accepting a request/road to start as a freelancer ?

Well, this got lost in the great churn of class posts this month, but here's my advice:

1. Never take exposure as payment.  People are asking for free work and it is not worth your time to take free work when you know you can get paid for it.  Exceptions would be if you wanted to donate something to someone or something out of the goodness of your heart, but do not take requests from people in exchange for exposure.  I and many others have learned the hard way.
2.  Charge fairly and know what you're worth.  Take a look at what the going rates are for your area/on the website/etc. and match that price within a few bucks.  Don't ever undersell yourself.  You can charge per project or per hour if you wish.  Whatever you think works best for you or for the project.
3. Have a written contract for you and your client.  You may have to throw down a few bucks to talk to a lawyer to have a contract written up, but hopefully that will then become a template for future clients.  Or you can whip up your own, but beware, there may be loopholes you don't see when you write one yourself.  This gives you more leverage for when your client doesn't want to pay in court.

As for Facebook, I would not personally use it because in their terms and agreements, the can collect any and all information possible about you (although living in the EU the new privacy regulations may have dampened them down a bit) and the biggest issue I have with Facebook is any image you post on it is now the property of Facebook as well as on any subcompanies, such as Instagram.  So from now on, I advise you to read any website's terms and conditions and privacy policies that you will be conducting business on.  Deviantart is alright, but I suggest signing up for Artstation.  It has a pretty professional portfolio website for free, it's built for artists and freelancers, and has a Sellers option in Alpha that has the best fees I've seen so far for a selling platform.  The percentage is a little less than other sites, but the fees are ridiculously low.

This video may help, too.

Let me know if there are any other questions you have and I'll do my best to answer them.

If you're serious about becoming a freelancer you need to have a completely separate site/social media account specifically for that. Make it professional and only use your work on those sites. Having a personal account attached to that kind of stuff would only make you look like someone who isn't taking it seriously. 

Regarding asking for payment for the requested model, yes you should. This could be you entry into freelancing. You'll more than likely not get the price right, but find what you feel is suitable for your work and offer it. If they say no then move on. Don't start providing free work of this kind. It will only make it harder to find paying work. 

Freelancing is a business all on it's own, except you're the business. By building a reputation online through a solid portfolio that people can see you'll start to attract people. You get out of it what you put into it. 

jgonzalez so actually the best would be like having my own personal website? Is a account at Facebook OK or is it better to take deviantart or artStation or should I have a special account on several? 

Is there a way for me. To figure out what prize would be fair?  I actually didn't expected this to happen so soon since I been completely new into 3D and started almost 4 months ago. 

But I sure do take this serious. 

At this. Moment I need to take it easy but as soon as I can start again I will continue again as good as I can

yyukinoh1989 

An artstation account is the minimum, it's good to have an instagram/facebook account too to spread your artwork although facebook and instagram are less likely to bring customer to you, rather more visibility.

About the fair price how much do you want to get for the task ? What do you think is a fair price your opinion? Then scale it up  a bit, we tend to underestimate the value of our work and time spent on it. Just for comparison, low-end consulting services (not art related) charge at least 30$per hour, and it can climb up to 100-200$ per hour for the high-end ones (tax included).

As silentheart00 mentionned, DO NOT ACCEPT EXPOSURE as payment. 

It's of course a tricky question, depends on your local market and where you live too. What I call fair price is a price that both supply (you) and demand (customer) agreed on: make sure that you're confortable with it and don't be scared: if the customer thinks it's too expensive, the customer will not runaway and you will enter a negotiating phase.

Good luck, and congrats for the almost-first-paid-job!

/T

yyukinoh1989 If you can afford to have a website, then yes that would be great. A single place people can go to in order to see your work and provide contact information. That said, having your own website means you'll need to start from the ground up to promote it. So having a portfolio on popular sites like Artstation will go a long way. Your website should be the main hub, but your work should be everywhere.

As far as pricing, that's something that you'll need to gauge with experience. It's true that most people price too low then find out later that someone was willing to pay way more, but that's something you end up finding out afterward. You just need to find what you believe to be a fair price for your work and offer that. If they decline then move on (or negotiate). Don't work for free, especially after you offer a price. It'll just make it seem like you can be haggled down to free work. 

Good luck and don't overthink it. Just see this as a trial run to your first paid gig. Good or bad, you'll learn from it and improve for next time. 

silentheart00 thanks I gonna check the video. As for exposure what does that mean? As well on artstation you see so many amazing works. Will I even be allowed. I cannot yet make such results and I only have 4 months experience? 

tbrbn thank you for the info. So we actually should be payed in hours then? I first thought it was more like this is what I want and that is the prize. 

As for the market is there a place to check that out? And should I look up the prizes in my country or customer country? 

Thanks I sure will do my best. I never would thought things might gone so fast, but then again the lessons here are amazing and amazing good classes too

yyukinoh1989 Whatever you see on the front page of Artstation is the best work.  If you switch over to Latest you'll see some more beginner work.  The rate you're going, you're not at the beginner level.  You have a request, don't you?  Sign up, it's free.

Exposure means, in this case, the client wants the work done for free in exchange the client will tell people who made it.  Exposure doesn't pay the bills and rarely does it actually bring any clients to you, so I advise you to stay clear of these offers.

silentheart00
Hey thank you. indeed you are right i always tought if you wanted to go on artstation you had to provide ya lets say High quality lvl art . and indeed i do have a request so i can try.
i also understands what you mean with exposure and as you said its best to not do that since other will try to benefit like that too in the end .
i watched the video and it seems it also answered some questions. like if when i start and got a client i have the right to refuse if i dont feel yet comfortable.
now i do have some questions since i still have problems with pricing .i heard in the video they talk about a contract and the prize of 10.000 dollars so that is a lot . is this about making a movie then or for what is that prize. 

tbrbn also talked about getting payed for each hour.(that this is also sometimes done)
i never had a real idea so i wonder when you start youre not as fast as profesionals  so is it fair to say to the client: i charge 10 dollars each hour but at a limit of maybe 100 dollors for the model ?
but then again when i watched the marketplace of artstation some models only cost like 10 dollars. so then what i would be doing seems really expensive .

jgonzalez so for now its best to stay to artstation and once i got some models to put in the portfolio then start my own website ? 

thanks all of you already to answer my questions and help me out on this :)

yyukinoh1989 Yeah, that video sounded more like it was a company doing work for another company, so since you're a single person something that high of a price isn't going to be something you start with.

As for the whole "some models only cost 10 dollars" thing that's because it's a repeatable sale so you can charge less and sell so many copies to make up for the time you spent on that model.  It works great for filling a need, such as a generic male or female model or something like that.  For something custom, like a request from a client, you'll want to charge more since it's more of a one shot deal than potentially multiple deals, if that makes sense.

Check out some time tracking apps, too.  I personally use Gleeo on my phone, but there's many others out there.  It helps me see where my time is going and a great way to keep track of your hours spent on projects.  Once you've built up a dataset, you'll have a better idea how long it takes you to model, shade, light, etc. and a better idea what to charge.

If you think it's fair to charge hourly and have a cap, then it's fair.  Overestimate just to be sure in case of things like changes the client wants to make, unforeseen circumstances, etc.  That way if you do come under budget when you're done, the client gets a little mental boost of saving money.

yyukinoh1989 Oh, by the way, Artstation has support for Sketchfab, so you can upload your model to Skeetchfab and embed it into Artstation for people to view.  Very handy and you can keep your portfolio in one place.

silentheart00 

Hey thank you. With this could you give an example? I am not really understanding it 100% 

Overestimate just to be sure in case of things like changes the client wants to make, unforeseen circumstances, etc.  That way if you do come under budget when you're done, the client gets a little mental boost of saving money.

yyukinoh1989 Well in order to be able to tell how much you want to charge you need to estimate the amount of work you need to put into. You can count the hours and convert it to a final price using the fee you believe is right. It's up to you to present your customer your hourly rate or your final project (I'd recommend the second option).

I would watch this video for help with pricing.

az93
Thank you it indeed helps :) .
does anyone also know on artstation are WIP allowed or only finished projects ? and things like gestural artworks is this acceptable there or not ?

yyukinoh1989 Artstation is a portfolio site, you use it to attract clients, so I would use it for finished works that represent your quality of work and showing what your specialty is.

You can add multiple pics though so you could post a breakdown to show your progress. But I would always end with the finished piece and use that as the thumbnail.

ssmurfmier1985 ok . i wonder art like my pumpkin and maybe eevee (if she is finished) would they be worthy of my portfolio ?

yyukinoh1989 it is the best you currently have made so far, so I would say yes. A portfolio is a living document, every time you improve you post new ones. And the old ones you will delete over time when you have enough new better pieces to replace them.