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Commissioning Process?
7 years ago
I've been thinking about the way in which I take on new commissions. I've pretty much just taken them on the down low while I've been learning, someone messages and If I'm available I'll take it on, if not I leave the option to be thrown on a waiting list. I see this has the potential to grow ever longer with increasing wait times and older entries becoming unreliable as to whether they turn into work.
A common practice I see is having a limited number of slots that open at a given time, this deals with the unwieldy list problem at the sacrifice of excluding those who are busy/sleeping at the time of opening if slots fill up relatively fast (may or may not be a problem since I haven't done this method myself). I was thinking I could also have a mailing list to notify about openings which could help to some extent. There's also the matter of what types of slots, I could treat them all equal or split them up into types of work, paintings, sketches, that kind of stuff. That does complicate it a bit more, but there is a significant different between 3 paintings and 3 sketches. I guess that'd be something I could experiment with and also tailor to my mood if I wanted.
With that said has anyone found a process they liked or found convenient? I guess from both a customer perspective and an artist.
A common practice I see is having a limited number of slots that open at a given time, this deals with the unwieldy list problem at the sacrifice of excluding those who are busy/sleeping at the time of opening if slots fill up relatively fast (may or may not be a problem since I haven't done this method myself). I was thinking I could also have a mailing list to notify about openings which could help to some extent. There's also the matter of what types of slots, I could treat them all equal or split them up into types of work, paintings, sketches, that kind of stuff. That does complicate it a bit more, but there is a significant different between 3 paintings and 3 sketches. I guess that'd be something I could experiment with and also tailor to my mood if I wanted.
With that said has anyone found a process they liked or found convenient? I guess from both a customer perspective and an artist.
waiting lists can sometimes be hit or miss. Also you probably might want to limit the number of slots someone can buy out in one sitting, if just so others can have a chance. lol
What time do you need to create your art unit: from the first line drawn until it is done to be sent? This is of course dependant on the quality you offer and were commissioned, additional characters, simple or complex poses...
What time do you have available? So do or do you not have a day job? The average work day spans 8 hours, this plus breaks and lunch.
So the workload you can take is your time you have available divided by the time you need per unit, per commission slot.
Of course this gives some pressure, but when opening a shop even if the what you sell is your passion. If your passion is cooking and you open a restaurant, then you still will face the pressure to A) get your customers fed and B) get them the quality they pay for.
I think one system that works really well is to do a commission opening that runs for about a day or two where people can say they are interested, give them a number then do a random number generator to select a given number of people the commission slots. Its so far the most fair out of all the options I've come across since it boils it down to luck.