What Are the Different Types of Illustrator Jobs?

There are many different types of illustrator jobs available for someone with experience and artistic ability. Some of the most common forms of work for illustrators are in mediums that require a great deal of visual creation, including picture books for children, book covers in general, comic book illustration, and promotional materials for various forms of entertainment. Illustrators can also find work producing conceptual artwork for different projects, including film, television, and video game productions. There are jobs in other fields that may be less inherently artistic in nature, such as jobs creating technical or medical illustrations.

Illustrator jobs typically refer to work opportunities, either hired staff positions or freelance work, available for those who are able to create original works of art. These are typically created by hand on paper, or digitally, rather than as large paintings such as may be produced for fine art work. A number of illustrator jobs are available to those who are talented illustrators and interested in working in fields commonly thought of as artistic or creative.

These illustrator jobs can cover anything from creating artwork for greeting cards to illustrating books for children and even creating covers for books. Comic book illustrator jobs are often quite competitive and may be difficult to come by. Illustrators in comics usually work in one or more of three particular fields: creating original pencil artwork, applying ink to the penciled lines, and coloring images that have been penciled and inked.

There are also illustrator jobs for professional illustrators interested in working in various entertainment fields. Concept art for film, television, and video games is often created by professional illustrators, and these works of art serve as representations for how the final work should appear. Illustrators can also find work creating promotional artwork, including posters and advertising images, for different entertainment companies.

Some illustrator jobs may be available for those who are able to realistically portray actual objects as illustrated images. Technical illustrators, for example, often produce images of objects for inclusion in instruction manuals and reference paperwork provided with those objects. There are also medical illustrators who provide artistic representations of different aspects of human or animal anatomy, usually from descriptions or rough images of what such objects look like. Due to the scientific and engineering uses of these types of illustrations, a high degree of precision and accuracy is often required of illustrators who produce such work.