Let's just get this out of the way first.

As you might have noticed in my gallery, I've been buying a fair bit of art lately. You may be wondering to yourself "How do I get a piece of this action?" Good question.

The first step on your journey is very simple: Be really good at what you do. This doesn't mean you have to be the reincarnation of Rembrandt or something. Everyone has their own style, their own mediums, their own 'thing'. You just need to be good at whatever that thing is. Also that thing needs to actually be something I care about, so there's that too.

Step two is for me to somehow discover the fact that you exist. This will usually come about naturally from a combination of step one above, along with being prolific. These days I mostly fill my watch list by creeping on people who watch me or fav my submissions; I'll either see if they themselves are an artist I'm interested in watching, or if their favs gallery has some interesting artists in it.

Step three, once I'm watching you, is to make sure I actually know you're open for commissions. If you're always open, post a journal once or twice a month advertising that you're accepting commissions or I'll probably forget you exist.

Speaking of reminding me you exist, make sure to regularly post your sketches and finished pieces to your gallery/scraps; both your commission works and your personal art. I really try to match my commissions to artists who I think will enjoy doing the piece and would have an appropriate style for it, and I won't be able to tell what you like if I never see you posting anything. Also, to those ends, please try to guide the commission towards something you'd enjoy doing once we actually get to the point of me buying your art. I try to match things up as best I can, but communication is a two-way process.


"But Nico!" you say, "I just had a brilliant stroke of inspiration and I absolutely must have you commission me RIGHT NOW!"

First, let me start off by saying that this is an OK feeling to have. As someone who is not an artist, having what little I can create (my characters, their interactions, and the world they live in) inspire you is hugely flattering.

However, this does put you in a bit of a vulnerable position. You'd be putting your own confidence in your work on the line by approaching me directly, and asking me to pay my own good money for you to just do something you want to do anyways. There will be a voice in your head telling you to suck yourself back into your snail shell and quit having such delusional flights of whimsy.

Ignore that voice. Fortune favours the bold. _{(bold text for extra boldness)}

So how do you approach me? Well, you send a note obviously. But beyond that, you should have a fairly solid idea in mind to sell me on, and probably some sort of sketchy outline of what you have in mind. Try to think of it as just giving me first dibs on a YCH commission or something.

So what's my criteria for saying yes? The idea should fit within my head-canon or expand it in some direction I like. This is less difficult to do than it sounds. Also your skill and style need to be a good match for both the idea itself and my personal taste (which is pretty broad, but has some limits. I don't necessarily dislike things that fall outside those bounds, they're just not my thing). If those two things are both satisfied, there's a good chance I want your art.

But there's still criteria for saying no. The most obvious is if I think you're going to be a pain to work with. I want my commissions to be a source of joy and happiness on both sides of the table, both during the process and after the work is complete. If I see you being disrespectful to people, if I see you being a drama magnet, if I see you being obnoxious and immature, then there's a good chance that I'm just going to let you grow out of that before I do business with you.

Secondly, While there's never a point in the month where I'm actually low on cash, I do try to keep some sane limit on how much money I spend on art and furry-related stuff. If I've been buying art like a madman in the past few weeks, there's a chance I might be a bit more hesitant to buy more.

If I see you have a really long queue (with 'long' being relative to your personal completion rate), then regardless of whether you want to do my piece first or last, I'm probably going to be Mr Responsible Adult™ and not help you dig that hole any deeper.

Finally, I have a little personal guideline that I only ever have one commission outstanding for a given artist. If you're already doing a commission for me, feel free to pitch me ideas any time you like, but (with rare exception) you should only expect me to actually start the buying process once you've delivered the final results from the outstanding commission. On that note, pitching me on a new piece when you deliver the finished art is a pretty good idea in general, just keep in mind that I try to spread the love so I might throttle things back if you try to sell me on 3-4 commissions in a row in short succession (though thank you for being reliable and quick with your work all the same!).


So if you've read all that and still want to create some art with a sexy sea turtle, a rock and roll klipspringer, or a horrifying purple abomination: come at me bro!