Commission Discussions

Can’t read the forums from my work computer but I do occasionally browse them from my Kindle… The Kindle is amazingly slow as a web browser but once in a while it’s so dead at work that I still do it.

Anyway, I read FrozenDeath post (in the Sales & Deals thread http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=194771) and wanted to respond so rather than wait 5 hours until I got home I figured I would write it up and just post it later – Thus if any of my points have already been covered, I apologize.


1)Lead loss.
I’m all in favor of supporting the local community – When it’s not too much hassle and when my local community has what I want and has it at comparable quality for comparable cost. How much quality will I give up to go local? How much more will I pay? Eh, it depends… But all things being equal I would rather shop local and, for arts sake, this forum is my local community.

I actually had the shop local thought in mind during my recent rash of commission purchases. One problem I encountered, however, was the availability of local product. One or two were full up and not taking more at the moment, at least one doesn’t do commissions (yeah, I’m glaring at you, CR!) and several others either didn’t appeal to me, didn’t list even ballpark prices, weren’t clear about whether they were open or not or were just flat out more than I was willing to pay.

As such, my plans to buy local were at least partially foiled. I did hook up with Cashoo for a couple (which I am eagerly, but patiently, waiting on) but ended up going to an “outsider” for the other
initial purchases. Since then I’ve been able to stay more local, swooping down on Foo’s and Mr. Swan’s recent openings, but before just recently they were not open…

So, to me at least, being a contributor to these boards, or even just an occasional visitor, is a factor on where I will take my business. But it is not a deciding factor. Availability, quality and price are all
going to have their say as well.

I would encourage everyone to support our local artist folk when possible… but I’d also ask the artist folk to recognize that sometimes that shiny thing from someplace else is just too shiny to ignore… Or
that sometimes a deal is just too good to pass up. Or I was just shopping at a time when too many had closed signs in their windows around here…


2)Getting a deal.
I basically agree with the original post here but have a couple additional thoughts… (If for now other reason than to alleviate my boredom here at work…)

Spending X amount on art you don’t like is stupid. Spending half of X is still stupid. I would hope that people don’t jump on one of these sales just because it is a sale. I do believe cost should be taken into
consideration when purchasing art but if it’s your only consideration then I suspect you’re not still going to love the piece 6 months, 1 year or longer down the line…

Still, if the choice is between artist A and B – both having styles you like, both being roughly equal in talent, etc… Then it’s tough not to let cash have it’s voice heard.

And, at the end of the day, it’s the purchaser’s job to know the marketplace. Just because a person chops their price doesn’t mean they weren’t over charging to being with. (I’m making that claim about
nobody, just stating a general fact.) Before someone makes any purchase of any kind they should have some sense of what else is available on the marketplace…


3)Sale Items.
I don’t necessarily think that a sale is going to result in sketchier work. I think that any artist who is going to have a sale and do less than their normal standard of quality on those pieces are only shooting
themselves in the foot.

I’m new in the commissioning business but I have to believe a lot of artists get work through word of mouth and through previous buyers showing off their new purchases. Sure, the artist can always not include a less than great work in their gallery but the people the buyer shows it to will still see it and judge the artist by it.

One thing sales are definitely good for is getting sales you wouldn’t otherwise get. I tend to be a fan of the good comic book art to more realistic styles… To details and realism. As such I’m unlikely to
commission someone who does chibi work (is that the word? Not being a huge fan I’m not even sure…) but if I saw there was a sale, if I thought the artist was talented and I had some spare cash… I just may
give it a try and see what I thought of the results. Personally, I wouldn’t do this at the expensive of other pieces I really wanted but a sale just may convince me to shell out a little more cash than I was
planning on…





Anyway, none of this is meant as arguments against what FrozenDeath had to say… rather just my thoughts on the subject. I’ve actually been meaning to make a post concerning my thoughts and observations of
jumping into the commission market and this allowed me to touch briefly on a couple of them. Maybe I should do that now and put this all in a new thread rather than hijack the sale thread? We’ll see how quiet
work stays…


Work stayed quiet and rather than double posting... Here goes: (And sorry about formatting, linebreaks got all screwed emailing from work to home and I'm too lazy to fix.) ((Never mind, they were too annoying, had to fix... Still not perfect but better anyway.))



As some of you may be aware, I recently jumped into the commissioning of art for my CoH characters with both feet. I went from 0 to 60 practically overnight. I have yet to received a finished piece (if any
of the artists are reading this – No rush!) and yet find myself with 12 pieces in the pipeline, 2 pieces yet to have their concept finalized (the CCC#3 contest) and 4 other pieces that were given away….

Holy moley, that’s the first time I did a count… I did kind of go whole hog, didn’t I???

Anyway, various thoughts came to mind during the process of finding an artist to hire, contacting them, etc etc and I figured I would put a few of them down for others to see… Some of my thoughts may be more
interesting to artists, others to buyers. Heck, it being me, I can’t guarantee any of the thoughts are interesting to anyone really… But I will do my best to keep the thoughts brief (at least for me) even if a
bit disorganized (since this is off the top of my head…)

Maybe this thread can become a place for general talk about the process of purchasing and/or doing commissions or maybe it’ll just be my scattershot thoughts. Who knows?

1) The artists need to keep their pages updated.
I’m not saying that they need to do daily updates on where they are in pieces or anything, nor to include an up to the minute listing of their queue… But I ran across more than a few artists I would have
otherwise considered but whose latest journal entry (or anything with a date) on their page was a year or more old. They were on TA’s Resource list so I kind of assumed they were still active but no
movement on their page that I could see…

Sure I could have sent a note asking if they were active and open and such but *shrug* I basically just wasn’t going to be bothered and instead moved on.

1a) Listing a price scale helps.
I don’t need prices written in stone.. I’d be ok with negotiating final price based on what I was looking to get done… but I want some kind of ballpark named so I know if we’re talking the same league or
not. Again, I could send a note inquiring but I can also just move on…

2) Diversify your galleries…
I’m not even talking about expanding outside your personal style, I’m just talking subject matter. Mainly, I’m talking gender.

I saw a preponderance of galleries containing nothing but (or at least vast majorities of) female characters. These galleries were generally very nice to look at… but at the same time weren’t giving me all the
information I needed.

Mainly playing male characters and 2 of my first 3 pieces I wanted done being male, I wanted to find an artist I believed could draw a good male character. You would think if one was good at one gender they’d be
good at the other but that’s not always true… I saw at least two galleries where the males just looked like females without the ta-tas… And speaking of which, am I the only one with a female character who
didn’t go to the plastic surgeon and get filled up to overflowing?

3) How much do I tell an artist?
3a) One a couple of the pieces I had very specific poses in mind, in others not so much. On one commission I was even willing to let the decision of which character to do be up to the artist. My general
opinion is that I’m paying the artist so I should be able to be as specific and detailed as I want. If the artist doesn’t want the job they can just say so…

But on the pieces I was less specific about I was a bit curious how much or how little the artists liked the “do what you want” attitude. Do they like the freedom or would they rather just fill an order? I imagine different artists have differing feeling but it was something I couldn’t help wonder about…

3b) For my first two sets of commissions I was getting my 3 mains each done by two different artists. I had poses for each in mind and provided picture similar to what I was looking for in my reference gallery for
each. The two artists have different styles and talents and I was very interested (still am) to see the different takes on each character. While I am very interested in comparing the two sets, this was by no
means meant as any kind of competition or the like…

Yet I fretted a bit that it would be perceived as such and I wondered if I would be better off explaining this to them both (in case they happened upon the others work) or if that would add extra pressure to
them… I also fretted that I was worrying over nothing and that neither would care one whit… They were getting paid so why should they?

In the end I told them both… I would rather err on the side of openness. Told them each that if either was uncomfortable or anything I could change my selection of poses or what not… Neither had a problem
and I still can’t wait to compare the works. One said people do it all the time (and I thought I was just being odd… or maybe I was and they were being generous) and at least one expressed interest in seeing the
others work once done…

Still, I wonder if artists would rather know or not know in that kind of situation? Would it add stress or no? Would it be different if the styles weren’t really different?

4) Hiring local.
This got started in a different thought but I figured I would touch on it again here…

All in all, I’m a big fan of keeping things local, meaning of hiring artists from the board I hang out on. All things being equal I’d rather hire an artist I chat with on these forums than someone I just found off a list or through surfing Deviant Arts…

Still, that doesn’t (nor do I think should it) mean that I’m only hiring local. Sometimes the local talent may be busy on other projects/full up. Sometimes I may just get wowed by something else. Also, I would think part of the whole collecting thing would be variety and while we do have a variety here, it’s still a limited variety…

So while I’ll hire local when I can (not that I will be keeping up my current pace of purchases!) I don’t want anyone to feel slighted if I don’t hire them… It could be any number of reasons and talent level is at about the bottom of that list. Not to say I don’t care about talent but rather to say that I haven’t seen anyone on this forum who takes commissions who isn’t talented (in my opinion…) Instead there’s the whole issue of are you open while I’m shopping, of is your style in line with what I’m looking for and a bunch of other possible obstacles… I’d recommend to every purchaser that they buy local when they can, and to every artist that they understand when they don’t.

5) Controversial subject matter.
Ever been put off from considering an artist because of the subject matter in their gallery?

There was one artist I would have seriously considered except they had a bunch of political cartoon type art in their gallery that really turned me off. It wasn’t just that it was anti-Democrat or anti-Obama but more that it was (in my opinion) crossing the line into racist.

Now I’m a pretty easy going guy and a pretty damn liberal guy… By no means am I about censorship or boycotts or such. They had every right to create that art, to exhibit it in their gallery, to sell it, whatever… But I also have the right to take my business elsewhere and did so.

My impression was that they were commissioned pieces. Whether the artist agreed with the sentiments or not, I’ll not argue that he shouldn’t have made a buck doing them or not. If I knew the person I’d probably suggest that different political cartoon material might be more appropriate for an open gallery they’re using to try to drum up sales though. I just don’t think it’s smart to potentially piss off a large segment of society when you’re trying to turn a buck…

Then again maybe the cartoons reflected their views and he’s happy to not get the business of a liberal. If so, more power to them.

I’m not trying to drum up a political discussion, a race discussion, a censorship discussion or anything of the like… Just including a little segment of my commission shopping experience. If anything, I’m merely suggesting artists consider whether or not the pieces in their gallery are attracting the clients they are looking for and consider the possibility that some pieces could push off clients.

6) TA’s Resource post is a great, great tool…
The only things I could think of to make it better are pretty impractical to actually be done. One would be to make sure the artists listed were current and still active… Actually TA may do this (no idea how often he has contact with each artist listed) but he sure can’t make them periodically update their sites so it’s obvious their still active… Heck, I should just ask him how often (if at all) he keeps in touch with each one after the initial “You want on my list” phase. I’ll do that if I remember later….

The other thing would be to have a listing of who specialized in what… But the problem is figuring out which specialties to list and who qualified to be on those listed. It’s just that in looking to find an artist for my commissions the one character wears battle armor and I didn’t see a whole lot of that in galleries. I saw pieces with tech parts and such but very few full on Iron Man type armors. The other thing I was looking for is someone who did group pictures… Lot’s of artists mentioned $x more per character but few had examples of more than two characters in a picture. Not that either is a specialty exactly but I did see a few for each who mentioned they wouldn’t do them…

- - - - - -






Well, the time at work when I actually have to work is approaching….

The above isn’t really meant as much of anything except random thoughts and such that came to me during the commissioning process. Not particularly looking for answers to the questions I posed (not that I’m not looking for answers either) or to tell anyhow how to run their business or how to choose an artist. Just thoughts and observations of my own experience and messed up brain o.0

Feel free to add your own thoughts, comments or observations… Feel free to comment on mine. Feel free to ignore this thread altogether...

I think this is a great post - obviously well thought out.

I'm both an artist (if I can call myself that) and a collector. I've commissioned dozens of pieces, and have found most of the artists to be very responsive. I had seen their galleries prior, and was generally happy with the results. As an artist, I try to keep my price list and waiting list as up to date as possible... but I get some odd pieces that seem to hang on my list for a long time (for various reasons... client disappears/loses contact, that sort of thing). I've done probably over a hundred commissions for the CoH crowd, and I don't think I've had any major mess-ups. I'm sure not all of my peices have been perfect, far from it, but I've always tried to get the work out as promised.

I really ca sympathize with your frustrations in 'buying local' - the selection is limited. Basically, the same complaint people may have about 'buying local' in any market.

All kidding around aside for a moment I just wanted to say thanks for posting
up your thoughts and experiences on that flurry of commissions.

If nothing else it should give new people unsure of what to expect some perspective (that makes
it useful right there) additionally you raise several good points that should be open for discussion
but haven't been brought up in a while so kudos for that.

I do have some thoughts on the subject that I'll post up later but for now... they extended
2x XP another day yo.

Edit: Also it's not entirely true that you have 12 pieces in the pipeline and nothing completed yet... you do
have one finished piece (though it isn't full length or in color).

One --> Artz Giveaway <-- To Rule Them ALL!

I will settle this. ORANGE FTW! - Ex Libris

I'll have to write my feelings down on the matter aswell. when time is permitting.

Bravo. It's nice to see other people posting their thoughts on the subject.

As for general guidelines when dealing with an artist? There are NONE. Every artist is completely different and it's basically impossible to make a set of guidelines to follow because you'll always find the one artist who thinks oppositely of it. Instead, I prefer a sliding scale of scouted info. Asking what the artist is comfortable and then giving them info and resources based upon that, rather than providing my own off the bat. If an artist works best from their own ideas, then I let them do that. But I'm prepared to flood them with info in the event of them needing it.

Assume nothing and prepare for everything, is generally my method of operation.

The price set by the artist is really just an arbitrary price point that they pick. There's no real right or wrong answer to what it should be set as. If the artist desires business, then they will conform to the economic flows of their audience or else suffer, but this is not a requirement for commission work in general.

I personally charge only [the price of a fast food meal] for commissions, because I do not want to use it as a money source. Not every artist does or wants to. Is it worth my time to charge that little? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't really care. I'm free to pick and choose my art and what I will accept as a commission so when I don't want to do them, I simply don't take them. It's really as simple as that. I could likely get as much as 50 dollars for my art, due to name recognition and specialty content within certain groups. But frankly, I don't want to. I like having low prices so that other poor people can afford my art, when they're locked out of getting art from the people who charge and arm and a leg. That in itself brings me happiness, so it's fulfilling in a non-monetary way.

I know of many artists who are in that same boat and will charge very low prices for their own art, not because they undervalue it, but simply because they want to. It's a personal decision that we all make, so it's pretty difficult to say, "you're pricing your own commissions wrong."

First off, lemme say that when I posted in TA's thread I was still on vacation and had just downed a bottle of wine. So it maybe should have been sent via pm..I dunno. Sometimes I think it's worth it to throw comments like that out there in front of the community to see how people respond and get a sense of where the current community stands. Sorry if it rubbed anyone the wrong way.

I think the point I was making about lead loss is being misconstrued. I certainly don't think that people here should feel obligated to buy art from the "locals" just because they are active on the forums and maybe have given away free stuff.

My issue had more to do with advertising. This forum is not a public space in the way deviant art is. You have to have an active account to post here. And the people using the forums to share and promote their art here are an active part of this community.

Now let's use Foo's sale as an example. "Hey guys, check it out--my car died so I'm having a sale." What if I went on DA and found someone with a similar style, holding a similar sale because they broke their leg and came back and advertised it here ? I personally don't think that's an upstanding thing to do another member of this community. That's how I personally feel about the deal thread. I'm completely fine with people not agreeing with me, but I felt I should throw it out there.

My car is fixed now.


BUT THE BILLS REMAIN.

I'm a cheap commissioner, I'll be the first to admit that, I have a soft cap of $50 for a piece and no matter how good the art is, I can't and won't go above that so I do jump on sales when they happen for artists I like. Some of the results are worth way, way more than that and I feel lucky to have gotten it, but frankly if they charged what it was worth I would never be able to get it. So I'm all in favor of sales and deals

There's something to be said for 'buying local', but its also a matter of style. I have a particular taste for anime/manga styled art, not many artists here use that style, so often my commissions go to outside sources, a lot of which were not originally or current CoH players, but became a favorite of these forums, Hugohugo, Jtran, PlayWorkArt to name a few. I think excluding them is a bit of a disservice to art fans really.

My views on commissioning are similar to Kai and Eddy_Swan's. I'm a starving college student on a pretty fixed income, and any money for purely fun stuff like art is what (if anything) is leftover at the end of the month. Sales are important to me, since it usually takes a few months of saving up to afford a commission, so if someone is having a half-off deal, I want to know about it. There are some artists whose work I admire greatly, but their prices are just too high for me to realistically consider them.

When I can afford something, I'll try to "buy local", but not simply because they are local. The "local" folks are active players, so I can feel confident they will have a good grip on what costumes and settings look like, and let them have a little more freedom with the design. They post a pretty wide variety of art, show off WiPs and comment about what kinds of characters they enjoy drawing, what their strong and weak points are, etc. It makes it easier to match up a character with an artist who will really make them shine. I know it's technically just a "I give you money, you give me a pretty picture" business deal, but if I can, I want the artist to enjoy working on my art.

That said, there are a lot of great artists on deviantart, and if an opportunity presents itself there, I'm certainly going to take advantage of it if I can. I don't see a sale announcement thread as terribly threatening. It's dropped off a little as of late, but there used to be a fair number of threads just announcing goings-on over on deviantart, things like "John Becaro's having a sale!" would get posted without driving local artists out of business. All this will do is consolidate those announcements. I dunno, just the 2 inf. of a guy who enjoys this forum a lot, even if I don't post that much.

Missed a couple things I wanted to respond to earlier...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jophiel Have you tried offering them art?

One of my favorite stories about was one I saw on TV about a guy who draws money. Cash. American currency. And buys stuff with it!

He does the art right there in front of people so they know it's not real... But it's amazingly detailed and realistic... He'll go into a normal store and try to buy groceries and stuff with it. Was very cool... Depending just how much he was trying to buy I just might let him if it was my place... (Saw this years and years ago... when US money was just one color. No idea on what artists name was...)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suichiro I personally charge only X-Y dollars for commissions, because I do not want to use it as a money source.

Cut most of the post for brevity...

I see nothing wrong with charging less because it's something you enjoy doing. I say bravo for giving the less monied a chance at great arts!

I would consider suggesting charging more "what it's worth" occasionally... Maybe some months earn yourself some cash, others bring your art to the masses. I see problems with that but something could probably be worked out...

I wouldn't suggest that because I think you are undervaluing yourself or such but merely because most people need money and if you can earn a bit of extra scratch doing what you love occasionally I see nothing wrong with that.

Of course if you don't need the money/have plenty to spare then nevermind

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eddy Swan as for something else FD mentioned in the other thread about folks who give free art to the community and earning respect before being fully embraced and promoted by the community I agree to a point but sometimes one can't resist the shiny toy's on DA sometimes. I think all of the artist's who actually frequent the boards have gifted art I'd love to have the time myself to gift more and do a second sketch a day thread but in my current circumstances its just not on the cards. but anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

I don't think an artist must provide any free art to be part of the community... It's nice when they do but I myself consider them part as long as they take part in the occasional discusion... Share their work (whether it was done as a gift or not) and are just generally around...

Nobody should have to give anything for free. Art takes time, effort and money (either through supplies or potential lost time working for paying customers.) It's great if they can donate occasionally but if not that's cool by me too.


ok, I think I'm caught up with all my inane comments