help with art commissions

[glass vigil]

Hello! I'm thinking of opening art commissions for the summer to get some money and practise, but I have a couple of questions : is my art good enough for commissions? How should I price them? Where should I start advertising it? I attached some examples of my art, I know they are not perfect but perhaps maybe at least the bust ups would sell?? :'D

[atomic oriole]

First, your art is super amazing!! its def worth it to open commissions. Second, i’d recommend setting up an account on tiktok/twt/insta and posting your work. After you have enough followers, you can start advertising commissions on those accounts. It’ll be easier for your sheets to get attention since you already have an audience set.

additionally, you could find art/community servers like this one that allow advertising. Since u make art for genshin/hsr, sharing your art and socials in those servers will help

for pricing, i’d start low if this is your first time opening comms. I have base pricing for headshots/halfbodies/fullbodies, lineart/base colors/rendering, and other things like additional characters and backgrounds would be a percentage of the total cost. Sorry if this doesnt make much sense,,im a bit bad at explaining 😭😭

[glass vigil]

oh no don't worry this is very helpful! Thank you so much! :D I was thinking of maybe doing like, 15$ for the rendered bust ups like the last pic and maybe 30$ for the full illustration like the Blade drawing

I was also thinking of maybe doing character design comms since I kinda like doing that and ppl compliment my designs sometimes, for example the girl with sky dress is my OC which I designed :D

[atomic oriole]

Those are great prices to start with !! For character designs i would make it a bit pricier since you’re typically going to draw fullbodies w/ different angles and of course, creating a new character is harder than drawing a pre-existing one

[glass vigil]

hmm, something like 40-60$ depending on how complex then?? I never did like, professional character design but I guess I can try, it's pretty fun

[glass vigil]

I checked how much time my drawings take and it's about 2-3h for the bust ups, is it fast enough for comms?

Also, do you think the examples I showed here are good enough as comms examples or should I do smth else?

[atomic oriole]

yes, getting a comm done in a single day is rlly impressive 😭😭 mine take a lot longer because my attention span is so short, so you’re doing well!!

[atomic oriole]

just add as many examples as you can, even if its just sketches, lineart, or base colors

[glass vigil]

mm alright, sounds good! Noow just to set up paypal-
I'll probably only take a couple spots for bust ups for now and see where this takes me, though I think the hardest part will be setting up paypal and getting used to it :'D

thank you for your help btw! <333

[atomic oriole]

yw!!! And good luck with getting comms 🫶🫶🫶

[stable cliff]

Hi, your art good enough for comms? If you feel confident enough to putyour work out there then it probably is. Ask yourself, woudl you buy your own art? If the answer is yes then there are probably people around that want to buy it aswell.

As for finding people it can be tricky. I agree that setting up social media platforms can be helpfull, however its a hyper competitive space thats bases on algorithms. No matter how good the art if you dont know how to play the algorithm game its kinda hard to get exposure.
Instead of waiting for people to find you I advice you start looking for customers instead. When I started to looks for comms I found a lot of work in communities like the D&D community and the VR chat community.

Another option you could explore is platforms like Displate. You can just upload your art in bulk and they will do most of the marketing for you. Only downside is that they take between 80%/40% depending if you sell it through their discover page or your own page link.

[glass vigil]

yes that's exactly what I was worried about when it comes to social media, it takes a lot of time to build up a following there and for now, I just wanna take a few comms during the summer so that's not a good option :'D Thank you so much for the help!

another thing is, I'm trying to set up my paypal rn and quick question, is my irl address necessary for the invoices?- I'm using a business acc but idk, it feels weird that someone will know my home address 😭

[stable cliff]

Yes its because of tax reasons that they need to know

[glass vigil]

aah fair enough, this stuff is complicated :'/

[glass vigil]

oh yeah btw, is it better to collect payments with gns or fnf? Because I heard that if paying through friends and family then they can't chargeback but also some people just recommend doing invoices

[muted cypress]

Using fnf is technically illegal if you’re using it for art commissions, I would also recommend invoices

[glass vigil]

mm alright! I'm just scared of getting scammed tbh :'/ This paypal stuff is complicated

also, since my home address is visible on invoices, can't they technically stalk me or get my info or smth? 😭 I'm a bit paranoid because ppl are weird these days

[muted cypress]

Yeah that’s true, you could use your post office’s address? If you have a box there or what it called idk

[stable cliff]

Thats why u always get an 50% upfront payment

But depending on where u live and the tax system will decide wether fnf is allowed, since you dont have to pay income tax when using fnf. Where i live ur allowed to earn up to $2500 a year without paying taxes over it.

[glass vigil]

yeah I did some research and apparently it's 600$ till it's getting send to the IRS or smth

[glass vigil]

oooh well I can look into that, but I'm pretty sure that when setting it up it said that it can't be a PO box :'D

[glass vigil]

okay I'm back! I set up my paypal (I think) and my carrd but can someone tell me if my TOS is alright??

⟡ By commissioning me you agree to this TOS

⟡ I keep the right to my work meaning that your commission can be used for self promotion or posted on my social media (with credit to the owner of character), unless discussed otherwise

⟡ I have the right to deny your commission

⟡ I don't do refunds unless I'm the one cancelling the commission

⟡ Tracing, copying or claiming the artwork as yours is not allowed and if seen, you will be blacklisted

⟡ I won't accept commissions from suspicious accounts

⟡ The artwork isn't allowed to be sold as an NFT or used for AI

⟡ Any edits of your own doing aren't allowed, this includes removing the watermark

⟡ My art cannot be used for commercial purposes

⟡ I will send you sketches and progress of how your commission is turning out, you are allowed to ask for changes however you might be charged extra for any bigger changes like the pose or outfit

⟡ Please be prepared and send references for the character and the pose you want, references are best unshaded

also, can someone kinda tell me how I should take clients..? I'm really nervous that I will mess up the whole communication process thing 😭 it's my first time doing anything like this

[stable cliff]

put ur payment rules in ur ToS aswell

[glass vigil]

I have my payment info in a different place ^^ is there anything I should add though??

[stable cliff]

Ur charging 100% upfront?

[glass vigil]

uhh I guess so? I don't know what else to do :'D Someone said that full payment upfront is the best because if they are paying 50% later there is always a chance that they might scam

[stable cliff]

Yes but keep in mind as a customer u can get scammed aswell

the whole point of 50% upfront is that u split the risk. So the customer only paid half is he gets scammed and the artist atleast earns 50% even if they didnt pay the other half

charging 100% upfront means shoving the risk completely onto ur customer.

If I where to commission art and they asked for 100% upfront payment I would already assume its a scam

[glass vigil]

mm I guess so, I can change that
so I should do something like they will pay 50% before I start working and then 50% after the sketch?

[glass fox]

in my commissions I give my clients a choice. I prefer 100% upfront but they can choose to pay 50% upfront and 50% after the sketch. so you can list that you are accepting both options

[glass vigil]

yeah, that would probably make more sense, thank you!

[glass vigil]

I think I have everything set up then! Paypal and carrd is ready :D I need to add some more examples but I can do that later
anything else I should know about art commissions before I start taking them? I'm kinda nervous ngl-

[glass fox]

about the communication with client
-always be honest about the deadline
-don't ghost them even if they are asking about the progress and you have none. tell them that you need more time.
-stay professional, once you are too friendly and acting like friends, someone will take advantage of that and will try to scam you
-don't spam, try to tell them everything in 1-2 messages. some clients can get overwhelmed with too many messages
-always ask as many questions as you need, it creates nice connection with client and it shows that you care
-don't act scared or unexperienced ''sorry I am just starting with commissions'' and ''sorry I haven't done this before'' is for some clients red flag that you are not confident and for scammers green one to try to scam you
-always stand your ground with your prices, don't negotiate with anyone. if they don't like your prices, then they should go somewhere else

Also if something feels too complicated and you are scared that it won't be in your usual quality, decline it. If you feel confident that you can handle it, ask for extra fee. But don't risk your quality over something you can't do, your client will be dissapointed and it won't benefit anyone so it's always better to say that you have no experience with this topic and advise them to commission someone else.