Professional commission work: 400-550 bucks Tumblr commission work: 70 bucks
some of you: OMG UR COMMISSIONS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE WTF it’s almost like you value your time >:( not cool dude
yall this is the saddest day of my life
YOUR ART IS YOUR WORK AND YOU DESERVE TO BE PAID FAIRLY FOR IT
PEOPLE WOULDNT BASH CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES FOR BUILDING HOUSES THAT ARE TOO EXPENSIVE BITCH YOU EITHER SAVE UP OR MOVE ON OKAY FUCK
I’m not saying art isn’t worth money and that artists should be paid, but please hear me out.
Hasn’t anyone else felt a bit like art is really strangely priced to keep it away from the poor? Collecting art is always a habit of the wealthy. It always has been. Art costs too much goddamn money and it makes it so that only enthusiasts can afford to appreciate it or support the artist. Can we stop normalizing these prices? Can we stop giving vague examples of a professional artist and what they charge–without even mentioning the materials used, the client, and the type of work–and insist that shit like that should cost that much.
People want to support artists but are often not wealthy enough to do it. If people want to complain that they wish commissions were cheaper so they could afford to support you, then let them instead of demanding money from them like that. You don’t have to change your prices for them.
And on the flip side I see shit like $40+ for a commission of cartoon line art of an animal head with no coloring or background. Fuck off with that, I have spoken to friends who are professional artists and even they think those types of commissions are overpriced. Everyone agreed such commissions couldn’t have taken more than an hour–and that’s being generous–but the artist insists they can’t lower their prices. I’m not about to argue about how much an artist “should” be paid per hour, but can we please stop pretending that unfair or ridiculous commission prices don’t exist? They do.
You have to understand that some artists don’t have a lot of portfolio work available but demand very high commission prices and the person doesn’t really have a good idea what kind of quality they would be getting. And I know people who have paid $50+ for commissions and been extremely disappointed. Finances are difficult for everyone right now. You can hardly blame someone for being wary of taking chances.
And, yes, a lot of the time the complaints about price are coming from little kids who don’t know better and simply are refusing to pay $5 which is a steal. Which, fine, they need to be educated. They do. But every time I see posts like this it’s incredibly one sided on behalf of the artist and I just feel like nobody understands what it is like to be on the other side of the fence.
Art is a luxury item made by -for the most part-severely underpaid professionals. It’s not like we have an anti poor agenda wtf dude
It took 20+ years to learn to sketch a decent looking portrait in ten minutes. So while it might look effortless and they say we shouldn’t charge for more than ten minutes of work, there’s 20+ yrs of effort, patience, failures and time that went into that sketch. The same applies for any non-professional or new professional who has just started in the field. You didn’t start life able to draw, whether you’ve been drawing for six months or six years, the time and effort you put into developing your skills has got to be worth something. It’s not just the sketch you are selling, it’s your skill. Your ten minute sketches are worth more than ten dollars. If your client thinks that is too high, they can go practice for six months and draw it themselves!
