I have been full of phail lately...I still intend to get a third commission to compliment the last two I got...thankfully I went from unemployed to having money flowing in, so as soon as that happens I'm totally good on getting that third commission.

Not really. It took a lot longer to figure out the wording, and then longer still to get feedback on it and incorporate the changes. But the image itself was easy.

Good luck, I hope the ad works out well for you!

Is that Arloest the panda from David Hopkin's webcomic Jack?

Yes.

Awesome! I love her! But, boy, do I hate her backstory :(

Jeeezzzz, a lung and a kidney. Really holding yourself to a higher standard there, eh?

Not quite sure what you mean by that. If you're refering to pricing-- I can't bang this stuff out in an hour, and it doesn't make sense to charge $10 for something that might take me 5 hours to do. There's tons cheaper artists out there, but, as they say, you get what you pay for, either in quality or in wait time. If you're refering to subject matter-- Getting arrested or on some government watch list for drawing underage pron is not on my 'things to do' list, and there's some fetishes I find kind of gross and don't want to draw. But once again, there's plenty of other people who will happily do them, so it's not like I'm denying people what they want.

It was the price point.

Still, if it took you five hours to make a "one character simple with no background", $20 per hour sounds outrageous.

Of course, you don't charge per hour, so that's irrelevant. I just think that a headshot that costs $50 is overkill. If you still want to charge a premium, $30 is a good charge. Most artists charge anywhere from $10-20 for just an avatar, so charging 400% to 500% more for an avatar is... I don't know how to put it.


And no qualms on the cub pornography stuff. I don't think producing it is an arrest-able offense, and I don't believe the FBI cares, but if it is human or a photograph, they'd be all over that. The price is what I was referring to; every artist has their list of things that they will not create.

Most artists on FA and DA severely undercut themselves as far as standard prices go. Compared to what people make elsewhere, it's pretty much working for peanuts. Art is not easy, and getting custom commissioned art anywhere outside the furry/anime fandoms is very very expensive. Especially when it's an artist's method of making a living. There used to be a chart out there... I saved it, but I lost it. Basically, your average, er, 'real world' artist would easily charge $300 for a single character image, and usually charges by the page or panel, not by content. So a 'headshot' could cost quite a bit, by that standard.

Hobby artists, or beginners who don't know how much their art is worth, are willing to do it for much much much less, which then, by way of competition, makes others on FA who try to make a living on their art, force their prices down. It's a natural flow of events, and i can't say I haven't purchased plenty of cheaper commissions myself, but just saying, $100 actually isn't out of realms of reason.

Upon reflection, the single character one at $100 is not unreasonable, but I still feel that $50 avatars are a pretty penny.

Also, aside from the commenter below me and the one posted by the page owner about wages of artists.
Bear in mind that this guy works mainly in traditional media. Traditional media tends to be more expensive due to cost of materials. It all adds up. Custom works are expensive. People make it look cheap on FA, but in the real world, its much the opposite.

"$20 per hour sounds outrageous."

Hah! XD

As I said, there's tons of people out there willing to do pretty much anything for whatever you want to pay. If you want a high school kid, a student or someone who does it as a hobby, yes you can get it done cheap. If you want a professional artist, you pay accordingly, and $20hr is on the cheap side:


According to PayScale, an entry-level illustrator with little to no experience earns an hourly rate between $10.08 and $20.56. Five to nine years of experience will earn illustrators an increase rate between $15.91 and $36.67 an hour. A highly experienced illustrator with over twenty years of experience can earn up to $82.23 an hour.

Read more: The Average Salary of Illustrators | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_7751233_average-salary-illustrators.html#ixzz28awMx1ao

I graduated college over 20 years ago and have been working since then, so I'm not going to charge what someone in high school is. I do have to be fairly realistic about what i can charge (for furry work) but if somebody wants someone who can draw backgrounds, can ink with something other than a sharpie or a computer, and (God forbid) can draw in perspective, they're not going to get it for ten bucks.

Yeah, there's also plenty of people on FA much better than me, but how often to they do commissions, and what do they charge, and how long does it take?

All of that sounds quite reasonable to me, plus, as I understand it, most of your work is done traditionally, which is a whole different can o' worms, in terms of time investment and supply costs, compared to digital art. Most of the artists on here don't even offer full colour traditional media commissions, and certainly not on this quality level.

In the end, as long your work is selling, it's not overpriced. And if it's not, then either you need to adjust prices, or look around for a different potential customer base.

How much money would it take to get Jack getting surprised buttsechs by Chester!

Considering how broke I am, pretty much anything has it's price at this point. Although for something like that it'd be pretty steep, and I'd have to put a condition on it that it never be posted.

Curious: you send the original??

Yes, if the person wants it. (postage is a little extra)

i am curious, you see, i have an idea, and i can't draw ferals, what would it cost to get two images of multi ferals, with simple backgrounds?

Note me with what you have in mind and I'll give you a quote.

the bird girl is cute the one thats scratching the wall or clothing.

It's a curtain.

Now see...these prices seem reasonable to me. The question is...how do you compete with everybody else that sells themselves short? I'm doing research on commission prices, because I don't know what to set mine at. I want to set my prices at what I think they're worth to me, but the problem is, that I don't think anyone would buy from me at those higher prices, when they can get it cheaper elsewhere, so I may be forced to price myself lower than desired. I work mostly in traditional media as well.

I guess I labor under the delusion that my work is of fairly high quality, and the people who charge $5 aren't as skilled as I am, and the artists who are better than me charge even more than I do, and rarely take commissions. So the people who are willing to pay my prices do so because they can be reasonably certain they won't get something that looks like utter crap, and I have a reputation of getting the work done in a decent amount of time.

Can the commissioner request a more realistic style (such as in these http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9742749/ and http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8700328/) and would it cost extra + how much?

Yes, but those are copied from photos,(except for the animal parts, of course!) so you'd either need to send me a photo, or I'd try to find one that closely matches the description. How much it cost depends on how complex it is, mainly how bad the background is. Without a background, the cost would bet the same as any other picture.

Gosh why are you getting so blasted for your prices..... Good luck with commissions!!!!

Someday I will have enough schoolin to charge as much as you, ... maybe next year * v *

Damn, I got a bargain at Anthrocon!

Oh, hey, I can't remember, is there/will there be a part 3 or more of the Jack Salem comics? And who's the cat he works for? She was a new one on me.