What illustration agencies or service sites provide the greatest benefits to the artists?

Question

[NOTE: THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION FOR APPLICANTS.]

I'm a graphic designer in the fortunate position of having enough work that I'm looking to hire an illustrator for some overflow work. Finding a service (like Fiverr or Upwork) in Google is easy enough, but I'm interested in providing the most benefit to the actual artist. Which aggregation services out there provide the highest return to their artists? While this isn't specifically a graphic design question, I suspect it can really only be answered by graphic artists who have experience with these kinds of services.

To be clear, I'm not talking about stock sites. I mean hiring for specific contract illustration work for instruction manuals.

[Follow-up] My hope with this question was to find out which illustration agencies and/or services are most beneficial to the artists. I am not asking for help finding agencies and services in general. I appreciate the responses, but none of the answers so far (Monday, April 22, 2019) address the question as asked.

[Example:] Illsutrationweb.us is the online presence of Illustration Ltd which has been around since the 1920's. They use agents around the world to represent their artists and help negotiate fees until an agreement is met, after which the client and the artist are put in direct contact to work out specifics. On the other hand, upwork.com creates a competitive price war atmosphere, where each artist's hourly rate seems to be the main focus, rather than their skill.

Answer 1

Lots of good independent providers or studios showcase good work on Behance. While that is not an actual job platform, you can see portfolios (sometimes of very high quality work) and connect with people doing the type of work you actually need, then discuss your project with them directly. See this link.

Answer 2

TheiSpot.com is where top-end illustrators work in many instances. It's more high-end than the average stock place. You can email artist there to discuss projects. The emails are in their portfolio/profile pages.

TheiSpot is sort of an agency and stock site combined.

You can also try the Society of Illustrators which is kind of like the Graphic Artist's Guild, but, well, for Illustrators.

Then there are agencies...

• https://www.lemonadeillustration.com/
• https://centralillustration.com/
• More with a google search for "illustration agency"

Whether or not an agency is more beneficial to an artist will really depend upon the agency. And, realistically, there's no way to know unless you or someone you know has worked with them.

To me, anyone working via crowdsourcing sites (Fiver, etc) has already determined that they feel there is enough benefit for them there. There's no need to feel like they are at a disadvantage. If that's where they've chosen to sell, they are fine with the site's terms.

You can also view work on Behance or Dribble, and contact the artist. Dribble even has a "Hire Me" button on artist pages.