02/08/2026
“You Must be Really Free” | 8 Years of Freelancing
I get this from time to time when I introduced myself as a full-time freelancing illustrator.
Coming across a NDP2018 image when I was featured in NDP2018 as an illustrator and speaking to both my peers who have been doing this for the past 8 years and joining the industry only recently, I decided to share this long post and hopefully it helps anyone also in this field or as a freelancer.
It is also an opportunity for me to work on personal animated illustration after seeing some works online such as the ones by Chun Kit.
One of key questions of doing freelancing full-time is money. I worked in DP Architects for 3 years to save up enough before leaving and pursuing illustration full time.
Part and parcel of freelancing is regularly checking in and keeping an eye on expenditure etc. I continue to use an old-school spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel or Open Office to keep track of my finances. Having overall view of the finances helps inform my decisions etc.
I get the impression that people often think freelancing meant plenty of free time. However, it is more of an absence of someone planning your time or milestones for you and you have to work on creating your own schedules and meeting commitments etc on your own.
Rather than a blank calendar, it is often packed. Non-work days (if any) basically meant time to draw my own stuff, work on something new like the animated illustration or creating this post. As such, Time feels more precious with age and after going into freelancing.
One of the reasons why freelancing is appealing is the flexibility in both time and the location. I could travel when airfares are low, less crowded etc and work remotely.
However, it doesn’t mean work stops when overseas even though, ideally, I would love holiday and work to be separate. Remote working meant rushing out and responding emails just before the flight, setting time aside for work while overseas and have a different environment like place with a slower pace to work in which I find it to be refreshing away from the city.
With flexibility, I could afford and find better value in longer travels as well to better utilize cheaper air fares such as mid-week departures etc.
These are some of my experiences doing freelance over the 8 years. I don’t have regrets even if the journey is imperfect. I take ownership of my decisions which feels liberating and I hope this post is helpful to anyone freelancing on their own or planning to, that they are not alone too.
You can read more in the individual images in the gallery.
