First off, I am not advertising myself, I don't know what the rule is on advertising on this forum, but if this Art thing works for me and you guys don't approve of advertising then I won't do it.

Any way.

For a while now I've been seriously considering taking commissions and selling them for profit, my problem is that I am unsure of how to charge my pieces, should I do it based on time/size/ and materials? Does any one have any experience in this area?

Artist that also does commission work here! and is also open for commissions as well cough

Well there's two things that will depend of how you'll price things. The first one is what sort of audience are you aiming for. If you're looking at the online audience, like doing commissions of the buyer's characters, characters they like, etc, then don't make it too expensive since most of the target audience is going to be aged... uh, mid/late teens to young/mid adults. Also, make sure you have variety of stuff to show, along with the average price for it. My average prices for art is Sketch: $10, Inks: $15, Flat Color: $20, Full Color: $25, Detailed Backgrounds: +$10. Again, these are base prices, and I'm happy to decrease the price a bit if the subjects aren't super complicated, or increase it if what they want is going to be more complicated for me. I also charge more for additional characters, usually about $5-10 depending on the quality and complexity.

If you're aiming for the more professional audience, like business owners looking for logos or graphic design, mascots, etc, then you should make your prices a bit higher, since what you're doing is going to be used for official things like signs and business cards. My prices for business stuff usually is around $70-150, depending on what they want.

The second thing you need to consider when pricing your stuff is how long it takes you to do a piece of a certain quality. Let's say someone pays you $30 for a fully colored piece; if you can complete it in about 2-3 hours or so, that'll net you $10-15 per hour. However, if it takes 10 hours to complete a piece, then you'll be earning $3 an hour, which... isn't a very good profit:time ratio.But this doesn't mean you should cost $80 for a lineart piece, especially if you're rather new in the freelance artist category. If you feel you're not quite up to par talent-wise, then start with smaller prices; as you develop more techniques and methods, don't be afraid to raise your prices a bit. Materials also usually affects prices as well; from what I'm familiar with, traditional pieces tend to be a bit more expensive that purely digital stuff, because it's not only using a real resource, but also because it's something physical, which makes it more valuable in the minds of many.

Oh! Also, if the commissioner whats you to do any super major edits to a piece, or completely redraw a piece because it's not what they envisioned, then it's perfectly fine that you ask for an extra payment, because they're giving you more work to do and you should be compensated for it. This situation is why I like to keep my commissioners up to date with progress on their pieces; if it's a full image, I show them the preliminary sketch to make sure they're fine with it, and to fix anything before I start majorly working on it. Communication is key! And also remember, it's completely your right to decline a commission if you don't want to do it for whatever reason; just don't be a jerkwad who says you'll do it and then take the money and runsoff with it without doing the work. EVER. EVERRRR.

That's all I can think of right now. Hopefully this helps a bit!

EDIT: Oops, I forgot to ask! Do you have a deviantART or some kind of online gallery I can take a look at? Seeing what you can do can help me suggest some base prices for your work.

Interesting...

I was planning on doing fan art for people (I'm currently working on Ponies, and I'm not a brony.) my own original ideas, and what ever else people want.

I was thinking that if I need to buy some supplies that I don't have then I'll have the person pay a portion upfront, which will be double the amount of what I had to buy, half of it towards the thing I need, and the other half towards the full price of the piece.

I asked my Dad and he suggested $15 an hour, sound good?

Most artists I've seen charge from 15-40 dollars. For example, atryl, a popular pony fanart artist, charges about 15 dollars for a sketch, if somebody requests a big, painted epic, he charges 30-something. The prices are steady across the board, from observations of many artists online.

Destructoid wrote:Most artists I've seen charge from 15-40 dollars. For example, atryl, a popular pony fanart artist, charges about 15 dollars for a sketch, if somebody requests a big, painted epic, he charges 30-something. The prices are steady across the board, from observations of many artists online.

Knew you'd respond >.>

Thing is, I don't want to under-charge myself, I have a tendency to put myself down, and my High school art teacher (a very straightforward and honest person) Told me that I'm good (something he rarely told students) and that I CAN NOT under-charge myself. BUT at the same time I don't want to charge too much since I'm sure people wouldn't buy from some one new who is charging a lot of money.

Slowly raise it as you get more popular or better! Then there's the issue of getting there. Draw horribly shocking cartoon porn until you're recognized enough to show your true colors. Make an art tumblr.

Meh, if the porn gets me money then sure! But yeah, I think as of right now my most expensive pieces would be a little over $100, but as I gain more buyers Ima raise the prices.


I have never watched MLP, but my friend wants me to draw Nightmare Moon, could you perhaps tell me about the character so I can make the drawing...feel like the character? If that makes sense.

Nightmare moon is worst character. Kay, so she's tall as princess Celestia, same height, body shape, but with a crest on her chest and a helmet. Cutie mark looks like a purple shit-stain with a crescent moon on it, same this is on her crest. Should look tyrant-ish and have an oppressive feel to her. She should also look arrogant and headstrong.

You could troll your friend by just drawing princess luna, and claiming you've never watched the show.

Pics here
http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/d/d4 ... s_S1E1.png
and here.
http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/f/f0 ... d_S1E1.png

Destructoid wrote:Nightmare moon is worst character. Kay, so she's tall as princess Celestia, same height, body shape, but with a crest on her chest and a helmet. Cutie mark looks like a purple shit-stain with a crescent moon on it, same this is on her crest. Should look tyrant-ish and have an oppressive feel to her. She should also look arrogant and headstrong.

You could troll your friend by just drawing princess luna, and claiming you've never watched the show.

Pics here
http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/d/d4 ... s_S1E1.png
and here.
http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/f/f0 ... d_S1E1.png

Interesting response O.o But kay, I think I know how I'm going to do this.

BTW that disgusting blue stringy stuff is supposed to be her mane. BTW if you're drawing pone, make sure to have your own OC.