How diverse can an artist's salary be?

arrheaparks 2023-03-30 19:48:11 UTC #1

Beginning with my origin, I am from India. I am confident in my artwork. I speak, read and write English perfectly. Adult.
I wanted to inquire about the salary of an artist as someone from my background. And the requirements for each payment. For eg - are we paid per chapter? Or like per specific number of views?
I have read and heard from few other artists that Indian artists are not paid well and that concerns me if I should be collaborating with international comic platforms.

cherrystark 2023-03-30 19:57:38 UTC #2

It depends on your skill level and how much you want to charge. If you are talented and people like your work, you can ask for a higher pay. Here in the States, people typically pay by the hour so one page could cost several hundred dollars to produce. The details of your salary are really dependent on who you choose to work with.

darthmongoose 2023-03-30 20:35:08 UTC #3

If you have good English skills, and comparable art and writing abilities to other professionals in the field... and don't make it obvious you're in India, you might be able to earn more money. Companies and clients sometimes pay less if they know you're in a country with lower cost of living, like India. Artists here in the UK earn more, because our cost of living is a lot higher. The UK has a big South Asian population (including our current Prime Minister) , so if you apply for jobs with British clients, they probably won't assume you're in India based on your name, and you might be able to earn fairer money.

So... perhaps if anyone asks... say you're in Leicester (a city in the UK famous for its very large South Asian population).

Katzalcoatl 2023-03-30 20:57:44 UTC #4

There were various experiments that remind me of this topic.

Some years ago a world renown violinist went undercover in a train station to play for free. Most people didn't even stop and they just continued their day. That person got around $50 USD from tips. That same person sold out their tickets for $100 USD the next day iirc.

This didn't happen only with an artist. Cristiano Ronaldo (world renown soccer player) also went undercover to play on the streets. No one really stopped to play with him except one little boy. After that he decided to reveal his identity and suddenly everyone tried to take pictures with him and play.

Lesson is you can have the best skills in the world but if you aren't with the right target audience/place you will not be payed according to your skill level. So be sure to listen to advice from @darthmongoose and @cherrystark. And be sure to look for the clients you want to have. As always be reasonable and don't bite more than you can chew otherwise you will be left with nothing.

Kelheor 2023-03-30 21:22:07 UTC #5

Did you consider art commissions though Not comics, just artworks.
It's really hard to find a well-paid work as a comic maker. Webtoons original creator basic salary is 2000$, it's not little money and I assume it may be a lot for India, but their work schedule is also exhausting. And it's also really hard to become an original creator on those platforms.
But yeah, you probably don't want to say to people where you're from and create a price list according to your skills, comparing with better paid artists.

arrheaparks 2023-03-30 21:40:10 UTC #6

Wow. Thank you. Your reply helps a lot. Again thank you for the great advice. I will keep it in mind.

arrheaparks 2023-03-30 21:43:27 UTC #7

Yes. Exactly. Thank you for the advice.

arrheaparks 2023-03-30 21:44:43 UTC #8

I agree with you. I can not just let people take advantage of me because of the country I come from.
Thank you for the reply.

arrheaparks 2023-03-30 21:45:28 UTC #9

Yes. I understand your point. Will remember this advice.

arrheaparks 2023-03-31 11:57:13 UTC #10

Hi.
I just wanted to ask - what if they ask for some identification of sorts to confirm where I live to finalise my pay? In that scenario, I can not lie and then no matter how assertive I am with my point, there is a high chance I will be underpaid.

darthmongoose 2023-03-31 13:21:57 UTC #11

That is a good point to consider...
I've been working as a freelance artist for years, and the only place where your address might plausibly come up is on invoices and more formal contracts. So maybe if it's a bigger job, don't lie about where you're based, just don't mention it upfront (unless it's relevant like they want a comic in an Indian setting, or with an Indian protagonist, which has happened at my day job; we hired a South Asian illustrator because we wanted authenticity on a certain book). Your location will only come up when you sign the contract, meaning that the price will be decided first. They can't offer you a contract and then say "uh wait, you wrote on the contract you're in India, we want to change the contract now".

On smaller jobs, it probably won't come up, because there's rarely a formal contract so much as an informal agreement, and people often don't expect an invoice.

It's good to chat with other illustrators so that you're aware of what people in the US and UK are charging so you don't get underpaid. We appreciate it too, because it stops clients underpaying us, or studios in places with a lower cost of living undercutting our rates. Everyone wins!

RedLenai 2023-03-31 16:21:09 UTC #12

An artist's salary would differ mostly from where they live, what's the required amount to have a proper life where your basic needs are satisfied, can pay for services, rent, and possibily to be able to spend on personal stuff or even be able to start a family.

Personally I charge per chapter when it comes to webcomics, by production, not final distribution and meeting a milestone. Same for commissions, I charge per piece and elements inside it (Extra characters, color, background or several changes)

In my country, Argentina, for example a family of four (2 adults, 2 kids) needs around $700 USD per month in order to not classify as poor. (Of course, if both adults work then each would need to make around $350 USD in order reach that number) Still you can live with less, especially if you don't want to pay the "tax income" that basically doesn't allow you to be mid-class either.
I know in other countries you could charge higher depending on your prestige, needs, popularity, and similar, but well, the reason why the market is so diverse is because it is international.

Personally I don't see what would be the problem between charging like an USA or Europe citizen meanwhile being from India for as long as your work, experience and perfomance justifies the price. The concept of being "underpaid" is something that depends mostly on your quality of life and your needs, for someone else making $400 a month could be being underpaid, meanwhile for me that's having a pretty decent salary if you live alone or share an apartment with a partner/friend and have no children.

You can hide where you're from in an invoice, for example Paypal. When you make the bill for the client (I highly recommend avoiding "Pas as family and friends" or "Pay for goods and services", simply have a business account where you can remove data such as phone number, address and mail.
Your clients don't need any kind of information regarding your location, is up to you if you want to share such personal information to a client. Bust most of time, the only ones who seem to be doing this are scammers, since they only do this to make "proper" fake paypal emails telling you you need to pay a fee or some stuff like that in order to "unlock" payment.

arrheaparks 2023-04-01 04:53:52 UTC #13

Thank you so much again. Your replies have helped a lot since this is a topic not a lot of people are able to talk about freely and hesitate to share information that might help the other person in growing.

arrheaparks 2023-04-01 04:57:25 UTC #14

Agreed with the last point. Definitely need to watch out for scammers. And the advice about Paypal - well, thank you for this one.

Shanny8 2023-04-01 22:33:32 UTC #15

Professional comic artists(Marvel, DC, et...) average a little more than this in the States...yeah, sad. How they make up their lack of revenue from what companies they work? Selling their original art pages, book signings, and commissions(depending on the popularity & skill of the pages, artists can fetch anywhere from $3K and higher for comic pages; example, quite a few of Jim Lee's original X-Men pages have sold for $100,000). Other artists do gigs outside their normal work such as storyboarding for cartoons and movies(artist Steve Skroce got recognition from storyboarding for The Matrix movie and artist Cully Hamner was the artist on the comic book RED, which was turned into a movie- which got the book even more sales and gets him a little more money on royalties).

Now as a starting artist, the main goal is to grow your audience first, before you try to do anything else. If you get the audience, then the rest usually follows suit(provided you're not an asshole or a total dick to your readers).

MAN...I wish that was the minimum here in the states; right now even the WT rate of $2000 doesn't do shit. That would at best, be like maybe 2/3 of the amount to not classify as poor(min rate here in the states- $3-4K depending on where you live); of course in the cities/urban areas that will be the minimum- in the rural areas/small towns you probably could afford that amount as the average or a little above average(cept my home town- it's a small town, but the housing prices are outrageous).