Recently I reached out to an artist to commission a few battle animations, and upon getting their rates I opted to look elsewhere. The quality of their work sure as heck is there, don’t get me wrong, I just can’t throw money around like I used to because mortgage and bills 'n stuff. Still wanting to get the anims commissioned I started thinking about who else I could ask.
I thought about it for a bit then was like “It’d sure be neat if we had a comprehensive list of people who take commissions, what they commission, what their rates are 'n whatnot”. So how about we do just that? Have a thread where artists† (or whoever is open to commissions for whatever) list what they do, what their price range is, and link to a portfolio showcasing their work to help make it easier for commissioners.
Ideally, I think it’d be great if everyone with open comms made a single reply to said thread using a standardized format (not this thread, this is just for discussing the idea) and then just edited their reply as they see fit to update them accordingly; and have said thread moderated with scrutiny, getting rid of anything that isn’t a content creator’s self-placed ad. That way we’ll always have a one-stop shop to see who does what and if they’re accepting work.
For the posting format I was thinking we have each person make a single reply where they fill out an entry for each asset they do :
Asset: (Be specific, no general posts allowed*.)
Rates: (including blurb explaining rate ranges if applicable)
Comm Status: (If comms are open or not at this point in time)
Portfolio: (Linked and not inserted directly into their reply? Mainly because I want to keep it standardized and independent of what type of asset you’re trying to bank on)
About Me: (Optional. This one is just for funzies)
I know I’m not the most artistically inclined piece of furniture here, so I’d like to open the floor to the more artsy folk around here, namely those who take comms; and (more importantly) those who pay for comms.
†Footnote
Artwork is probably the only thing people really pay for around here? I’ve seen like one thread where somebody offered to do ASM shenanigans for money and one thread for commissioning a musician to compose original work. A while back there was like one guy from the pokemon hacking community that offered me like $12.50 per custom song and he reached out to everyone with the music role in FEUcord.
*Footnote
The whole point of this is to make it easier for the person who’s possibly trying to give you money.
i will draw ms paint doodles for you at the rate of 39$/hr
I don’t think artists need to be pressured into sharing their rates. It’s up to the consumer to shop around if they want to save a bit of money. In my experience most private artists, musicians, and teachers don’t really charge unreasonable amounts. But doing these things takes a lot of time and effort, so especially on a longer commitment the price can really add up.
Users are free to share their work and simply say that they accept commissions. I’d leave it at that, personally.
Any pressure and comparisons are really just a consequence of the free market that is commissioning, they already happen even if not openly. Cataloguing artists with some showcase of their works would simply increase the transparency with the “shopping around” part, which benefits both the potential commissioners and commissioneds.
That said, I think listing exact prices shouldn’t be part of it. A simple showcase, possibly a vague price range, with a link to their personal thread/page would be more convenient for the artists, to make it clear that it’s an agreement based on the individual requests, and not like buying stuff off shelves.
Not only potential commissioners but also other artists could be interested in seeing other price ranges too for reference. If you ask me right now, I’ve been told that the minimum for a full custom portrait formatted for GBA is 20 dollars. I don’t know who (else?) follows that, I don’t know if there’s an agreement between artists to never ask for less, if so I don’t know who’s breaking the rule, I don’t know if I should be telling people who ask about commissions that value when they ask about the minimum, so that they can make an educated offer up-front. But with a catalogue, I’ll have a better idea and will just be able to direct people to it.
artwork is personalized. you need custom artwork for custom characters
asm scary and mostly unneeded as many things are already done and wizards generous, music unneeded as everyone just uses endless_battle.midi
To return to the main topic at hand, I would say compiling a list in the main post of just people who do accept commissions/are available (although this changes often so maybe not that part) and allow people to just contact themselves for rates.
You can add me in the commission section for maps, both gba style and world maps.
Yeah I think just a general list of who’s open for commissions and what they’re doing commissions of would be super convenient. Often I’ve had the means to commission people but everyone I know of is busy.
this reminds me of the spriters guild on serenes forest if i remember correctly - it was a list of spriters, mappers, animators and whatnot available for work. I don’t think rates were posted, though. And usually those depend on complexity, anyway. Working with many artists over the years, there’s not often a constant price even for varying portraits from the same artist.
Are there any specific guidelines on what methods of payment/compensation are allowed?
I live in a country where things like PayPal are unfortunately not available. As funny as it may seem, I’ve been paid with Steam store currency (among else) in the past for my work (which I don’t really mind).
I think most people use PayPal, yet if you really want to commission them you can always talk about the payment with them directly, unless they explicitly stated that they only accept PayPal as the method of payment.
As if it really needed another vote lol