Freelancer Chris

Not write

Daydream

Cry

Complain

Wait for inspiration

Write

“This is my name and i made this!”

“i built a bridge”

“my relative died, may [insert name of a god] protect their soul”

“My relative was in [insert region]. Now they are dead”

“Vague statement very carefully implieng there are shady people somewhere nearby”

“This the land were my house is located. I live here. This is my name”

“Someone i am related to died and now i feel am urge to write up our entire family tree on this stone”

“Fragmented text”

“The scribe wants us to know that their runes are hella fine”

“The scribes name is rödballe”

“Bridge!!! I built bridge!!!” (The bridge thing is a mayor obsession…)

“I created a path for public use. This is my name, and this is the name of my entire family tree, also i list which regions my relatives visited. Also how some of them died”

And the most classic one

well

behold, the journal of recreational linguistics

with such delightful papers as ‘tennis puns’, ‘animals in different languages’, and ‘gifts from a homonymous benefactor’

i didn’t realize how much work this was until i snuck down late one night for a cookie. and saw my mother bent over my giant book of ciphers and muttering to the dog “is this another code or can she not spell?” (i could not and still can not spell) and i was a bit angry at first but i kept watching and she KEPT AT IT. checking everything in that book against my letter and i never felt so loved. my mom with a full time job sitting up to figure out my silly letters said just because i enjoyed the game. 

i got her this bio of james madison a few years ago for xmas with a simple number substitution cipher on the inside saying “In thanks for your dedicated years of service, your daughter and occasional President.” She still has it pride of place on her desk next to the obligatory kid pics

If you have ever had to write a resume for work or for an application, then you know the hardest part is figuring out what type of words to use that sound professional and and intelligent.

Example: If an application asks you if you have any relevant experience for a job at a day care center and you have experience, like you have babysat children. You would look at the words in the columns to see what words you should use that will help your resume stand out. You might put down “Have supervised and attended to children on a regular basis.”

Book illustrations by Albert Dubout for L'Ingenieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche

GUYS THIS IS AMAZING

SERIOUSLY

6000 YEARS

STORIES THAT ARE OLDER THAN CIVILIZATIONS

STORIES THAT WERE TOLD BY PEOPLE SPEAKING LANGUAGES WE NO LONGER KNOW

STORIES TOLD BY PEOPLE LOST TO THE VOID OF TIME

GUYS LOOK AT THIS

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS

So @dreriart made a post about commission pricing and I thought since it is doin’ the rounds I’d copy-paste this thing I wrote on DA over to Tumblr because for some reason I … never … did that … before?? So one recurring thing I see a lot in the art community in many different formats is ‘how much should I charge for my commissions?’ What normally follows is a lot of bad advice. Terrible advice. So I’m here to give you some good advice and tell you all about how to value your skillset and price accordingly. This guide has been written with the intended audience of folk who are just starting out with commissions, but I hope it will encourage other artists to give themselves a fair wage and, of course, a lot of this can be transposed over to other creative professions as well. So let’s answer the question of ‘how much should I be charging people for work?’ The answer to this is deceptively simple. Here are the questions you need to ask yourself to form an appropriate response:

Where do you live?

How old are you?

For obvious reasons I cannot assist you with these. But once you have these you go to Google and you type in the following: ‘minimum wage per hour in <location name>’ Which is more than likely going to bring up an official government page for your area. Here is the one for the UK since that is where I live.Now what? Well. How old are you? Because some locations have different rates for those in different age brackets. But essentially all you need to do is get the following info: How much is the minimum wage per hour for my age in my area? Now that you have this, how long does a piece take you? You do not need to be exact. A rough guesstimation will do. This will form your base price of: Minimum Wage x Estimated Hours Therefore if I take five hours to paint a portrait and my min wage is £7.83 then my base price for a painted portrait is £39.15.

That is the absolute minimum you should be charging for your work.

And please take into considerations the following:

Working outside your comfort zone will up times taken on a piece.

If you’re working with traditional materials, how much for paper/canvas/paint/pens/etc?

Minimum wage is quite often garbage anyway.

Whenever I say this though, I often get a variety of responses in the negatory for this method. I have answers for each of them. So, let’s run a sort-of-FAQ on this method shall we?

I’m not good enough to price that high.

Yes you are. Who says? Your government, for starters. Also me. Here’s the thing. No matter the quality of your art, you deserve a fair living wage for your work. There are lots of people out there with no understanding of the time, effort and tears that go into honing artistic skills. Digital art, making comics, mastering musical composition, sculpting, or whatever it is all takes time to learn and we are constantly growing and improving. And if someone wants to hand you money for what you are producing guess what? You ARE good enough. That is the proof right there. Another human being wants to give you cold hard cash for something that only you can make. If it puts a different perspective on things for you, think of job roles that would be traditionally minimum wage. Probably the one most people will go to is ‘burger flipping at McDonalds’ as an example of a low skill occupation that is stereotypically easy and for those who failed in life etc. etc. (spoiler alert: it isn’t, but that’s a journal entry for another day). Why should this theoretical failure of humanity earn more than you doing a job that ‘anyone can do’? Because art is absolutely more difficult than cleaning out a McFlurry machine (that’s a legit fact by the way: I’ve cleaned one of those and art is way harder). Also, art is a luxury product my friend. No one needs to be buying commissions of their MMO character. They want it? They can play by our rules. And they will.

My family member/friend/random internet guy said that’s too expensive and I should lower my prices.

Your family member/friend/random internet berk is a fucking idiot at best, or intentionally trying to get you to undersell at worst. Firstly, I’d be willing to bet that the person who said this to you is not an artist. If so, what makes them more qualified than another actual artist to tell YOU how to price yourself? Because you trust their opinion? Yeah, but what if their opinion is formed on a factually incorrect assumption of how much art costs/the time it takes to produce because that is a HUGE deal in our community right now. And what if they just want you to stay cheap because it threatens them? Or, as a consumer, want you to stay cheaper for their own selfish purchasing habits? What then? Tell them to fuck off.

But there is someone better than me charging less! Why should a client pick me over them?

Spoiler alert: there will always be someone better than you charging less. There are thousands of mega quality artists out there. I’m considered expensive for what I produce, especially as I live in a country with a currency that translates highly to other currencies. Yet people constantly ask me for commission work. So what gives? Here are some reasons why a prospective client might chose you over someone else:

You are nicer than they are.

You are faster than they are.

You’re working in a niche sector.

They know you personally.

They like your art style better.

You have lots of good feedback.

A friend recommended you.

They aren’t even open for commissions right now.

They had a bad experience with that artist in the past.

You’re easier to purchase from.

You have a larger following and purchasing from you exposes that audience to them by proxy.

There are lots of other reasons but price isn’t necessarily often the deciding factor for a lot of clients. Don’t spend your life being concerned with how other people are better than you or you’ll never be happy.   I’m nervous about pricing so highly! What if no one wants my art?If a client doesn’t want to pay you a fair living wage for their luxury item purchase then that’s a client you can probably do without to be honest with you.Someone complained about my prices being so high! What do I do? Refer them to this:

Anyone who is not guaranteed work for a set amount of hours per week is absolutely within their right to charge well over the minimum wage, to cover those hours that they are not guaranteed.

Ever wonder why the plumber is so expensive? Or the electrician? The pc repair guy (£60 to transfer my data? Really? All you do is plug it in and leave it for a few hours..)

That’s why. Because most traders/self employed people don’t have work lined up 9-5 mon-fri (though it’s great news if you do!). If my lovely pc repair tech only charged me £20 to transfer my data, or £5 labour (half an hour) + >insert price of laptop screen here< to repair my screen, he’s never going to make enough money to stay open, because he doesn’t have people coming and going in his shop all day every day.