I'm sorry to hear that you've been going through a rough time irl.

I would commission you more often, but I don't want to build up too long a waiting list. Waiting for things I'm already owed to be finished first before getting more.

Happy to hear that, and totally understandable~ Thanks for always supporting me, and sorry again about the wait.

I think getting some numbers for yourself (you don't have to share them) might work to help figure out where prices might be too low. If you're sort of keeping track of the time it takes to finish different types and sizes of commissions, that might help you put a "price per hour" for your current work and give you an idea of whether some things are falling short, and how much you might want to bump prices up in general.

For me, my 'extra character' prices are only as low as half of the original price (eg. shaded is $80 for one character, and add +$40 for an extra) and even that can start to feel a bit extreme when it's a larger piece with a lot of extra character add-ons. Mathematically speaking, the more characters you add, the average cost per character drops closer and closer to the add-on price. In the example of a soft paint commission, that means you could be paid nearly as little as $20 for all the work you put into sketching and fully painting each character. And I would honestly say, the work you do on those soft paint commissions is worth at least $80 to start!

If I were doing art full-time for a living, I would want to adjust my add-on character prices to be closer to the original price. The amount of work I have to add to a piece to put another character in it is almost as much as the first character, in most cases. Sometimes, the added complexity of planning their interactions makes it more than twice as complicated overall! So getting paid half as much for each extra character means that bigger pieces end up inflating the time it takes to complete them much more than the price. But there's a fine balance to be found in trying to make it fair for the customers, too. A solid 20-40% discount over the base price for extra characters is probably where I would land, personally.

It's hard to judge just by looking, how much time and work goes into each commission type. Perhaps adding color and shading to sketches is much quicker than it appears. But sometimes I think your sketches, sketch pages and sketch comics look so good and fleshed-out that the bump in quality to soft paint might not get as much attention since they already look so pretty in sketch form! I'm noticing the commission queue is mostly sketch pages (I know I'm guilty there!) so I wonder if that's one that is too good of a value, perhaps?

Legitimately, I think you could bump up prices across the board, and especially a lot for the extra character prices. I certainly wouldn't shy away from commissioning you after that!



I tend to be a bit of a lurker since I watch so many people, but I always appreciate seeing your art here and I think you're doing great work! I do feel like things have been quiet around this site, at least somewhat lately. Do you post anywhere else, or is all your traffic here? I feel like there's huge potential with Twitter because it's so much better as a platform for sharing and discovering art (even if it sucks as an actual art gallery and has no organization to it) and a lot of my own growth lately seems to stem from my activity on there.

Twitter or not, I would always advocate for being on more than one place, and making sure whatever pages you live on link back and forth so people can always find you where they're most comfortable! I know it's more work posting on more sites, generally, but even aside from the cross-promotion you get from people who only use one site over another, it helps not having to worry that all your livelihood is in one spot, tied to one account~

I've been advocating against Twitter for artists. Unfortunately all social media is a bit hostile but Twitter has had a real bad streak, even specifically within the furry community. It seems that some users of the platform actively seek drama to latch onto, as if demented versions of gossiping suburban housewives with nothing better to do with their days.

I do agree though that branching out to other platforms might be the best option though. The problem therein becomes picking good primary/secondary platforms. Some are a little toxic, some are a bit unsavory, or some are just outright dead.

Necessary evils I suppose, but even then it's not well worth it at times.

I'm replying in reverse order, forgive my scatterbrainity.
I understand a lot of the lurking aspect (hell my FA is purely for lurking and fave'ing) but I feel like lurking is justified so long as you show appreciation. Stuff like dropping a fave, even without commenting. Sometimes even the most minor things mean a lot to people, ya know?

I have been trying to convince him to increase prices for awhile now. With how many hours a day he puts in, it's well worth the end result. I'm one man alone, so definitely, definitely keep reiterating it. I've known plenty of artists who take the same amount of time per piece who charge at least double.

When it comes to Nim's mystical color method it's....involved. Very involved. He tried teaching me his dark arts and I'd say I retained 70-90% of it. Color for Nim is an art in its own right, so there's no easy way to judge what is and isn't a simple addition unless the words come from the horse's, or in this case the aardwolf's, mouth.

I warned him those sketch pages were tasty. Not to discourage you guys (y'all are awesome watchers btw, I enjoy reading the occasional comment when I see them) but I saw that the sketch pages were gonna be the big ticket in this last round. It's natural pick though, get the best deal. I'm certainly guilty of it, but I always try to advise where I can on matters of prices and availability.


Pricing by character becomes difficult but I've seen a few good systems, and the best value-per-piece artists that I usually go to will often charge +50% per extra character. That system relies on a good idea of your price per hour, and it can be difficult to apply to 'bulk' characters (like a large group piece.) I've seen a few artists who will do like 50% until 4 or 5 characters, at which point everyone else is closer to 25% or less, or sometimes more than the original add-on fee. I don't fault artists from upcharging a whole ton over a certain point, I know large projects can be real bad timesinks, especially if characters are complex, or picture details are extreme (detailed backgrounds, etc).

Anyways, thanks for the comment! While Nim replies a ton, I tend to normally be pretty hands-off (it is his business after all!) But I still see the comments all the same, and am so happy he has such a wonderful community!

My experience with Twitter so far is that it's been nice for just discovering people and getting discovered. I don't interact much (and specifically prevent myself from interacting) in the way it's meant to work - quickly commenting my dumb thoughts and such throughout the day, desperately trying to find something funny to say so it can go viral or whatever. It seems like, by far, what gets people canceled there is getting cornered into saying something they can't possibly explain adequately in the space provided, or they make some joke or statement out of context that can be interpreted badly and they get dogpiled on. And usually, if you're writing a comment that might be taken that way, you sort of know you're playing with fire.

To me, it's just a place for art, and spreading the love. So far, no drama. That's also considering that I'm fairly open about my interests in multiple fetishes which I have seen people go out of their way to actively crusade against. I'd say you two are a lot more 'clean' in that respect, which means there's that much less that a Twitter mob could potentially rally around.

Of course, there are other places! Twitter can be a garbage-fire often enough, but I do think the perception of it as this hostile Game of Thrones of a website with constant backstabbing and drama largely comes from people who walk a certain tightrope you don't have to use~

Thank you! This has given me a lot to think about. I'm probably going to have to do an emergency round of commissions soon, which I guess is as good a time as ever to try out more fitting pricing. I've been seriously considering a second gallery, but I'm really not sure of where yet, and I'm just really worried about overwhelming myself. You've been a great help lately and I really appreciate all the commissions, so thanks again for supporting me, especially now~