Portfolioday discourse is so confusing. You guys know you don't need thousands of followers just to get work, right? That the "big accounts" who don't retweet you on hashtagdays aren't holding your career hostage?

Seriously guys, here's how you email ADs!

(thread inside)

https://www.muddycolors.com/2013/11/how-to-cold-call-email-art-directors/ https://www.muddycolors.com/2013/08/approaching-art-directors/ These two articles by @Planetpinto cover pretty much all of the "how," they're super simple and there's even a template in there! It can't be simpler to follow the instructions here. Go bookmark them if you haven't read them before.

But Kai where do I get AD's emails? How do I know what companies are out there to work for? What kind of work IS out there?

For your buck, these pdfs are going to be the easiest and most comprehensive resource - https://gumroad.com/drawnanddrafted?recommended_by=search !

But also asking those questions is super important. Lets take tabletop publishing. We all know who the big names are, but they're not the only players. Try giving yourself an assignment and google tabletop publishers. Make a list! See how many you can find, it's surprising.

Now google "art submissions" with those names. For instance a few examples to get you started, so you can understand what youre looking for - here's WotCs ( https://company.wizards.com/content/freelance-art-submissions), here's Fantasy Flight's ( https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/more/freelance-opportunities/), and here's OnyxPath's ( http://theonyxpath.com/art/ )

Make yourself a spreadsheet with the companies, the art submission pages/any emails you find. Then list when you last emailed them, what pieces sent, etc. If you want to do stuff for board games or book covers, same thing! Research who publishes those + google how to contact them

Sure, having a lot of followers can help. But sometimes that's out of your hands. Popularity feels so scary. This is something tangible that you have a lot more control over! You get to send those emails every 3-6 months. You get to know what eyes you're putting your work before.

Oh gosh I had no idea this was going to take off and didn't really think it through enough at the time so - some resources! Dear AD is phenomenal and if you have any questions odds are someone there has answered it at some point https://dearartdirector.tumblr.com/populartags 

Okay so if everyone's gonna keep retweeting this thing, here's some more resources for y'all:
Kristina has a great thread here on getting some more mileage out of licensing your EXISTING artwork! https://twitter.com/KristinaDraws/status/1331919373540478976

I do not know anything about the animation industry, but I found a few threads from folks with impressive resumes that seem to have some resources for anyone looking to figure out how to get work:

https://twitter.com/abellehayford/status/1335714854695399424
https://twitter.com/JazLyte/status/1349088095019225089 https://twitter.com/PuccaNoodles/status/1344055580860710912

This one is pretty neat for folks who do this kind of work - pet portrait artist directory: https://twitter.com/ChloeCarterArts/status/1349440384175230976