Some of you might be familiar with my guide to be a good commissioner: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/752264/

I was hesitating on doing a new guide to match the artist's side for the simple and clear fact that I'm not an artist, but after some time I belive I have the knowledge to at least set up a basic number of points that might not be 100% accurate but close enough to the majority, also with the help of some friendly artist.

This guide is meant to go for people that might start anew on the freelance artist work, since reputated artist already have their own set of rules, so don't feel offended if nothing said here matchs your style of work, in other words don't be an elitist bitch with me jo! =D


First steps

Are you confortable enough with your work?: The most important thing is that you feel you can start working as freelance artist, you must think that your work is nice enough to start selling it. You are your best critic and don't worry if you keep finding flaws on your stuff, even the most reputated artist aren't always 100% happy with their creations. You can start doing some free stuff although is not 100% recomended, only do it if you are open enough to give it a try. The main reason of this not being recomended is that even if you do it for free, people will still complain if is not perfect, that can be a really huge blow for your self steem, but if you have a strong mind you will find out that they don't really have the right to complain and that the good action was on your side.

Your friends are there for you: They can help in two ways, one they can watch your art and give you hints on how to become better, they will probably always be there to let you know the tail of that guy is missing. And two, they can help you promote your art, don't be afraid to request them to ask people to watch your art to see if they are interested on commissions, I have found a lot of really good artist thanks to mouth to mouth.

Setting correct prices: You will never know how much your art is worth, is really hard to set a price for it, so usually you will want to start low and get increases from there. Don't be scared on making your prices higher, if people was interested at first because it was cheap, they will be the one judging if the quality is good enough to buy it. There is a good example to test this.
1) Create a journal offering a set of commissions at a set price (10$ for example)
2) You offer 5 spots and they fill fast, leaving people with comments like "I'm late what a shame"
3) Next time create another journal with 5 spots but raising your price to 15$
4) If they still get filled, you are getting closed to a good price. If the spots get filled and there is still people comenting they are waiting for a spot, you might want to increase the price again, but if you see that it didn't go that well, lower it back next time.

Start softly and see how much you can handle: You have your life, work, school, friends, family and several other things aside of art. When you start doing commissions, you might be excited and make the error of overstacking on them, finding out you might not have as much time as you wanted to finnish them, so only go with small list first and see how much you can handle to finish them on a timely fashion, people will apreciate this.


Now that you are going at it

Try to keep your information clear enough: Commission prices, do's and do not's, if you are open or close for commissions, how to commission you, how to contact you, these all are details that should be easy to find, either in your front page or a link to a journal for it.
GRANTED that someone will miss it and will bug you with info you already provided because they were to lazy to find it, but you have to deal with it, the way you handle it is up to you and might affect your reputation, truth we can't always keep a smile but if the people asked you politely, give that kindness back.

Comunication: Always leave the chance to commissioners to reach you, you will find patient people and really anoying people, but cutting the ways to talk with them is not the solution. You don't want to be friends with them, thats fair, you don't need to let them add you to your personal IM programs, but at least leave the chance to mail you or note you on FA.
By comunication I also mean to keep all details clear with the commissioner, you missing something? Is he allowing you to do whatever you want? There is something you don't understand about the details given? Ask, it never hurts, they are paying money to have what they request, so you might as well be sure to give your best on it.

Deal with the critic: Yeah, most people doesn't like critic, some do like constructive critic and some feel is the only way to improve. In any of the three cases, let people know, is not hard to set a small disclaimer in your submissions asking for it or to not leave critic, but sadly you will get it even if indirectly and you will have to accept that not everyone likes your work. THIS DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE TO AGREE WITH IT, so don't freak out and insult someone just because you know you did it right and he thinks you didn't

Personal shit happends: And people have to accept it, if something comes up more important than finishing your commissions, then it can't be helped, but don't forget the rule of comunication is best if you let people know something came up. Also by personal shit, I include artblocks. Artist get really burned if they work for so long and a lot of time they have the wish to draw personal stuff... Well DO IT, nothing stops you and you have the entire right to do it, it will inspire you and help you to do your work better, and people needs to see that.

Payment... upfront or after?: One of the biggest deals in this fandom is the fact of payments.
Upfront: You get the money and it will lead to the fact that you will feel 'pressured' to have the work done because after all you are performing a service you already received the end of your benefit. Make sure to know if the person is ok with waiting time or if they want to set a dead line. Also make sure to agree in a refund or not, if you don't wish to do refunds the person MUST know it, you might lose him as client but you have to go with the truth in front of you.

After: The big deal... the chance to get scammed. In this case you might want to select your clients really close or set an agreement of 'work progress'. Meaning to receive the payment in split parts or while your work is being done. You can ask for first half after the sketch is done and second half after it is done. If you are unsure about a person giving the payment, make sure to give really low resolution pics with huge watermarks, that will prevent them to do any kind of scam or receive a product they planned not to pay with.

Request and gifts: Now we are on touchy subjects here. Lot of times you will want to do a cute pic for that friend you like, that mate you love or a random artist you admire their work. People will complain, a lot, in different ways. They will blame you for doing free stuff while they are paying for theirs, your friends will get mad at you because you made a gift for someone else so they feel they aren't as important for you, and random people will constantly bug you for free art.
Let them all know that is YOUR SHIT and you are the only one ruling on your life. If a friend complains about you giving gifts to others, maybe they don't really deserve you as a friend. If a commissioner complains because he paid about gifts or request you do, let them know that you are giving them the privilege of deciding what exactly they want on the picture and that the quality will be higher than gifts or request.


So far this is the first things that come in my mind, there is probably tons of more points that could be made and I'm missing, so if you want to point out something, feel free to tell me and I will add it up.
Thank you for reading and hope this helps for some people.