So I'm hoping to get into doing artwork commissions....

...You guys got any advice or tips?

 

Do free stuff for Twitch streamers and YouTubers who need art projects done but are too shit to do it themselves so your name can get out there rather than just shouting at the void and hoping someone comes with money.

 

Don't undercharge yourself. Make sure your prices are fair, but that you're making enough that it's worth it.

My own prices are here if you'd like to get an idea of what you should be charging.

/takes this and runs >_>

 

Free tip for frand: Do fanart for a bigger network and tweet it to them. They'll tweet it. Completionist, AH, Funhaus, etc usually always tweet out art. Just don't go too big- Grumps and Markiplier never tweet out art. Egoraptor retweets everyone on "cutie saturday" though.

 

Frankly, I'm pretty against this kind of thing. As an artist you will find basically everyone you know, talk to, or even get noticed in passing by will undervalue your skillset. In doing work for free you're putting your time, effort, and maybe even a small part of you as a person into something and you're getting nothing back on the face of it. At best you can hope that this will lead into actual work, at worst it will lead into more volunteering. It's a gamble and don't ever let anyone portray it as anything else. So before you decide that your work isn't worth paying for, think about whether you believe it really is worthless.

 

And it's 10000x more effective than doing NOTHING and hoping people you know will like your work enough to market for you.

A professional artist WORKING ON COMMISSIONS is going to have to make work they didn't have the initial idea for.

 

That doesn't change my point. If you work for free you are saying your work is worthless implicitly. Yes, you need to be realistic and I get that we live in a world where attention is one of the most commoditized things but it's nothing to throw out integrity over. It's not like you only have the options to work for free or not work at all. There are legitimate ways to break into professional art and I expect people to explore them. I don't expect a resolution of this particular topic, because I really don't think I'd be able to understand your perspective.

I don't understand that sentence.

 

Are you saying it is worthless? Or are you saying your work deserves to be seen? You can word it either way and both are true, but it's your own interpretation that makes one truer than the other

Okay, lemme retry: If you work for free on someone else's stuff, it is not your idea at a creative level. It is usually assumed it is not what you want to do. The same is true of working on commissions, which this person is wanting to do. And honestly, I'd rather do that as an artist than do corporate logo art forever.

 

One inherently isn't more or less true than the other. Truth is a binary and they are both true. It's how important each of those is to you is what you're deciding. You already presented one of those perspectives which is why I thought it was necessary to present the other side. The side I believe is more important because it's less based on wishful thinking.

I can see how you'd think that. But ultimately, the creative decisions are for the most part left up to the artist, it's not a build to spec even if it is a build to order. Your point still makes sense because it's about how people perceive it and you essentially prove the point just by making it. I'm not sure how corporate logos come into it but I don't think that's the crux of it anyways.

 

One inherently isn't more or less true than the other. Truth is a binary and they are both true. It's how important each of those is to you is what you're deciding. You already presented one of those perspectives which is why I thought it was necessary to present the other side. The side I believe is more important because it's less based on wishful thinking. [/quote]

We just said the same thing, I think?

Glad I got it that time. The only thing about the logos is that's the most professional you can get as an artist. That's what a salary artist normally does- logos, marketing materials, etc. So yeah, it was a frame of perspective, not the crux.

I think people should value their work and their ideas but they also need to balance it by playing the business game. I think that's true in any field, but for artists who make the jump to wanting to make money off it- they already value their work enough to say "I should get paid for this" but then a lot just put their patreon and request forms up, put it on their social media, and then wonder why customers aren't coming. You need a metaphorical billboard.