Painting A Successful Freelance Career

Brush up Corel Painter has been used by professional artists for 30 years. Isabelle Staub reflects on how Painter has helped her…

- Isabelle Staub

Today, Isabelle Staub is a successful digital artist who’s worked with Marvel, Dynamite Comics, Wacom and TikTok. Shooting to fame by reinterpreting Disney’s Princesses in her own unique style, Isabelle has since gone on to create clothing ranges as well as illustrations.

Reflecting on her first freelance gig Isabelle says she was daunted and excited by the job. “I was ecstatic when I landed my first freelance job, but I honestly felt like I had no idea what I was doing,” says the artist. “At the time, I was a few months out of college and I still felt like a student with little business knowledge at all. It was definitely daunting, but I pretended like I knew what I was doing when speaking to the client.”

She admits to using Google and pestered her college professors for advice on pricing, invoices and how to tackle the basic business aspects of going freelance. “[In] hindsight, I don’t think I would have ever felt ‘ready’ to start freelancing. For me, it was something I just needed to jump in and figure it out along the way through trial and error,” she says.

BRUSHING UP

While Isabelle’s business knowledge has grown over the years (social media and new art trends have changed how she works), some aspects of her process have remained. The artist is committed to using Corel Painter to achieve a traditional texture in her portraits.