Some commission help for artists.

Been thinking about this hard.Hope this helps somebody I am no expert but I do alot of research and talk to a lot of talented artists.

Thank you J-foa , Robert and also Andreas for the help in teaching me. Let us start!

 Start with following :

1. Are you selling to survive? Cost for daily living must be reached not break-even. Or just for fun ?
   
2. Ask always for budget  after offering service , be polite if the person offers what you consider little. Nobody needs a queen or a king behavior.
3. Have a portfolio ready, do not link entire gallery , not very professional. 
4. Ask for deadline, if none is given try to finish as soon as possible.
5. Keep a business book rather then a commission journal , always write down outside the internet, In case of lost of internet. Save the reference on your computer or USB .
   

When selling art you generally price by the hour or as a flat rate. Depending on style, media, size, complexity and characters involved price per illustration can vary greatly. In other words the more details the design holds the more time and cost will be involved.
Designing a character based on text should always be a bit higher priced then working after reference in my view.


Complex character designs in form of many objects or clothing items.
One hair streak and a school uniform is perhaps not complex.


When setting prices do following:

1.  Basic character cost and detailed explanation for detailed cost with examples
   

2. Take extra for objects such as weapons or more then one individual.

3. Background or no-background is better to be added in pricing.
   

1.  Raw Sketch - send and ask customer if this is what they want
2. Lineart - asking if this is OK is optional depending on artist, but better if done.
3. Flat-coloring - water mark and send to customer.
4. When all clear, finish the coloring.
5. Do not accept request for changes after you finished coloring; unless change can be easily done.
   

Also about pricing , remember to price after  Personal, or non-company or project , because my view is that personal should be lower priced then let´s say project or art done for a company , but personal commissions vary in price based design and complexity  So try to find a medium. Always sell rights to image as package price or separate. Do not let person print for selling without paying you royalty for the artwork. Even if it is a customers character you lose money for allowing them to sell your art freely in a way. This is optional do. My view is that they should pay you for re-selling artworks you made.

Full ownership of rights: Cost for Full ownership best way to price such is to add 50% to cost per illustrations , but as I said above, a optional feature but recommended. 

Standard commission contract :

www.docracy.com/5843/commissio…
www.docracy.com/3152/designer-…



Here is a License contract :

i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee…
www.docracy.com/9fic0mfgq2/des…
sta.sh/01vls23xwoei

These are license contracts, which means they're only paying for a limited usage of the images, the rights revert to you at the end of the agreement, and you have the option of royalties. If you want to outright sell the images to this person forever, then a higher price would be preferable.

Good guides about commissions:

Client relationship
Code of fair practice

For more info, check out :

Graphic artist guild
Great website with good info.


I hope nobody got offended, more will be added to FAV this journal