The Freelance Art World: What I am Finding out

[TheTigress]

A side note, I might look into getting a commission from you, once I get money into paypal.

That would be great!

You can get it. Just be willing to pay a fair price. Don't overpay, either, though: there are sucky people on the artist end of the equation, too.

And this. I know of a few sucky artists also. There is one in particular on FA (not going to drop names) who takes on commissions, requires full payment up front, and then takes a year or more to start them, all the while taking on smaller sized ones and finishing those ones while the larger commissions aren't even started. To me that's just not right.

[Flying Grype]

I wanna pick people's brains in this thread, is that okay? D:

What would you say to someone who wanted to start drawing for commission, that you wish you'd known when you started? Especially about things like business models -- how do you show someone what you're doing without giving them a freebie and risking not being paid, and do you ask for a deposit or anything when you start?

[Enjis]

I wanna pick people's brains in this thread, is that okay? D:

What would you say to someone who wanted to start drawing for commission, that you wish you'd known when you started? Especially about things like business models -- how do you show someone what you're doing without giving them a freebie and risking not being paid, and do you ask for a deposit or anything when you start?

Work up a portfolio of the kind of work you normally do, and the kind you would like to do. This way, you can show it to potential clients. Have a price list of what commissions you are open for, with samples of each price range.
Example:
I do single character pencil sketches for $25, full inks for $40 and fully shaded with markers and pencils for $60. I show samples of each of these, so the client knows exactly what level of detail they are paying for. If the person asks about multiple characters, or color, or more detail, tell them that your prices are ESTIMATES, and you are happy to hear what they have in mind before quoting your final price.
Be flexible. Make sure to get AT LEAST half the price up front (I always get full payment up front, unless it is a client I have dealt with many times and know I can trust.)
Always ask LOTS of questions about what the client wants, and WRITE IT DOWN. Have a standard order form if possible. Get all their contact info, commission details, payment price, how much is owed, WHEN IS THE PIECE DUE....
Never leave a client hanging. Keep in contact, let them know how the work is progressing.
Always do your best! Word of mouth is great, and giving the client more than they expected is the best way to keep the client, and get new ones too! Maintain a good reputation!

Good luck on your career! I love my work, and I hope you will too.

[spark]

^This stuff.

And I agree, ALWAYS ask for a deposit at least. (I ask for half up front myself, but I also have a 6-9 month turn around time on most work, if your turn around time is short you may just want to ask for full payment up front.) You absolutely should never do any work if you haven't been paid.

Probably about a third of the people who contact me about a commission and get to the point where they say "Yes, I'll get it, I'll send the money tomorrow/next week/really soon" never actually pay me at all. I could maybe hound the money out of a few of them if I had the finished work in hand, but most of the time those projects would go forever unpaid for.

Have an organized system of keeping track of who you owe work to, what they want, how much they've paid, all that stuff. Just getting the info isn't enough if you can't find it again later!

You may also want to write up a policies page. It doesn't need to sound like legalese, (that's part of why I call mine "policies" and not a TOS. It's not legal issues that I have it for, if I get sued in court by a customer a website TOS may or may not even matter,) it's there just to let people know what to expect when they hire you. It should include things like how you handle payment, how you handle deadlines, what uses your work can be put to (with most artwork done on commission for individuals the customer doesn't have the copyright and can't sell prints or put it on t-shirts, it's for personal use only. If you're going to sell prints yourself, put it in your portfolio, have it in an art book, etc. you should make that clear.) and any types of work you specialize in or refuse to do.

Be professional and polite as much as possible.. If you've goofed up, apologize and make it right. If a customer is unhappy, I find it works best to ask them what they suggest you do to solve their problem. (Sometimes their suggestions are easier than what you thought they would want. Sometimes they're unreasonable, but it's at least a place to start.) But if a customer is being rude or demanding, you should never be afraid to refund them and refuse to do their project. What's the point of working for yourself if you can't tell SCs to go to hell?

Don't take more than you can handle. If you get over-booked, you're going to be stressed, and I see way too many artists get into a disastrous circle of taking too many commissions, which makes them too stressed to work well, so they get behind, so customers want refunds, so they take more commissions to get the money to refund, but can't finish those either, and just end up further and further behind. You need to be realistic about what you can do.

Don't make promises you can't keep. If you make a promise and life happens, go to the customers whose deadlines you've missed and apologize, don't wait for them to get angry and impatient and come to you. But if you have to tell the same person "sorry, it's going to be late" more than once or twice, you're doing something wrong and need to re-think how you work. If you end up telling *most* of your customers you're going to miss their deadline, you *really* need to re-think how you work.

I suggest perusing the Artists' Beware livejournal community, it tends to be a crash-course in what not to do. And the situations that get resolved positively can also show you what *to* do when something goes wrong. http://artists-beware.livejournal.com/ There are also sometimes useful bits of advice for newbies posted, and questions about various issues.

[TheTigress]

I wanna pick people's brains in this thread, is that okay? D:

What would you say to someone who wanted to start drawing for commission, that you wish you'd known when you started? Especially about things like business models -- how do you show someone what you're doing without giving them a freebie and risking not being paid, and do you ask for a deposit or anything when you start?

I have some good advice for you on this one. I'm glad you asked this as a new person to the commission world so you don't run into problems in the future.

For giving previews of your work to people, never EVER send them the full res version until they have paid you for it. Even if they have paid for half, still don't give them the full version until you recieve full payment. What I do when I send my sketches (for approval)/previews is to put an obvious watermark and send a smaller resolution version of the image so they can't just take the art and run. Don't trust anyone. Even the most friendly person could turn around and screw you. This process won't offend the good commissioners.

As for my payment process, I'm actually a little more lenient than most artists. Most artists require the full payment up front but I do a sketch first, send it out for approval, then require the first half of payment after it's been approved, then once the art is fully finished I require the second half of the payment. Everyone has their own preference on the payment process and to just do it how you feel the most comfortable. I do it this way because only getting half of the payment motivates me to finish the art a little faster to get the second half, and I also feel less pressure on me if they haven't sent the whole payment.

For really small commissions like sketches I actually don't require the payment until the sketch is completed, and send them a heavily watermarked preview until they pay for it. For me it takes the pressure off a little bit.

[TheTigress]

UPDATE:

This morning I checked my inbox and they sent me a reply. They decided that they didn't want any corrections on the image, but that they wanted to negotiate the price of buying the image to something less than my first offer.

Since I don't have to do any extra work on my end I decided to accept the lower price. I figure it's almost like getting free money and I have no emotional attachment to the image in question.

I will not send the image over to them until they pay me first, though.

[Ironclad Alibi]

They decided that they didn't want any corrections on the image, but that they wanted to negotiate the price of buying the image to something less than my first offer.

All the more reason to quote a higher price so they can negotigate you down to the price you really want.

[TheTigress]

All the more reason to quote a higher price so they can negotigate you down to the price you really want.

That's a good idea. I will keep that in mind in the future.