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About "Bigger"
6 years ago
I said all this on Twitter last night in a slight meltdown and I think it needs to be said here, but before I begin this thread, this isn't a callout post to any of my current or previous commissioners. This isn't directed at anyone, but I need to make my feelings heard. Next time I open commissions, I'm adding Hyper to the things I will not draw.
People who know me already know I'm not a huge fan of hyper, nothing against those who like it, it just isn't really my thing. But all of my current muscle commissions are hyper and I'm being pushed to draw at sizes I'm not entirely comfortable or confident drawing. Frankly I'm fine if someone wants a huge size and I give it my all, and they tell me it's fine, but the trend of 'I need to be THE BIGGEST' around and dreading hearing "make him BIGGER' from every note has been weighing down on me. I'm constantly being asked to draw so much BIGGER it's taking time from other commissioners. Thing is I don't mind drawing big guys and I don't even mind drawing gigantic dicks. But being pushed and feeling like I'm floundering with no idea what I'm doing for a community I can't put my head into to even THINK how it's not good enough is too much. I'm not into hyper, it doesn't turn me on, so I literally cannot get into the headspace to do better, but that's what's being asked of me and it's been giving me a crisis for months now. I've been feeling more and more that I'm not doing a good enough job because I'm either not satisfying a commissioner or not satisfying myself and I just can't do it anymore.
I'm not saying this to guilt any of the current commissioners, this has been a long time coming, but I need to throw in the towel and admit if I want to keep drawing freelance I can't do this, or the weight of all that BIGGER is going to bring me down. I told current commissioners I'd do their pictures and I'm not going to rescind on any pictures I already agreed on. However going forward, I'm not going to draw any more hyper except under my own terms.
To be honest it scares me! Because I know bara and hyper kind of go hand in hand, and I'm afraid of how much business I'm loosing, especially with me moving out on my own soon and trying to make this my career. But I need to trust things will turn out well and hope people will respect my limits. If not, I wish you luck finding business elsewhere.
People who know me already know I'm not a huge fan of hyper, nothing against those who like it, it just isn't really my thing. But all of my current muscle commissions are hyper and I'm being pushed to draw at sizes I'm not entirely comfortable or confident drawing. Frankly I'm fine if someone wants a huge size and I give it my all, and they tell me it's fine, but the trend of 'I need to be THE BIGGEST' around and dreading hearing "make him BIGGER' from every note has been weighing down on me. I'm constantly being asked to draw so much BIGGER it's taking time from other commissioners. Thing is I don't mind drawing big guys and I don't even mind drawing gigantic dicks. But being pushed and feeling like I'm floundering with no idea what I'm doing for a community I can't put my head into to even THINK how it's not good enough is too much. I'm not into hyper, it doesn't turn me on, so I literally cannot get into the headspace to do better, but that's what's being asked of me and it's been giving me a crisis for months now. I've been feeling more and more that I'm not doing a good enough job because I'm either not satisfying a commissioner or not satisfying myself and I just can't do it anymore.
I'm not saying this to guilt any of the current commissioners, this has been a long time coming, but I need to throw in the towel and admit if I want to keep drawing freelance I can't do this, or the weight of all that BIGGER is going to bring me down. I told current commissioners I'd do their pictures and I'm not going to rescind on any pictures I already agreed on. However going forward, I'm not going to draw any more hyper except under my own terms.
To be honest it scares me! Because I know bara and hyper kind of go hand in hand, and I'm afraid of how much business I'm loosing, especially with me moving out on my own soon and trying to make this my career. But I need to trust things will turn out well and hope people will respect my limits. If not, I wish you luck finding business elsewhere.
You do good stuff Silver, and like hdalby suggested I think a size chart would help in showing the sizes you are comfortable drawing.
Now, I ask for a specific size reference before I start. It doesn't have to be detailed. It can be "as big as a small house" or they can link me a drawing that is roughly the size they want, but having them nail down a specific size really helps clients get to the size they truly want. I find that people actually do want a specific size, as "as big as possible" is really subjective and their idea of it is probably very different from someone else's.
In addition, when I do get the "bigger" note, I ask "How much bigger, exactly?" This keeps them from going "bigger" in a prolonged back in forth until it is the desired size. Now they can go "Twice as large" and I can make the change in a single pass instead of multiple.
Asking clients to be specific has saved me so much time and frustration over the years. As everyone else has said. having a simple size chart will help a lot, but having clients be specific would pretty much eliminate the "bigger" edit note.
Also, in regards to you losing clients over not wanting to do hyper -- I wouldn't worry too much about that. You art is good, and even with you setting limitations I think you'll have people plenty willing to get work from you. There are a lot of people who like large characters but aren't into hyper dicks. Draw what you like and you'll attract an audience that is on your same wavelength! There are plenty of potential clients out there for you.
Your design work and use of color is one of the best parts of what you do anyway. I can tell you're a fashion designer at heart.