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Nov 2018

HELP ;x;


Joking aside, how do one usually rate their art or commission? Is there a specific way for you who did commissions to rate it?

I'm not someone who know how to rate and put a price on things because I simply can't. My sense is not in there.

I haven't make much examples for the commissions yet but I just wondering if you guys know how I should rate my arts, because I'm just going to feel insecure if I rate them myself. :confused:

*edit. Maybe its best if I include some examples of my art.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1MFqeE1x4H9-SFJQpWwJexZQn_CYkwb3p19

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    Nov '18
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    Dec '18
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I just base my prices off the average of prices I see around the community. I also tend to base my prices off what I personally feel I would pay for my own art, as well as whether my prices are worth my time.

I did a few speedruns for art and timed myself, then multipled it by the minimum wage-ish.

eg) A full colour chibi takes me 15 minutes. The minimum wage in my area is ~$12/hour. I can charge $3, or higher depending how much I value myself.

A bust-shot of a character takes me about 1 hour. I could charge $12 for a bust.

I actually charge much higher than this bare-minimum wage-based prices, but it's because I value my time and want to make the most of each commission.

Here are my commission prices as reference:

The problem with me probably because I'm always thinks that 'this price is too high' or this price looks too low...?'

I'm also a very slow person, a sketch on paper could take me 1 ~ 5 hours to finish, not to mention the digital one since I could only use my phone to draw (the reason for me wanting to make commissions is because I wanna have a better equipments). '*';

My coloring skills is pretty mediocre too, and I'm still learning to make it better, so I'm not sure how much I personally should charge for my stuff because I'm feeling too much uncomfortable to put a price on them.

Somewhere on the internet there's a real cool guide on pricing commissions, but I don't remember where to find it. I'll just summarize as best I can XD

So like, you're supposed to base it off your state's minimum wage (or really, any minimum wage lol) and apply it to your skill level.
The guide was more or less:
Beginners should charge half-ish of minimum wage, Novices should charge full minimum wage, and Pros should charge something above minimum wage. Novices and Pros should also take into account their popularity when deciding their prices. (The more popular they are, the higher they can charge).

Though if you work slow, you could just base your pricing on the speed it takes you to draw something familiar ^^ Like, an OC you draw a lot or something. That would probably even out the speed vs the cost per hour.

The idea of pricing your commissions based on your stateā€™s wage always surprised me.
Like... The people considering buying your commissions donā€™t and shouldnā€™t give a shit about your countryā€™s minimum wage.
Not to mention, the more you improve in art, the faster you become, the higher your prices should be- which completely goes against the nature of an hourly wage.

I found the best way to price commissions is supply and demand. Look around you, price yourself based on commissions people you believe are in your experience level price their commissions. If you get a lot of orders, bump that price up. Continue doing this until you reach a fine level of orders at a good price. Your sweet spot.

Art isnā€™t going to get you in a lot of cash if you need 5+ hours for something simple, so Iā€™d reccomend maybe saving up from a job, or if you donā€™t have one whichever way you get your money (even just ask your friends or family for christmas/hanukkah/etc which is coming up?), putting aside $60 or so for a tablet, and then working on improving your speed with your new equipment, because itā€™s unfair towards you to work that long for very little in return at this point.

I wanna say that my country money conversion to dollar can't be considered high.

My monthly wage is around one million rupiah, so, uh. You see, that doesn't actually looks bad since living in my country is cheaper than on the west, but it just. It's not that easy to save money to buy the stuff I need (plus, my family will kill me if I use my wages to buy em, so I need alternatives money maker to get them).

@kip the 3 up hours is for the rather complicated one.

The example is like when I'm drawing this gurl holding the guitar that I never seen irl. Though I draw it using pencil and paper, it took me somewhere around 3 to 4 hours to complete. I couldn't say how long it will took me if I draw her digitally afterwards.

We didn't celebrate much that could get me money except for Chinese New year where I could get some more pocket money, and my birthday is basically forgotten from their mind. :v

I want to do like what you said but there's this anxiety that peoples will not accept my price and stuff. Probably I'm just being a coward and hesitating too much and over thinking it, but that's the mentality I have when thinking about this.

(Okay, sorry, I'm rambling)

It's still a sketch (not even fullbody) not inked or colored, so I'm considering it "simple"! I hope that makes sense?
It's okay to be a bit worried at first, but at the end of the day I think it's doing something for you first. you're putting effort and improving the conditions of doing something you love.
Being completely honest, unless it's like a brand, traditional art tends to go for much much less than digital art because the visual quality of the image you're getting is lower (its a picture of a picture, basically)

If you can't get the cash from your own life, maybe look into starting a money pool?
You can set it to the graphic tablet's price and offer traditional commissions till you get to your goal.?
Knowing the communinty here and the artist community in general, I can seriously see you reaching it within like. a day
people love trying to reach a goal lol

I've never opened a commission before, but from what I see, you should definitely not base your rate on your state's minimum wage. It's a bit unfair, since Indonesia has really awful minimum wages, even when the groceries price are lower compared to others, it's still awful. I agree with @kip, just look at international minimum rate. I'll keep a track on this thread, since i need a guide as well. Thank you for making this thread /o/

Okay disclaimer: I'm not at all experienced with commissions, having only done like...one so far. But for whatever it's worth, here's the way I see it:

  1. Be pragmatic. Don't feel guilty about making your prices too high. You're not cheating anyone out of anything by having high prices, since nobody is forced to buy if they don't want to. If someone looks at your work and is willing to pay a certain price, then it's worth it to them.

  2. Ideally you should charge the maximum amount that potential clients are willing to pay. Of course, there's no way to know exactly what that amount is, so you basically have to guess. One way to guess is by examining the prices of similar artists around you. Another way is to just start with a price that seems kinda reasonable, then adjust according to how many clients you get over time. If you get a lot of requests you can raise your prices, while if you get very few / no requests, then you'll need to lower your prices.

  3. You should determine what the minimum wage you're willing to work for is. A lot of people seem to use state minimum wages as a guideline, but really that has nothing to do with what you are willing to work for - it's a personal decision. While adjusting your prices as above, you can go as low as necessary as long as you don't dip below the point that you've decided is not worth it anymore.

  4. If your prices are as low as you are willing to go and you still don't have any buyers, you'll need to improve your art skills until you can (a) produce things of higher quality that will draw in buyers, and/or (b) produce faster to effectively increase your "wage" per unit time to an acceptable level.

  5. It may also help to -

    • have a good portfolio that will give potential clients confidence as to what kind of result they would get
    • have a unique / non-generic art style that only you can provide
    • market yourself through social media or wherever you can

In the end I think we've all got to just jump in and figure it out by experience. And because both the maximum price buyers are willing to pay and the minimum price you are willing to work for (the two critical figures) depend so much on the individual, one person's specific pricing advice may not work for someone else.

To be honest, pricing your commissions is never easy. I'm a professional (in the making) if you want to call it like that, and I'm still torn between "what can my followers afford" and "how much is my art and time actually worth."
My prices are considered ridiculously low for a professional standart but again, my followers don't have enough money to justify higher prices atm. Anyway, you can have a look here30.
In general, I'm always checking people around me to not end up with unaffordably high prices, but one of my profs in my first semester actually proposed another approach (which I always use as a base):

You need to know X amount of money you want/need to make (per month, in this example I'm generous with 2,000ā‚¬, which is kind of a better low income per month here), Y amount of hours you are able/willing to work per month (remember free time, vacation days, other stuff, here I'll go with an ordinary 40h week -2 vacation days per month so I'm at ~160h per month), and with that you can get your wage per hour.

2,000ā‚¬/160h=12.50ā‚¬/h for a regular 9 to 5 job

You can alter this with how much money you would need to make per week, for this example 500ā‚¬, and so on, depending on what works better for you. I think calculating your personal minimum wage is more reasonable than looking at your government or the international comparison because it doesn't always work out. It also lets you adjust your personal paycheck raise, for example when I'm done with my studies I can demand at least twice as much with the same work hours. (Plus all the taxes and whatnot I'd need to pay by myself then.)
Again, this is just you personal minimum wage per hour and not per commission, and only what you can earn ideally because you still need to get customers first.

Another thing to consider: you also have work hours you don't actually spend on drawing the commission but just being in contact with your client, talking about what they want yadda yadda, and maybe doing some research. All of this also need to be reflected in your commission price, after all you're providing a service in first place, not just a physical product. It's a bit different if you just draw whatever and later sell the illustration to a customer.

Also make sure to show a consistent quality in your portfolio, and make sure your art generally keeps up with this standart. Clients need to know what they are actually getting, otherwise it's not really worth an investment for them. If you consider yourself not skilled enough at the moment for a specific style etc. then don't offer it. Only offer what you can get done in a reasonable amount of time. If you're uncertain about your personal wage, look around at artists with your skill level and what type of commission they (successfully) offer.
In general, pencil sketches will not earn you as much money as an illustration with clear lineart, colour, and background. A bust will cost less than a full-body drawing. 3 characters are more expensive than 1. So stacking your commission prices is really helpful to get a feel for it imo and gives clients a chance to choose a type that is closer to their personal budget.

Hope this helps!

I think this is really helpful. Thanks.

I probably going to see what I can offer and making more examples first before deciding to open my commissions and the price as for now.

And I won't be doing a pencil commissions since I actually don't have a scanner. :v

It just that I'm feeling more comfortable doing sketch and the clean draft with my pencil than doing it directly on my phone. I probably going to add it once I got myself a scanner, but that will have to wait.

Here's a little lesson in trickery--
Do offer-based ones first! It's like "name your price." Then you will figure out just how much money people are, on average, willing to spend on your art. After that, you can establish prices just a tiny bit higher than the highest offer you had. Once you start getting commissions on a regular basis, raise the price :sunglasses: and yeah that's the pattern I use! It worked very well for me, though I had to under-price by a lot at first. Hope it helps!

This is interesting. Maybe I could try to do it for a few or dozens commissions (IF I GET ANY XD ) first. Thanks for the tip!

I just wrote a whole article about that :slight_smile:

And also a small guide of Dos and Don'ts:

Hope it helps ^_^

This is super helpful. Thank you very much. Is it okay if I asked a few more question regarding commissions to you?

Absolutely, go! (just mind that I'm a digital artist, so I won't be able to answer any question about traditional art)

I actually forgotten some of the question I want to ask, lol, so here's a few...

  • if someone want to buy the copyright of the art they commissioned, how do you rate it and what do you left with if you sold it?

  • is it ultimately alright to commissioning a price of art about copyrighted characters? Examples the marvel heroes or OC's of an characters that is not our's and the commissioner's? What is the limit?

  • about the finishing time, if we said 2~4 days, is it includes the time here we discussed with the costumers and the process of drafting or its only for when we says 'you satisfied with the draft? Good, I'll start making it'?

  • for privacy, do you use your personal email account when dealing with costumers or making a different account?

  • about contract (since I was told it is best to make it), how do you made it and is it alright to sign it with a pen name? (I know using pen name is inappropriate but I'm just asking since I want to stay anonymous for a while longer) I don't know how to make it so if you have an tutorial or examples I would be really thankful.

  • the price of private use only and commercial use is different, right? How do you measure it and how far the range of the 'private use only' for it to stay as private use and what should we do if a costumer branching from i?

  • if the copyright is still with us, what can we do with it?

  • I looked for invoice template and found something like this site : https://www.aynax.com/freeInvoiceTemplateMobile.php?msclkid=6dc95112bc5e1719c0210d12eab7aac9&agc=1402680&keyword=invoice%20templates%20free%20online&matchtype=e&placement=&source=bing&country=us&device=m&extension=&network=s&adposition=&querystring=invoice%20templates%20free%20online2

Is this template okay and do we seriously need to fill in our own address?

  • the size used for the work. I know you says bigger is better, but what size do you usually use? Is it also something you discussed with your customers first? Does 600 dpi too high? (I don't even really know what dpi is :v )

  • about managing your slot and customers. How much you usually take at once (if there's n influx of costumers) and how to set your priority on that. Did you discussed the finishing time with the costumers? If you for examples took 5 slots at once (just examples), how do you tell your customers on the last slots that they need to wait? (This question sounds confusing. I probably dont phrase it right)

  • I never used PayPal for payments before, so I know that giving your email address for the payments is how to, but will your name be known to the sender? (this is a noob asking question ^^; )

... this is actually a lot of question.awkward laugh (can I ask more if I remember them? :3 )

Thank you for the time...

A good basic rule is to charge an hourly rate, and then double the hours. If you think the work will take 5 hours to complete, charge for 10. That way, you're covered for anything that goes wrong, broken communication, etc.

Okay, let's see what I've got:

  • if someone want to buy the copyright of the art they commissioned, how do you rate it and what do you left with if you sold it?
    ā†’ so far I haven't sold my copyright to private people for commissions, I only did it with an editor and in that case you have perks because they're gonna sell your work and you get a percentage on the sales. I don't see the interest in selling the copyright to a private person. You can give them the full exploitation rights (so they can use it for commercial purposes) but never the intellectual property (but I'm not an expert, so get some other opinions on this)

  • is it ultimately alright to commissioning a price of art about copyrighted characters? Examples the marvel heroes or OC's of an characters that is not our's and the commissioner's? What is the limit?
    ā†’ it's not. By the law you can't make money selling some other people's work. What you can do is to parody that work. Parody has an exemption. I don't know about the US specifically (but I think it's the same) but by law standards all artists selling fanart prints and artwork at conventions are illegal.

  • about the finishing time, if we said 2~4 days, is it includes the time here we discussed with the costumers and the process of drafting or its only for when we says 'you satisfied with the draft? Good, I'll start making it'?
    ā†’ I start counting from the moment I get the money and the order is confirmed. I don't do drafts and I get all the payment in advance because my commissions so far have been pretty easy. But last time I did them I've got increasingly complicated requests so I'm definitely gonna split the payment in two and show them a lineart draft. But the principle is the same: from the moment you get the payment in advance (wheter it's the whole amount or a part of it) and you start working on the commission you count the time.

  • for privacy, do you use your personal email account when dealing with costumers or making a different account?
    ā†’ different account. But also because I don't use my real name as you can see :slight_smile: I also have a separate Paypal.

  • about contract (since I was told it is best to make it), how do you made it and is it alright to sign it with a pen name? (I know using pen name is inappropriate but I'm just asking since I want to stay anonymous for a while longer) I don't know how to make it so if you have an tutorial or examples I would be really thankful.
    ā†’ for the contact @craftymarten in this very forum gave me [his template for T&C] so thank you Craftymarten :slight_smile: (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-ZxlE882G8esSOobnFmR6W507xrXWI31I-FVWSi2CQw/edit1) . A conract has no legal bound if you don't fill it with your real name, address and signature.

  • the price of private use only and commercial use is different, right? How do you measure it and how far the range of the 'private use only' for it to stay as private use and what should we do if a costumer branching from i?
    ā†’ for commercial use you need contract that states in advance for what purposes the material can be used and what happens if the client breaches it. I can't tell you about the prices and any other details because I don't sell my copyright to private people, as I said before.

  • if the copyright is still with us, what can we do with it?
    ā†’ use it to promote your work :slight_smile: even though I tend to ask the customer's permission even for doing so (even if I don't need to)

I looked for invoice template and found something like this site : https://www.aynax.com/freeInvoiceTemplateMobile.php?msclkid=6dc95112bc5e1719c0210d12eab7aac9&agc=1402680&keyword=invoice%20templates%20free%20online&matchtype=e&placement=&source=bing&country=us&device=m&extension=&network=s&adposition=&querystring=invoice%20templates%20free%20online1

  • Is this template okay and do we seriously need to fill in our own address?
    ā†’ I don't know about the US but in the EU yes, you not only need to fill your name and address but also to indicate your company's number and indicate the VAT separately. What I did is that I created a separate Paypal with my real address (fondamental) in it and my 'company's name' (which is my nickname) so if I invoice from Paypal that it's what it shows. They'll have my address but not my name and it's still legal. But I understand your pain, for me privacy goes above all priorities.

  • the size used for the work. I know you says bigger is better, but what size do you usually use? Is it also something you discussed with your customers first? Does 600 dpi too high? (I don't even really know what dpi is :v )
    ā†’ Most of the people will tell you that 300DPI is enough (because that is the resolution required for printing. I do 600 because of Clip Studio being a crappy software for resizing, but if you use PS you're fine with 300. I do 2400x2400px but it's actually tiny, I'd recommend going with 5000px minimum. I use that resolution because my tablet lags easily but some of my clients asked me if they could print and with that size the printing options are really limited (like a super tiny print).

  • about managing your slot and customers. How much you usually take at once (if there's n influx of costumers) and how to set your priority on that. Did you discussed the finishing time with the costumers? If you for examples took 5 slots at once (just examples), how do you tell your customers on the last slots that they need to wait? (This question sounds confusing. I probably dont phrase it right)
    ā†’ oh dear, that depends on you, how knowing how much time does it take me to finish a piece helps you? Just try at home. Make a couple of illustrations based on real people and see how long does it take you. I don't know your schedule bro :slight_smile:

  • I never used PayPal for payments before, so I know that giving your email address for the payments is how to, but will your name be known to the sender? (this is a noob asking question ^^; )
    ā†’ it's not a noob question and as I said, being concerned about privacy that question was important to me and I've found out the hard way. You can use whatever email you want with Paypal but you have to indicate a name and an address. These won't be shown to the customer if you use the donation (personal) option, but if you use the 'pro' version your name will appear to the customer (so yeah, some of my customers now know my real name because I wanted to try the pro version of Paypal == ). What you can do is to use your nickname as your name when you create your Paypal account (something I didn't know) because in any case they check the bank account and your bank already controlled your identity. This way your real name is safe, even with the pro version :slightsmile:

Ah... this part with privacy bug me the most. I want to stay anonymous, but putting my name and address to be known is a bit... sigh and I already created a PayPal with my name since that what is said on the profile making... guess there's no other option for me atm except using what I have (goodbye privacy~ I still wanna be anonymous but I couldn't make another bank account).

*edit there's something called PayPal.me And it seems like we can choose to not show our address? Have you ever use it?

And we can make an invoice from PayPal? Or only send it from PayPal?

And another noob question. What did you change from the contract template up there? ...and where do you put the address and sign? How do we sign it? I never dealed with document like this before so I'm really lost.

And thank you for putting the time to answer me. I really appreciate it. :slight_smile: