I personally find your current prices perfectly fine. c: I am considering commissioning you! eventually when i have money DX

Thank you for your opinion and also thank you for interest. ;)

Well, commission prices today are sadly relative. There's so many 'meh' artists asking over 200 for a colored sketch and selling those like water in the desert these days. But then again...usually they draw porn. Loads of fetishy creepy porn. xD

sorry replied to the wrong post!

Haha, I can relate. Some are like it but there are also some whose art is worth it, in my opinion.

I think you could easily get $150+ for full illustrations as a starting point. They take a lot of time and $100 as a starting point for a full illustration seems low to me! I think you need bigger price jumps between character renders, simple illustrations, and bought detail illustrations. I also understand not wanting to chase of customers before you build alarge following but don't undervalued yourself!

I don't know of this will help
http://www.theartoffreelancing.com/

Thank you very much for your opinion, Stripetail, I appreciate it!
Well, sometimes I just spend more time than I should have, haha.
And yeah, I know Noah Bradley, he's got some great art along with some other artists of his area - also very successful.

I think your pricing looks good honestly. You leave it open to adjusting and quotes by not having exact prices and that allows freedom which is a great way to go. your work is beautiful and I imagine you will certainly gain a following over time and that also greatly helps!

I know I certainly have interest in commissioning you in the near future as i love the look of your full works.

Thank you for your opinion. And also thank you for interest.

I think your pricing is actually really reasonable.

You could probably up the prices of some of your more difficult and time consuming pieces, such as full illustrations, but I think that having lower prices also attracts more customers.

I know I'd already have requested a full-illustration from you if I didn't need to be cautious with my budget at the moment, because the work you do is amazing and affordable.

Thank you very much for your opinion. I was just curious as I'm working on updating my Price Guide and also, thank you for interes.t

Easily 100+. Your work is on par with professional concept artists.

Thank you for your opinion, dear.

$50 ref sheets are incredibly underpriced too since you're doing full shaded poses. $50 might make sense for flat colors but you could ask for more on ref sheets. Usually I see ref sheets over $100 simply because the artist has to draw multiple poses and special up-close details.

These are starting prices, haha. ^^" If someone would like a small ref sheet with just one pose and without details, i could go with such low price, but for such a huge ref with multiple poses, portraits and detail shots of course I'll go higher. ;)
But thank you, it actually got me thinking and I'll be doing on examples price, how much does a particular one cost. I raised the price a bit, especially because now the ref's price was the same as for the concept artwork and these two wary in details...

It's hard to get an unbiased answer from consumers. The relationship between buyer and seller is inherently opposed. One wants to pay the least possible and one wants the most possible for their goods and services.

Do you currently keep track of how many hours you spend on the various pieces? Definitely a good way to know if the cumulative hours spent, when divided by cost, results in a reasonable hourly wage for you, and try to set firm limits on those tiers so you get a fairly consistent income flow. I know there is "One More Thing syndrome" and after a piece is done, one more thing , one more change, and suddenly it's 2+ hours later of unpaid work, and the more you look, the more things you'd like to change or tweak. Those are unpaid hours of work!

Isvoc pretty much summed up the narrow price tiers on all the options, they need to be spread further apart to make them distinct, and upwards. The furry art market definitely supports higher prices . The demand is there , and many people are paying artists good money with lower skill levels.

A lot of the smaller things you have are priced well to move quickly, and they are nice to break up the long stretches while working on bigger illustrations so you don't get fatigued. Illustrations definitely need to go up in pricing though. I know you must have put in way more time than the price you charged me on the Warrior's Way commission and I feel bad. The background is insane!

Also to save yourself from dealing with more questions, I would put ref sheet options into your tab so people can build their own. Such as "$75 base price for two full poses. +$20 each additional pose. +$15 each headshot, +$5 hand/feet/eyes shots, +$10 for complex patterns, wings, armor, weapons etc. 10% off any ref sheet over $125". That way people can determine how much they want to spend by building what they want, and giving a small discount if they hit a certain price might encourage bigger ref sheets. If there are questions you get often, perhaps find a way to incorporate the answer in the commissions tab because not having to keep track of another note or email is time saved. Notes and emails can eat up a lot of time, time that is off the clock!

Good luck :)

I try to keep track, but sometimes I do much more than I originally planned, haha. ^^" Like you said 'just there and there... and there!' and never-ending something to do before finishing. xD Nah, in my case it happens always before I call an artwork finished. When I finally call it finished, I have the strength to withstand any changes or edits. Til then, there were times where it was more than 2 hours... Noting, it wasn't because it was paid for, it was for my own satisfaction with the artwork. x.x Actually it was the same with Warrior's Way, I enjoyed painting it so much that I could hardly stop... But it was worth it, haha. The illustration I had in mind, started in mind with more simpler background, like few mountains in the distance, and then it grew and grew... The concept has changed. Syng is a sneaky ninja, so don't feel bad! >:D

I'm actually changing my price guide at the moment, then I had the idea to ask here, just out of my curiosity.

Yeah, I like those small artworks like chibis or icons, as they are cheaper and faster to finish where illustrations take much more time. I count there showing wips for approval, potential changes, etc. - it also takes time, where I do chibis, icons or small character poses without showing any wips for approval or change.
I'm actually changing my price guide a bit so I was just thinking of placing a price there under the particular artworks as an example. What do you think would be better - for example for an illustration option write just 100-150$+ (+ saying is still can cost more, but the price inbetween is an average which can vary on request) or better write 100$+ with individual price examples?

As for the reference sheets - it's very tricky because each character is different also a client may want each pose to be more or less detailed. As for the discount for bigger sheets, if I someone wants a huge ref sheet with 4-5 poses and multiple portraits and close-ups of course I won't charge for each of them, then I'll merge everything to fit for a reasonable price. For refernce sheets I always discuss details in private.

I understand getting carried away or inspired too! Just want you to keep in mind if it happens all the time, you'll end up averaging a lower hourly wage, if it is your goal to keep a stable income. You have to ask yourself if the calculated hourly wage you're getting from doing art right now is something you are happy with, and you have to honestly keep track of the hours you put into it even if "going over time" brings personal satisfaction and joy, and factor that all into your hourly. I understand being happy with doing art, but if you're doing it for a living, you should be making a good living too because art is a particular specialized skillset that you cannot just earn from 6 weeks of job training. I love my job; I would not work there tomorrow if my pay was cut significantly, even though I love most everything about my job.

I have not asked if you want to do art full time as a living or to do it as extra income as a secondary job. I think depending on what you want to set as a goal will affect how you price things out and allocate your time. Income would be a more serious issue if you want to do art full time because you have monthly expenditures that have to be covered, like food, rent, and bills. You would need to make enough to easily cover these expenses, with plenty of extra in case you run into a slow month, or prepare for disasters like a broken computer.

If it's extra money on the side, you do not have to be so stringent since you have guaranteed income from a primary job that covers your expenses. But if you want to do art full time, you're essentially running a business, and the primary goal of running any business is to generate revenue with a good product or service and efficiency. Enjoyment is a bonus and comes second in running a business, or you will find many ways to make excuses and your revenue suffers as a result. When your revenue suffers, you become "the starving artist" Passion is great, but passion doesn't pay bills.

The wonderful thing about freelancing is you can try different approaches, and see what works best for you. If you aren't doing art full time yet and this is a secondary income, NOW is the chance to experiment and polish your business model. Now is the time to make mistakes and experiment, because they will hurt less than if you were doing art as your only source of income. As long as you are still getting a steady supply of customers, then your prices are fine, even with a price hike. Like you mentioned elsewhere, there are artists that charge $30+ an hour and still have a lot of customers. In many cases, it's less the quality of the art and the style and feel of the art that draws certain people because art is many things to many people. There are just as many popular photoreal artists as there are cel-shaded and more cartoon-style or painterly. There are lots of people out there willing to pay for all kinds of art.

Also, self promote. There is no shame in promoting yourself in any possible way to get your name out. Sign up for DA, Tumblr, and whatever other way you can think of. Getting your name out there is important and a part of getting clientele. Ask other artists for their opinion and experiences because, at least with artists I have worked with, they are very open folks willing to share their tips and experiences because they like to see people succeed :) even if other artists are their competition, haha! It's hard to ask customers because customers will be more biased and don't have experience from the other side of things, and other artists deal with customers, so they will have experiences relevant to your own situation. There is no harm in asking other artists for their experience. The worst thing is they say "no" and that's the end of it.

On the commissions listing:

I would simplify. The less people have to scroll, the catchier it is. We live in the age of short attention spans. People will fast forward a youtube video by 15 seconds on a 30 second video because it's "too long to wait". For some reason the pricing guide on your site leaves large blank white spaces on either side and on the bottom of my browser, so everything takes place in a small window in the middle, so it's an inefficient use of the real estate on my monitor. It might not be a big deal to someone running a smaller resolution monitor but I feel the window should span the full width of whatever native resolution is. I have to scroll 6.5 windows to view everything. I don't know if it can be made to resize based on the person's resolution of the browser (I do not know the first thing about html). I have tried it in IE, FF, and Chrome.

I would suggest changing the wording of some categories to make them more consistent. "Full rendered illustration" change to Complex Illustration. I would change "character render" to "Character Illustration". This way it creates continuity with using the word "Illustration" three times, and differentiating them as complex, simple, and character. These three categories are the first three listed, and the most important for catching the attention of prospective clients and showcasing your greatest and largest works. Also I still feel the prices are too close together. Going from character to simple, or simple to full is only about a $20 upgrade for a large difference. I still believe there should be a wider gap there. I know these are starting points and can go up, but the price gaps still seem very numerically close. Of course, it might also inspire people to upgrade if they figure "it's only $20 more". The argument can be made either way.

The descriptions should set them apart even more, because the background description for character render and simple are "simpler background" and "very simple" background which sound too similar. I would reword the complex illustration as "large complex immersive background", then simple illustration as "character focused with simple immersive background" and redo character render as "basic gradient/texture background". That way you get the point across of the highest tier having a complex large background in which the character lives in, the simple illustration still having a background that the character is part of, but character-focused and more tightly cropped, and the character render as having a very basic background that's only there to prevent the glare of a white background, but does not immerse the character into the scenery.

For character portrait, I'd just include the basic background to simplify it...either a texture or gradient or something similar. I don't know if I'd offer anything with actual scenery as I feel fireflies1500px.png looks more like a simple illustration than a character portrait. You might want to list an actual cost for +1 characters in the art too, since that has two people and might conflict with what people feel the money will get them since it's listed as an example.

I'd combine head and icons into a single category and say "Head/Eye Icons" and list it as $10 eyes, $15 head, +$5 for animated blinking. I feel they are similar enough that you shouldn't have to make them two distinct categories and the short description will allow people to realize the pricing difference.

I'd combine character mood pose with character sets too, and simply say $30 each mood pose, 3 for $85 (5% discount), or 5 for $135 (10% discount) because it is essentially the same thing, just multiplied by number of poses wanted. This cleans up your price guide a bit more.

I would not write "$100-150+" as that gives a fixed price range, yet says it can go beyond that. You can say "$100-150 typical" as an alternative. Or $100+ "depending on complexity" works fine.

Also one thing to consider is while people like examples, too many choices are also confusing and slows down the process. It's like a restaurant menu where you can create all sorts of combos at various prices and you end up bothering the waiter with 135097 questions. In this case, you're the waiter and every minute you spend on notes and emails is one less minute spent earning a living. That can eat up a lot of your time. For example, say you spend an average of 45 minutes a day checking and replying to notes and emails. Reading and replying to emails is part of the job. That's about 4hrs a week you are doing work and not getting paid, or 200 hours a year. At $20/hr, that's $4,000 in lost income. If you can reduce some of the basic questions you get all the time by including it on your price guide or a FAQ or similar, you save time, and time is money. It'll be more time you can spend generating income, or more leisure time for yourself. (of course, some people don't bother reading and just email you anyhow, but it can't be helped).

You can look up some of the more popular/known artists and see how they list their prices. Chances are they have refined their price/option listing method over time to minimize basic questions being sent by notes/email. I don't really have any practical experience to offer other than "think like a customer" and try to roleplay. Look at every day life and how businesses set up their menus, like restaurants or any type of business with options and tiers of services or products. As I am not a freelancer, I have no actual credible opinions here, so keep that in mind :) Marketing is important though and how easy it is to digest information quickly, from a customer standpoint.

It'll be best when I'll answer you via note. ;)
Thank you so much for such great and detailed answers.

Want a honest opinion, or asking just so? :B

Pick one yourself ^^

I'm gonna go with honest critique from friend. Hope it helps

I'd say most of your prices are fair for now, as paying for what you get. Not all of them, but mostly. They fail horribly as whole picture though. Some of them are dreadfully unbalanced. I will get to that later.
First things first - ask yourself if posting question like this to public is really clever thing to do. People here love art and would pay almost every amount for it. While it varies from person to person, such input will mostly generate fake data. People like your art, people want your art, people are broke, people can't pay. It's absolutely lovely to hear them being positive and supportive about prices - their opinion is mostly irrelevant to information you are seeking now. I am of course a bit generalizing now, because you can't know who may be your customer in future. And of course every comment may have bits of useful information, but looking at your journal comments now - most people say prices are fine or even a bit too low, yet you still have to ask about them. Let's keep calling it curiosity at your end
What you could do however is ask your actual and past customers for opinions, simple rating. If they were satisfied with outcome, if they are satisfied with price paid upfront now - seeing final effect. Ask for this stuff, especially to people who pay you. Some of them may just simply smile and be happy,some of them can provide you really valuable feedback.

Now to prices themselves. You have a lot of options to pick from, that's alright. I can say right off the bat though that you don't look at whole picture. They absolutely lack balance.
Look at your "SKETCHY INKED ARTWORK". It's "Clean lined and shaded artwork." and you start charging from 25$ for it. Now I scroll a little bit up and I see "CHARACTER POSE" for 30$. It's fully colored, fully rendered shot of character. And it even provides discount for 3rd one. Now tell me... if you have fully colored character piece offer for 30$, why would your potential customer go for sketchy, uncolored piece in almost same price? Of course there are people who fancy such style over colored one - i'd treat them as exception in such case. It's simply not profitable for you to have those two on same pricelist with prices you gave them.
Another one.
Look again there, "CHARACTER PORTRAIT - 50$+ A portrait, bust or partial of a chosen character". aaand right above it "CHARACTER RENDER - 65$+ Fully rendered character art". So once again for very small amount of money you are offering HUGE upgrade from portrait to fullbody detailed piece. 15 dollars is almost nothing in such case. I won't believe that fullbody piece takes you almost same amount of time and effort as portrait. Charge for it properly. Once again, if someone won't look precisely for portrait then it simply doesn't look like a tempting offer. But let's go further, scroll down and what? "CONBADGE - 35$+" which is essentially "CHARACTER PORTRAIT" with name tag for 15 usd less than stand-alone portrait. Seeing my point?

Let's get back to "CHARACTER RENDER - 65$+", shall we? Now scroll down again. "CHARACTER REFERENCE SHEET - 75$+". That is 10 dollars of difference in price. Looking at content difference... I just want to say you do big part of reference sheet for free. Then I scroll a tiny bit down and see "CHARACTER STUDY SHEET 125$+". It's absolutely useless entry on your list, because as you said - prices listed are only starting prices and every artwork may be expanded up to wishes. So basically you just list same thing twice, but you just don't have complex reference for example picture. Someone who wants a big reference sheet can use either option and pricing would probably still be same. Save your customers some scrolling ;) Same thing with illustrations. You could just merge it into one option with single sentence of explanation.
Back to "CHARACTER RENDER - 65$+", scroll down "DESIGN - 50$+". I see design is a little bit more simple in technique, coloring and background from character render, but still you spend time on creating something custom and unique, probably with design options and revisions... and you charge for it less? I know it is super fun to create new design for someone, but that shouldn't be a factor in pricing. You put more labor [no matter how fun it is!] into piece, more thought, more designwork. While those two are a bit more divided than previous examples, it's still unbalanced.

And last one, not exactly related, but still connected to art and commissions. You say you'd like to do commissions for living, build solid business on your own with happy customer base. [I take this journal as part of the process! ;)] Yet... you decide to do your work for free, by doing raffles. You either do art for living or you do it for free. Sure, raffles are cool once in a while, but it won't help you if you will make them with each round number on your page. And even so, you just gather audience around yourself that would rather wait for you to do raffle than commission you. And saying that you do raffles with simple rewards is not an argument for me, sorry! You have one more entry on your list to do, while we all know our time is really valuable and you get nothing of it. Raffles are empty exposure, lots of people buzzes around them when they are active. To put it simply, giving away things for free [on more regular basis] - things that you want do for living is not best business strategy ^^

There is probably more to improve [there always is!], but I am not gonna butt in ;)

I love you for writing this!! ^_^

Thanks :D Just trying to help!

Thank you very much for your opinion, Isvoc. I greatly appreciate it. I'm very grateful for your reply, so detailed and much info. THANK YOU.

I asked here in a journal because I was curious - it doesn't mean if people would say here that my prices are too high so I'd make them lower... The opinions here don't influence my decisions - the make me thinking more or less on things, and then I can eventually come to a conclusion to change something, or not at all.

Also, now to answer your question about the prices. Character portrait is actually fully rendered hi-res artwork, while Conbadge is cheaper and you could say it could count as a character portrait... Conbadge is actually a small artwork, low-res - which comes only in 3x4" and character portrait comes in big resolution 2000px or more, often even 3000px+. So, conbadge is rather fast and small, not including all the rendering, polishing and details.
As for those character poses for 30$ each, these are also small low-res artworks. They come 700px each while character artwork is 2500px and more, with details and polishing.
I agree a bit with your note about character poses and sketches. Well, the difference is that sketch comes with size about twice as big as the character render. Also, character sketch can be black-white or colored, just without any rendering or polishing. I was thinking about changing those prices as well.
As for the design and character render... Please, note that all the prices are starting prices (well, at least those for bigger projects - icons and such don't count). If something is complicated I'll charge more. Also, I always say that if a client wants any extra details and rendering, it'll cost a little bit more.
And also, as for the artwork types where I don't have any examples or it is just basically an idea with already set price - I was thinking about removing it, at least til I have an example of it.

Thank you about that note about character design... I was charging less because such design is thought to be rough, a concept design only, no serious details or polishing or what-so-ever. I was thinking about raising the price, but then the design and concept work would be also more polished. For now I was thinking that character render/artwork is more polished where design lacks those things... but on the other side, it's a good idea because like you said, it's creating and designing something. I'll definitely consider it.

Hm... You put a bit different perspective to this raffle-thing to be honest. Yes, my plan is to do art for living, like you and I'm trying to get nearer to this goal I wasn't thinking about it from this perspective to be honest. I respect your opinion very much and I have to agree with it. I wasn't thinking about doing raffles often, but after reading your comment it made me thinking if I even want to do another raffle since as you said, it's working for free.

Thank you very much for your comment. I was just asking it mostly because of my curiosity and also because I'm slowly updating and changing my price guide to make it more 'clear' and then I thought if I'm already doing it, I could ask for opinions or suggestions in case I missed something. To be honest I wasn't expecting anything like your comment but I'm very grateful because your reply was very helpful and valuable for me.
(damn, now I'm just hoping I didn't forget to write something or I didn't miss anything...)

I've been sitting on this reply so long now, mostly because I have no idea what to say :V I see your new price list and it looks better, definitely less confusing and much more organized... though I gotta admit I don't have time to go in-depth yet.

Keep going! ;]

I take it you don't quite care which one then, if you won't even pick. If this was my ass on the line instead of yours, I'd know which to choose. And I'd be every 5 minutes here to reply to people that post some valuable comments.

Well, of course I'm seeking for honest opinions. I also have no problem if someone wants just to talk, though.
I seek for both, but I can't pick for someone so it's more up to you. I appreciate all replies.
Also, I reply whenever I can. Now, I'm at my computer and am replying - but I think you know that everyone has a life and sometimes it takes you shorter or longer amount of time to reply.

You know I wasn't asking about if you feel like just to talk. I asked because you often do contradicting things like asking for advice, and then being indifferent to it and ignoring it in the end. In most cases you just look like you don't care, so I felt it's necessary to ask if you want honest opinion or not. And then you replied that I should pick... if not for Isvoc having more positive approach, I wouldn't reply at all :P

I'm sorry if it made you feel like it - I didn't mean... I wanted to let you know that I care, I'm sorry if it looked to you that I don't - I do care.
To be honest because of your smiley (:B) I thought your reply also with humor so I replied also like that as well, it wasn't meant as if I wouldn't care... I apologize for that.

I'm trying to put emotions in there because people often told me I look aggressive, so I figured it makes it look less so >_>

I honestly think you might under price your art. When I first commissioned you I was like "This person does great art but because of my cheap budget you might make it more simple. oh well i can live with that". You proved me wrong definitely and blew me away and I thought "Man the art is definitely worth more than I payed."

Thank you very much for your opinion, KyotoWolf, I appreciate it and I'm very happy you liked that ref and I surprised you there. ;) Also I have to disagree, your budget was fine in my opinion.

honestly all of your prices are about 20% cheaper than i would expect compared to other artists of relatively similar quality ;3

Thank you very much for your opinion, DarkWingo.

Fffff... You have high prices, but not overly priced for the work you produce. Honestly, you are one of the artists that if I had the money, i would gladly pay your current prices for a piece from you. Your art is stunning and detailed. Anything less would be an insult to you in my opinion.

Thank you very much for your opinion.
Well, about the prices - sure, I seen some people with lower prices, however many people I watch have higher prices or much higher, even - thank you for your comment, I appreciate it. ^^

Prices are pitch perfect, ma dear. Especially for the works you do. FANTASTIC!

Thank you very much for your opinion.

Your prices are disgustingly low, dear. $50 for a ref? You are slapping yourself in the face. Anyone who says your prices are high has obviously not been to a gallery to see what good art REALLY costs. I would charge double for your detailed illustrations. You get what you pay for. If spoiled furries don't like your price, they can move on. Artists have to eat, too, and we are not obligated to serve the needs of stingy bastards. *grumpy dragon rabbit*

Thank you very much for your opinion, I appreciate it.
Well, I had 50$ for ref at first, but it varied much - 50$ was just for simplest, the more details and poses the higher the price was. I raised it 75$ though, but the system is the same. I'm just updating slowly my price guide to have it more clear, so I was just curious about people's opinions. ;)
Haha, and those are some wise words, haha. Thank you.

sketches and baqdges are priced fine, the rest is a bit cheap. refs, simple illus, and specially the fully rendered illustratiosn which should be more like 180-200$ in price.

(this just means it will be more expensive for me, but then again even if this fandom can't afford pro prices there should be at least some compensation for skills and time involved.)

Thank you very much for your opinion, Anbessa.
I'm working on updating the pricelist, so I was just curious. ;)
Thank you, I'm happy you like my art enough to think I could charge even more.

your prices are fine the way there are now, at least to me they are

but the point of your question depends on what you do art for,

is it for pure enjoyment?

Or

is it to pay the bills?

if its the latter then feel free to up it we'll all understand, but if its the former then you gotta ask yourself, why would you?

Thank you very much for your opinion, Shadow Wolf.

I mean it more as serious business, make a living with art and pay the bills.