FA+
Shop
A little discorurse on COMMISSIONS
14 years ago
General
Holly cow guys!
I didn’t realize so many people were wanting to get commissions from me. The moment I uploaded that new picture my inbox kind of exploded. Ill talk about a few things in this journal, but mostly I want to talk about commissions.
If I am gonna take on commissions again I want to do some research on financial feasibility and what prospective commissioners value the most. I think it's important for us artists to honestly look into the economics behind taking commissions. I mean, we all want to support our selves by our art without driving away our favorite customers right?
So... I like you guys! I want to be able to do commissions for all of my friends, and just take whatever cash you guys felt like throwing my way. Problem is commissions are time consuming. I either have to make them last priority or ask you guys for more money than I'm comfortable charging.
While I can take the production line approach and rush pictures to keep them cheap, it means my quality seriously declines, and frankly I find that really hard to motivate myself around. But if I want to get around that issue I have to either charge more or start turning my friends down. TwT
If commissions started eating into my studio day-hire time I would end up charging a commercial rate, and honestly, that would mean charging about three times more than many of my favorite online artists. (Frankly I would prefer to see all my favorite artists up their rates. A lot of people here are charging less than American minimum wage per hour for their hard work and i think that's a little sad ^^;)
On one hand I see artists struggle to make a living and many of the best won't commission for their fanbase cause they feel they can't charge for their time investments. On the other hand, I know that a picture is only worth so much to the casual commissioner, no matter who it's by or what it's of. ^^;
BUT NEVER FEAR!!! I had some ideas!!
You remember the Puppy Love commissions I was doing? Well I ran across a funny little thing when I was doing those commissions. When the color style is so simple and the backgrounds pre-made costs on both sides can be dramatically cut. I did an experiment and crunched some numbers found that enough puppy loves in a day does work out to a standard days wages!
It got me thinking about shared commissions in general and I want to try an experiment here– Would anyone be interested in sharing a commission? If I set up a background that could have maybe like...10-20 characters in it I could charge much less per person, cause the time cost of coloring and background would be split between more people~
I was also looking at some other internet business models. One I liked was the one they were doing with donations for music. Let's say I didn't have a set price for commissions but the whole commission was built around how much you wanted to pay? I would love to try doing commissions for donations with no upper limit.
In terms of my ideal business goals, I want to reach that legendary status where my comics are where most of my money is coming from. We’ve got chapter one of Galleon comic all lined up, we’re almost done with the website, I’ve trained my whole life to reach that place.
Right now I'm at a weird point where I'm forced to juggle my time in weird ways to meet all the deadlines I've set, but everything is actually going to plan. Once I do have everything up I'll need help to leap that first hurdle where I'm not popular enough to put all my time singularly into making an awesome furry comic. But considering how absolutely awesome everyone has been here on FA, i have a feeling that isnt gonna be too much of a problem. >w<
I hope this journal about commissions sparks some interest.
To that inbox of people who messaged me- Im working on that as we speak!
Any way, there will be more updates soon!
As far as how i am? Im great. Things are really going my way ^^ and for that i have a lot of friends to be grateful to!
Much love,
Los Nai-chan del fuego!!!!
AKA -The Nai
I didn’t realize so many people were wanting to get commissions from me. The moment I uploaded that new picture my inbox kind of exploded. Ill talk about a few things in this journal, but mostly I want to talk about commissions.
If I am gonna take on commissions again I want to do some research on financial feasibility and what prospective commissioners value the most. I think it's important for us artists to honestly look into the economics behind taking commissions. I mean, we all want to support our selves by our art without driving away our favorite customers right?
So... I like you guys! I want to be able to do commissions for all of my friends, and just take whatever cash you guys felt like throwing my way. Problem is commissions are time consuming. I either have to make them last priority or ask you guys for more money than I'm comfortable charging.
While I can take the production line approach and rush pictures to keep them cheap, it means my quality seriously declines, and frankly I find that really hard to motivate myself around. But if I want to get around that issue I have to either charge more or start turning my friends down. TwT
If commissions started eating into my studio day-hire time I would end up charging a commercial rate, and honestly, that would mean charging about three times more than many of my favorite online artists. (Frankly I would prefer to see all my favorite artists up their rates. A lot of people here are charging less than American minimum wage per hour for their hard work and i think that's a little sad ^^;)
On one hand I see artists struggle to make a living and many of the best won't commission for their fanbase cause they feel they can't charge for their time investments. On the other hand, I know that a picture is only worth so much to the casual commissioner, no matter who it's by or what it's of. ^^;
BUT NEVER FEAR!!! I had some ideas!!
You remember the Puppy Love commissions I was doing? Well I ran across a funny little thing when I was doing those commissions. When the color style is so simple and the backgrounds pre-made costs on both sides can be dramatically cut. I did an experiment and crunched some numbers found that enough puppy loves in a day does work out to a standard days wages!
It got me thinking about shared commissions in general and I want to try an experiment here– Would anyone be interested in sharing a commission? If I set up a background that could have maybe like...10-20 characters in it I could charge much less per person, cause the time cost of coloring and background would be split between more people~
I was also looking at some other internet business models. One I liked was the one they were doing with donations for music. Let's say I didn't have a set price for commissions but the whole commission was built around how much you wanted to pay? I would love to try doing commissions for donations with no upper limit.
In terms of my ideal business goals, I want to reach that legendary status where my comics are where most of my money is coming from. We’ve got chapter one of Galleon comic all lined up, we’re almost done with the website, I’ve trained my whole life to reach that place.
Right now I'm at a weird point where I'm forced to juggle my time in weird ways to meet all the deadlines I've set, but everything is actually going to plan. Once I do have everything up I'll need help to leap that first hurdle where I'm not popular enough to put all my time singularly into making an awesome furry comic. But considering how absolutely awesome everyone has been here on FA, i have a feeling that isnt gonna be too much of a problem. >w<
I hope this journal about commissions sparks some interest.
To that inbox of people who messaged me- Im working on that as we speak!
Any way, there will be more updates soon!
As far as how i am? Im great. Things are really going my way ^^ and for that i have a lot of friends to be grateful to!
Much love,
Los Nai-chan del fuego!!!!
AKA -The Nai
Well, you don't HAVE to do a rushed job if you really feel bad about the quality. A nice Pencil/ink drawing can look good either way IMO.
Shared commissionins is an interesting idea. I would suggest that people interested in this becomes a 'first come, first served' deal, so as to not hold up others from doing it. They can probably throw in half for now, and maybe the other half when it starts. It may help keep things in line.
Donation idea sounds good, but then you may run into that problem of possibly cheapening your work, unless you set up a nice minimum so as to protect you of that. I know a few artists have been doing it as of late and they've been handling things well.
In anycase, that's my 2 cents on the opinion in terms of commissions.
Last time i was there it was my first time at an American convention so i was poorly organized, but this time i hope i can meet up with EVERY BAWDEEEE~~~ ^^!
As for keeping you productive, limit the number of slots and the type of commissions. So say one time offer 4 slots of single character pin-ups, then next time around offer 2 slots of two character stuff. Keep the amount of work consistent so you dont have the eclectic nature of different commissions making it hard to plan time for.
People will throw you their money, I know it!
about that group commissions, it´s kinda a cool idea, I always wanted to commish you but never had the money to do so but if I see some numbers and look into my wallet I will mostly buy a place in there >w<
How much time does it take you n average to do a full color one character piece to the best of your ability with your preferred method?
How much do you think a piece like that is worth VS how much are your commissioners willing to pay?
How involved are you with big projects like comics, websites and other studio type work that must take priority?
What you then do is set a price that gets you a flow of customers/money that suits your needs but also leaves you the time to do the work. Higher price means fewer people asking you for commissions which also means you have more time to work on them.
Approaching it from the question "how much is my work actually worth" tends to lead to a lot of confusion and hair pulling on your part. Think of it instead as "how many people are willing and able to pay what I ask?" At that point the answer is determined by how many people really love your work and what their budget is. Someone who loves your work enough WILL pay anything you ask, but no matter who you are, those people are going to be few and far between. So you can't count on them which means you have to play that whole balancing game.
Now as far as the whole fast vs quality thing, you're probably better off letting the customer make that decision just by giving them the option of choosing between lines vs colors and so on, which pretty much all of us do now. The thing you have to calculate is how much time and effort goes into a sketch, then finished lines, then full color, then your absolute best work. By comparing the time and effort/difficulty of each step for YOU individually you can roughly calculate the relative increase in price as a variable. That means all you have to decide then is the minimum cost to just do a sketch piece, then you start adding and multiplying.
Bottom line, if you find you're not getting enough commission work for your taste even with open advertising, then you may need to drop your prices a bit. If you're getting too many for the time you have available, consider increasing your prices and/or using a limited number of slots. If you'er really fast about it, you have some options, but if you're really slow or have studio work to contend with, you'll have to budget your time efficiently around an average work week.
Does any of that help?