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How do you personally value furry commissions?
3 years ago
How do you personally value furry commissions?
It’s not really something you can put a concrete value on, could you really say if someone is overcharging or undercharging for their work?
I do get told sometimes I do not charge enough for mine, for the amount of time I put into things that might be true (usually adds up to much less than minimum hourly wage, for my country at least). But at the same time it’s something I enjoy doing, $15 is still a helpful amount of money to me , and also if I did charge more I doubt anyone would commission me, I think I’d also feel like I am ripping people off to be honest. Pe
What matters more than time/effort is what people want and like, plenty of artists can sell fairly simplistic bust shots or sketches for more than I value my largest illustration type pieces which might take me 10+ hrs. I think artist popularity comes into it alot too, not just in exposure which of course helps, but it seems to become a certain brand name type value when getting art/designs from a popular artist, regardless of what that artist is actually selling. I’m not a popular artist or with a widely appealing style, also I hate promoting myself because it makes me feel like a wanker (and when I do it usually gets no response anyway).
It’s interesting you’ll often see people (maybe not in the fandom) talking about selling furry porn for money and how profitable it’d be. But it’s really not that easy to get noticed at all, in my experience at least. Maybe it’s the difference in having the type of style people would want to wank to vs something like mine, or something that appeals to a niche (be that aesthetic/whatever’s “in”, or a fetish, emo dogs or something). Something that’s kind of broad enough to be able to capture most characters recognisably, but not too typical enough as no not stand out at all. That’s usually what you see selling for the most. Sometimes I’ll look at someone’s pricing and think to myself it isn’t really worth that .. but that isn’t really fair to think. Really it’s worth whatever it sells for, and comes down to personal taste, it’s still somebody’s original creation.
Maybe gaining attention isn’t that hard depending on what you do. Personally I t took me almost 5 years to gain any sort of attention or to be able to occasionally sell my art at offers higher than like $1 equivalent of online currencies I didn’t care about per hour if work, just for the sake of doing something. I definitely never thought I’d end up selling pieces for $50+ but I still feel like I’m ripping people off asking for that much and they only pay it because they feel bad or something.
I don’t want this to come off as self pitying/sympathy fishing at all, just making observations
What do you think?
It’s not really something you can put a concrete value on, could you really say if someone is overcharging or undercharging for their work?
I do get told sometimes I do not charge enough for mine, for the amount of time I put into things that might be true (usually adds up to much less than minimum hourly wage, for my country at least). But at the same time it’s something I enjoy doing, $15 is still a helpful amount of money to me , and also if I did charge more I doubt anyone would commission me, I think I’d also feel like I am ripping people off to be honest. Pe
What matters more than time/effort is what people want and like, plenty of artists can sell fairly simplistic bust shots or sketches for more than I value my largest illustration type pieces which might take me 10+ hrs. I think artist popularity comes into it alot too, not just in exposure which of course helps, but it seems to become a certain brand name type value when getting art/designs from a popular artist, regardless of what that artist is actually selling. I’m not a popular artist or with a widely appealing style, also I hate promoting myself because it makes me feel like a wanker (and when I do it usually gets no response anyway).
It’s interesting you’ll often see people (maybe not in the fandom) talking about selling furry porn for money and how profitable it’d be. But it’s really not that easy to get noticed at all, in my experience at least. Maybe it’s the difference in having the type of style people would want to wank to vs something like mine, or something that appeals to a niche (be that aesthetic/whatever’s “in”, or a fetish, emo dogs or something). Something that’s kind of broad enough to be able to capture most characters recognisably, but not too typical enough as no not stand out at all. That’s usually what you see selling for the most. Sometimes I’ll look at someone’s pricing and think to myself it isn’t really worth that .. but that isn’t really fair to think. Really it’s worth whatever it sells for, and comes down to personal taste, it’s still somebody’s original creation.
Maybe gaining attention isn’t that hard depending on what you do. Personally I t took me almost 5 years to gain any sort of attention or to be able to occasionally sell my art at offers higher than like $1 equivalent of online currencies I didn’t care about per hour if work, just for the sake of doing something. I definitely never thought I’d end up selling pieces for $50+ but I still feel like I’m ripping people off asking for that much and they only pay it because they feel bad or something.
I don’t want this to come off as self pitying/sympathy fishing at all, just making observations
What do you think?
some people see making commissions as a job when truth is that it's so unreliable, you don't know when the next customer's going to come, nor if they'd be willing to pay for it, in fact I think that having it as simply a hobby that can get you money sometimes it's much better and perhaps even more enjoyable than having to constantly draw with the mindset of "I'm either making x amount of commissions this week or I'm not making it to the end of the month"