#commission tips

Friendly reminder to fellow creatives: Always trust your actual PayPal dashboard, never screenshots or emails asking you to “unlock” payments.

Or stick to Ko-Fi.

Report, block, move on.

I just have no idea where to start, so if anyone has tips, or videos on how to start doing that stuff, or any other relevant information , that would be great.

I believe it is novice / small accounts friendly, pardon since there are spelling mistakes since English isn't my first language

Hi hi! I actually wrote a big Entry on Tumblr, actually two (tho the second one is actually small and less serious)! So you may want to check them out, of course, there are no magical solutions to sell comms, nor everything that I wrote is 100% going to work nor the absolute truth, but its something to start somewhere:

1. Don’t accept people sending you messages asking for free art. I know it’s tempting because you don’t feel like your art is “worth actual money” because maybe you’re not that practiced yet but there are other ways to put yourself out there other than just taking free commissions, because the thing is people who send you messages like that do not respect you and will not respect you no matter what.

2. A way to exchange art without receiving money with people, but still gaining some notoriety and experience are art trades and requests. Request and people asking for free art sound very similar, but there is one big distinction. It’s that with requests people don’t expect you to make something for them. They are just giving you ideas. People who ask for free art expect it to be up to their standards as if they paid for it and they will treat you as subhuman. Requesters don’t usually do that and if they do, you can turn them down because it’s a request.

3. Some more advice for taking commissions because I certainly needed this advice is if someone contacts you asking for commissions and they start the conversation with a price, especially if that price is very generous; It is more likely than not a scam. If you have on your page that you have commissions opened or you have a pinned post about commissions being open, but they still message you asking if your commissions are opening, they’re also probably scamming you because they didn’t actually go to your page. One thing I fell for is someone telling me that they accidentally sent too much money through and asked me to reimburse them only to have the check bounce and me to have lost a significant amount of money. Never ever ever send money back to someone commissioning you, especially if they’re already kind of shady. (if the sum actually does appear in your bank account fully confirmed and you get verification that it is actually there you could potentially send money back, but it would be better to talk to someone at the bank first to be safe.) 

4. Especially on Instagram beware of accounts that will have a profile picture that is usually just some man, and the account only has three pictures on it. Typically you’ll get messages from these types of accounts saying something along the lines of that they love your art style and they’re wanting a piece drawn of their grandchild or son or something along those lines and then once again they will also open with telling you how much they will pay you out of the gate, ($400 is an amount I see used often) which will be an absurd amount of money. 

5. Never ever ever give anyone your bank information over the Internet. If they’re not willing to pay via PayPal, Venmo, Cash app or any of those other money trading apps, that’s sketchy Af. I’ve had people use the excuse that they’re using their business account and therefore can’t use those apps. This is a lie, same with telling you that they can’t send the payment because the money won’t transfer because it’s too large an amount this is also a common lie, most money transferring apps have a relatively generous cap off so unless you’re selling commissions for thousands and thousands of dollars they shouldn’t be having an issue. Same thing also goes for mail delivery checks.

6. Don’t undersell yourself, but if you don’t feel comfortable selling your art for a steeper price because of your experience level, then at the very least set a reasonable price and have a limit to how many slots do you have available for commissions because otherwise people are gonna take advantage of the low price and you’re gonna be swamped with like 10 commissions at the same time where you making not even two dollars an hour.

since I wanted to earn some money during summer, I wanted to open some art commissions. To be honest, I don’t even know how to start.

I don’t know which platform to choose, how to decide the pricing, and so on. In addition, I’m a small artist so I’m not really known into the art community.

If someone has some experience or tips about art commissions, I’ll gladly listen to them. Feel free to dm me here on on my instagram (@rqzorcr3st)

Hi, I'm making this article to maybe help some new artists that want to open their commissions and have some questions or need some tips! That can apply to new artist or even more experienced one. I have more than 10 years of experience in commissions, but I do not assume I know everything, feel free to comment your tips! I will update this article if needed.

Take note english is not my main language I'm sorry about the mistakes!

Let's start!

Make it easy for clients to contact you

It's better to be in multiple platform to be able to reach the most possible people you can. Make it easy for potential client to reach you, that can be on social media, email etc. At the same time, you have to take extra time to keep it up with all those platforms so I mostly keep myself with only 3-4, that's plenty enough. Also you need to know that depending of what do you draw some social media can be better than an other one.

Send the payment before starting

You always should ask at least one payment before starting anything. That can be half/half or full payment, feel free to settup the best for you and your client. Never draw anything for free, including free sketches etc.

Send previews of your work before the final

It's important for client to have a follow of the work you are making for them. It's can be a sketch or any wips, it's mostly to be sure you are in the good direction and not to start everything again at the end. This is also why I recommend to get your fisrt payment before sending previews. It's also help to keep a confiance with clients and make they feel sure about what a are your making. Always contact them if they have any issues, like delay or any complications. Just be honest at the end!

Write your conditions

A tip that I don't see a lot of artists doing, take a few time to write all your conditions in a picture with your commissions, google drive or other and send it to the client before they commission you. It can be conditions like about refund, nfts, AI art utilisation and commercial conditions etc. This is more to protect you at the end, even if the client doesn't read it you can use it to defend yourself if something bad happen. Just think about the worst and a way to protect you in any case possible.

Make your portfolio (your arts) visible and easy to access

The first thing you need it's to show to people what you can do, so make it easy for they to have access to your work. That can be with a commission post that you plug on the top or your social media, that can be a artist portfolio etc. Just take an extra care that your work is easy access for people and also represent what you want to sell to people.

Plug yourself

It's rare that if you are a new artist, people won't reach you for commissions most of the time. You have to go and see the opportunities youself. That can be as simple than just sharing your arts and plug your commissions in the post. You can also check some group, or communities when they look for an artist and plug yourself directly.

How to settup your price

They have no best way to settup your price, but if I can help I have maybe few tips you can take. The best thing is to think about time versus money, how much you are ok to draw for someone else? Take note this is your free time that you use for someone else. It's also important to know your speed. I love to set my price at 20$/h but it's maybe not possible to you. It's also depend of the demand, if you have a larger followers base your commission will fill faster because you have more client and your commission will be always full, better to rise the price to slow down the demand. Also you can compare yourself a bit to other artist in the same art style or range, but it's important to know that most people set their price pretty low in the art community. Feel free to go with what you feel, if you are not motivated to draw maybe its a problem that your price is too low! It also depend if you want to do it fulltime or it's only on part time and you are not stressed to have commission or not.

Discounts

It's not a obligation but you can make special discounts on your commission to make people more welling to commission you. That can be special day discount (Black Friday exemple) but also if you like to draw certain things (like 10% discount on certain characters on franchises). It can make you have more commissions that you like to draw , it's a win-win!

Conclusion