Pay me!

(Season of the Witch pinup by JH for creator Jai Nitz)

I've talked to you guys some about doing work on the cheap for the experience or the exposure. There are reasons for and against. Number one for probably is that printed work is more impressive than sample pages, and so helps the hunt for paying work. And number two might be that you learn more by doing real work than by doing samples. The linked text piece, forwarded us by Illustration Department instructor Cameron Wasson, makes very strongly the case against.
http://positionrelative.wordpress.com/2007/01/23/craigs-pissed/
The unhappy fact is that almost everybody gets screwed over at least once. I think the trick is to try to manage it so your eyes are open, you're doing it for a reason and it only happens once. A whole lot of artists, myself included, are poor self-promoters and poor businessmen. If you recognize and believe in the value and rarity of what you do, as this piece counsels, you might be on your way to being that rare artist who knows his or her own worth.

JH