Dear Tumblr,
All those posts you see of young artists charging $3, $6, $10 for a drawing because they need help? Thatâs fucking exploitation, and fuck you if you think itâs reasonable or a âgood deal" to pay nickels and dimes to squeeze a full-color original drawing out of some talented, hardworking kid because things are tight, and they canât afford their textbooks. Or food. They sure as hell canât afford to make you art for $6.
Instead, stop. And ask them where you can donate. If you can afford a $6 drawing, then you can afford to spend $6 simply to help someone. You donât need internal organs as payment.
Donât allow young artists to be exploited.
this and this some more.
Iâd go one step further and say: Offer to pay them decent Illustration wages instead if you still want a drawing, say around $20/hour. That way not only will you blow their socks off with your kindness and respect for their abilities, but you will also endow them with a sense of worth that theyâre probably hurting for after being surrounded by the sort that makes them feel like their services are so worthless.
Illustration is a professional skill requiring years of training and dedication, regardless if thereâs a school involved. If you enjoy that artistâs work and want to help them out, either donate like suggested above or else pay them what their work is worth and pass on the word.
Basically!
And if someone claims something that took you an hour to draw isnât worth at least around $10 per hour of work, dont listen to their bullying. To the non-artist, its hard to see the worth in art especially if they didnât put 10, 5, 2 or even 1 years of solid effort to get to the level of artistic ability there are today.
If the person complaining is still unhappy with the price despite that reasoning? Well let THEM make their own drawing themselves and spend the $10 elsewhere. GL to them getting the level of artistry you have without those years of experience they put behind them!
Honestly, I make designs for people for free, but someone offered me $20 for one once and I nearly cried.
PLEASE TIP ARTISTS.Â
ESPECIALLY IF YOU THINK THEY ARE UNDERCHARGING.
Iâm not in an artistic field but I do freelance and my philosophy is itâs none of my clientsâ damn business how much time I spend on a project. I charge by the final product (actually in my case I charge by the word count of the source text used to make the final product) that the client will receive. They can decide whether having the thing they need by the deadline they need it is worth my rate and thatâs the only judgement they get to make on the value of my work or my time.
