Three.
Three good portfolio projects are enough to start freelancing.
I know how that sounds. Most artists I talk to are on project seven or eight and still don’t feel ready to send their work to anyone.
Here’s what’s usually going on. Another piece feels like progress. It’s familiar, it happens in Blender, and nobody can reject it. The business part is uncomfortable: the outreach, the pricing, the first awkward call.
So the portfolio keeps growing and the business stays exactly where it was.
A client doesn’t need twelve pieces to decide. They need three that show you can handle their kind of project. Anything past that is mostly for you.
If you’ve got three you’re proud of, the portfolio isn’t your bottleneck anymore. From here, every new piece is a way of postponing the boring part.
– Moritz
Tiny tactical tip:
Pick your best three and unpublish the rest for a month. Put the time you’d have spent on piece number nine into sending three messages to potential clients.