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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gamerprinter" data-source="post: 6280880" data-attributes="member: 50895">That's where the difference is with individual artists. I know some people who can create serious masterpieces of artistic work, yet to took them months to complete. No matter how good a finished piece is, if there is an inordinate amount of time spent to create it, short of being a Picasso, chances are you'll never be able to get paid for what the work is worth, based on time to create it. Its not only important to be able to generate high quality material, but doing so in a reasonably short amount of time is just as important a factor.Rather than being a pure illustrator, I am mostly a freelance cartographer doing work mostly for the RPG industry. As a member of the Cartographers' Guild, I know that there are many cartographers that create great aesthetically pleasing maps, however, many of them might require 20 or more hours to create a map, that I can create in 4 hours or less. Its not enough to create great illustrations, you need to be able to do so in a timely manner. And I don't mean those other cartographers are dragging their feet in the map designs, rather to forcibly work at a higher rate of speed in order to hit deadlines faster. The more maps I can create in the least amount of time, the more opportunity to do other commissions in a given time period, thus making more money in the long run.One thing though, cartography doesn't tend to lend itself well to stock art channels. Except for the most generic mapped locations like inns, taverns, castles, simple villages and the like most mapped locations are specific, even named locations and tend to offer poor usage for secondary uses. I have been working on a line of semi-generic locations especially suited for feudal Japanese encounter locations, intended to be used for my Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG), but are generic enough to work for any Asian themed game. Still, I cannot really create a specific map for most publishers then be able to sell them as stock art to someone else.Still to answer the OP, no, I won't work for exposure, but then I've already gotten freelance work from Paizo Publishing, so I am already 'recognized' and won't specifically gain a possible benefit, however, even 7 years ago (early in my freelance career) I never opted to do work free for exposure. I might charged a lot less than what I do now, but I never did it for free, for anyone.</blockquote>

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