware and software of remote 3D artists to harness the power of the latest hybrid high-powered workstations and create a highly productive work environment.
Thanks to the latest project management, file sharing, conferencing, and collaboration tools, remote 3D artists have everything they need to support enhanced performance. They can work together on complicated projects seamlessly, keep constant communication with everyone involved, and provide valuable updates on demand.
Nowadays, modern 3D artists demand flexibility. They want the freedom to work and travel. Remote work allows them to tailor their work hours according to their lifestyle. That’s why many modern 3D artists are freelancing today.
The economic uncertainty wrought by COVID-19 made one thing certain – countless employees and workers, including 3D artists, simply decided to abandon the office and replace it with a more flexible solution.
It ensured the talent pool went global, allowing clients to discover top 3D talent all over the world. In addition, they can now recruit specialized 3D artists wherever they find them. Since 3D artists are freelancers, they can offer quite a few benefits to clients, such as flexible working hours, saving money on expensive equipment and rent, etc.
Freelancers have quickly become high earners over the past couple of years. Freelance is steadily expanding all over the world, becoming the norm in the post-COVID business world.
Aside from increased demand for flexibility, remote workers also demand flexible work hours as this allows them to achieve a more sustainable work-life balance. On the other hand, flexible work hours also benefit clients as they can reach top talent from different time zones.
Freelancers lead a better work-life balance, and they don’t feel as micromanaged or overwhelmed as office workers. They experience less job-related stress and are more productive as they can manage projects according to their specific needs and client requirements.
Clients get to reap a few benefits as well. Remote work and flexibility save them money on internet costs, computing technologies, and in-house facilities. Depending on whether their organization is entirely virtual or not, clients can also save on:
Freelance 3D artists work on their own terms, which gives them a higher level of creative freedom, leading to increased productivity. Remote 3D artists can use their time more productively and make themselves available when clients need them the most. At the same time, flexible work hours allow 3D artists to make themselves open for business 24/7. Instead 3D freelance artists will choose where they want to work from, they can work from the comfort of their homes or go for shared office spaces. They can work while traveling as well from different countries and cities by renting office spaces in Atlanta, New York, London, Berlin and so on, no matter where they are.
With today’s advanced technology, remote 3D artists have access to the latest digital workplace platforms and other internet technologies needed to do their work. Collaboration suites such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, internet platforms, task management tools, messaging apps, and more are available to help improve the work of remote 3D artists.
Having access to the latest technology solutions also encourages better communication with clients as 3D artists learn to appreciate the time on their hands and talk to their clients when they need to, without wasting time. Keeping constant communication with clients is essential to building trust and getting the job done on both ends.
For example, if a 3D artist needs to make any changes to the ongoing project, they can communicate online with clients, provide them with notes, and keep them up to date with the latest events using nothing but a mobile device.
Aside from ensuring the project is done according to the client’s requirements, this also helps avoid any misunderstandings, costly mistakes, etc.
The internet provides remote 3D artists with so many opportunities to find high-paying clients. The most obvious way is to grab their attention using the cold email method. The first step is to discover potential clients by checking websites, blogs, and social media pages related to your line of work.
Create your profiles, engage in comments, and start marketing your skills to gain their attention and create a list of potential contacts. Finally, write an engaging email to seal the deal. You can also find new clients on Facebook groups with people from every industry in the world.
If you’re a 3D artist, look for groups such as Freelance Graphic Design Jobs From Home or any other group that deals with 3D rendering, visualization, animation, etc. Twitter can also be quite useful when it comes to job searches.
You can use hashtags to search the platform and discover feeds where you can find clients. You can also run ad campaigns, such as Google AdWords and Facebook ads. They are quite an affordable and effective way to get your portfolio in front of high-paying clients.
Social media is an excellent way to gather a huge following and grab the attention of the best clients from your line of work. Create a website and start a blog that you can link back to in your social media posts to create brand awareness and gain trust.
Despite the misbelief that remote workers are lazy, sluggish, and constantly distracted, it is quite the opposite. Remote 3D artists are much more likely to develop the most creative ideas and produce more efficient hours than traditional artists.
The reasoning behind this is simple – remote workers are ultimately facing fewer distractions compared to employees working in a traditional working environment rife with haphazard administration and draconian management.
With fewer distractions comes greater focus. In other words, remote 3D artists can focus on their work instead of their environment. A traditional office often tends to be quite distracting and noisy. There is a general buzz, people are talking, and phones are ringing on the double.
While this can be great for keeping the creativity running, it can also be highly distracting, making it difficult for creative thinkers to work in such an environment. Some artists need total silence to be able to work their magic. Working remotely allows for creative thinking to occur naturally, leading to greater productivity.
Finding clients online has never been easier due to so many excellent job-finding platforms available to 3D artists. Finding new work is one of the biggest priorities for freelancers, and it often can be quite dull, frustrating, and time-consuming.
Thankfully, there are many online resources that are designed to connect 3D artists with clients from various industries, such as architecture firms, marketing companies, and design studios. Any business that needs help with visualization will probably resort to hiring freelance artists.
If you’re a 3D artist looking for jobs online, you can use the job-finding platforms as hubs to connect with other artists, exchange ideas, showcase your portfolio, explore new opportunities, and find as many jobs as you need.
Here is our comprehensive list of top-rated platforms where freelancers come to find 3D jobs:
The best way to discover new clients is to put your portfolio on all these platforms and apply for jobs regularly.
One of the biggest benefits of remote work is that it allows companies to discover top talent, increase productivity, and get better results while reducing costs. Since businesses don’t have to maintain in-house premises, they are free of all the expenses associated with such a business model.
Instead, they can rely on remote workers to have the technology and supplies to be productive from where they are. These limited working environments also free companies from the liability typically involved with traditional business models.
Remote work arrangements allow both companies and workers to focus on the quality of work instead of the payroll. The pandemic has already changed the business world. Some of the key changes include:
The pandemic simply helped usher in a new era of digital transformation that was bound to happen sooner or later. In other words, it helped make remote work more important and legit than ever before.
While adopting a new business model may sound like something frightening, it’s actually a great thing. While it does require a certain amount of tech-savvy and developing a whole new set of skills, the digital world is the next step in our evolution.
The pandemic has created many new remote workers who may find navigating these new systems quite frustrating and difficult, but once they adapt to it and see how it can benefit them, everything will fall into place once more.
Since it’s clear that there is no undoing the changes that the pandemic brought upon the world, the only way to move on is to identify the potential advantages and benefits and use them to the maximum.