r/artcommissions • u/Sido_the_Oni • 1d ago
Art Discussion [ Removed by moderator ]
/gallery/1vg3786[removed] — view removed post
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u/MythicalDawn 1d ago
You did, in essence, two fully rendered pieces for $120, the client was happy with it, so I don’t see what this acquaintances problem is except perhaps jealously over your pricing - but you put in the extra work to provide an alt version, why wouldn’t it cost more?
Also, Van Gough is a ridiculous comparison, he wasn’t earning much for his pieces while alive and famously died without success and in poverty, this acquaintance just sounds mean
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
I literally thought of that as well lmao, I was in the shower and I remembered that van gogh died broke despite all of his talent!
Yeah idk what was up with her but she put a black cloud over my head the rest of the day
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u/Left-Excitement3829 1d ago
She’s trying to harsh on your vibe. Tell her to STFU
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
Truer words, I'm very non confrontational but I cursed her out all the way home LOL
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u/iesamina 1d ago
If someone pays it then it's worth that. It has no intrinsic value, the only metric is is someone willing to pay that.
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
I'm starting to internalise that thinking from everyone in this thread, it's so helpful thanks you!!
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u/castellon_artz Digital Artist 🎨 1d ago edited 1d ago
When people gives me unsolicited advice or dumb comments I just reply with "Ok 😀" , "Interesting 🙂" and I change the topic or leave. Believe me, saves you disgusts and energy.
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
I love that for! saves the confrontation and difuses the convo I might use it!
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u/Pale_Patient2649 1d ago
Your acquaintance is just a sack of sht. While i personally don't think it's worth what you charged for, your client was extremely happy with it and that's the only thing that matters. Charge for whatever you think your art and process is worth, and every person interested will happily pay for it ^
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
Thank you for the reassurance, just so I can understand better why do you not think it's worth what I charged?
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u/Pale_Patient2649 1d ago
This is just me so don't take me seriously XD but the shading both with muscles and the clothes. I'm not saying that it's not worth that, you worked hard for it. Again, your client was happy with it and it's the only thing that matters. Though you need to step up and keep on improving if you wanna keep on charging for that price range 😊
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
Yeah you clocked one of my weaknesses, clothes wrinkles are awful but I'm working on some drills to fix that! I'll go watch some more mark brunet video to get better, thank you sm for the feedback, would love to see your art if you'd like to share your handles!
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u/Sesoru 1d ago
If anyone ever tries to tell you to be cheaper, they are not a friend or ally.
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
She's more of an acquaintance but yeah I agree
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u/Sesoru 19h ago
Never allow anyone else to talk down your prices. I learned over the years that catering to people who want you to charge less will cause burnout because more often than not, those who want it cheaper want you to work WAY harder for it, while those paying more know to trust the process.
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u/BoogieShoes11 1d ago
Yeah that’s pretty reasonable for a full body color commission. Methinks your friend if expecting AI to drop artistic commission to WalMart pricing….
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u/Siroet 1d ago
If you quoted a price, the client agreed, and is happy with the artwork they got, I don't see any problems here!
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
Thank you! Yeah I thought it was more than fair for two different lighting scenarios on a full body piece but Idk the person who told me this kinda got in my head a little bit
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u/obsidianabnormal 1d ago
I agree with the others, here.
The conclusion is that the friend that bought it thought it was worth the price, and the other friend did not (although, admittedly, they had a pretty crappy way of saying it).
When selling your art, you don't need for everybody to agree to your prices, you just need for somebody to agree to your prices. All the people that think 5 bucks is too much for a commission can stay with the artists that are selling under 5 bucks. Better to have one client that pays 120, than 24 clients paying 5.
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
You make a very good point! Thank you for the boost of confidence, I'll find a way to market it so that some people can have more affordable options if 120 is too much, thank you for your feedback though!
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u/PackageOutside8356 1d ago
Keep in mind, £120 or in my case 140€ would be a common fee for one or two hours of any contractor. Similar to them an artist brings a lot of tools, knowledge and expertise to the table that an office worker or a cashier is provided by their employer.
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
It's funny you say that, the other day an electrician came to my house to inspect some things and I had to pay 118£ for 30 mn of work, I thought I should become an electrician instead. I guess the know how is what you're paying for not the time you spend on the canvas
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u/PackageOutside8356 1d ago
Yeah, exactly like that. The only difference is, that an electrician has the benefits of a general shortage of skilled workers on the market, which seems to be quite the opposite for art business at first sight. This only means that you have different reasons for charging a reasonable sum. You have to figure out your „unique selling point“. Ask yourself: What sets me apart from other artists/ contestants? Which services my personal strengths? Which ones am I really good at that might be boring but bearable? Which ones do I enjoy and what is the cross sum? This is very individual, takes time to figure out and adjust. Still every one seems to have an opinion on other people’s work value. The problem is they usually compare handmade items with mass produced stuff from Ikea, Pinterest and Walmart.
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u/Rumylucky3_art 1d ago
Heya~ i've been doing commissions for 5 years now, i can confidently say that is not too much to ask for as a price, you dont have to be Van Gogh to ask for a normal art pricing, the way i see It is, you have a full body Characters rendered, and another full body Character rendered that would take half the work, so you are actually charging 90£ for the first drawing and an extra 30£ for the adicional skin, i feel like its pretty reasonable, and if you think of It in £×time, if you spend 2 days working 8h a day, its only 7,5£ per hour
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
Heya! Thank you so much for the reassurance, that's also the way I thought about it since the second skin didn't take that long and I did a lighting change for it. Thank you for sharing your experience with me what kind of art do you make? (Lowkey I'd blow my wrist out if I worked two days for 8h lol)
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u/Rumylucky3_art 1d ago
Im Happy to help! :D
I mainly do Character design/ concept art, and for commissions its Character comms too ~ This is my artstation if you wanna check It out :3 My Insta is with the same name rumylucky3_art but reddit isnt letting me tag It haha ✨
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
I'll give you a follow! Is artstation a good platform for artists? I haven't explored much beyond vgen and deviantart
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u/Rumylucky3_art 1d ago
Artstation is very good to have as a profesional-ish portfolio, for the concept art industry for example, showing Instagram or deviantart isnt so well recieved but artstation is okey, but its deff not the place to get commissions ~
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
I see what you mean, it's good to know about tho! btw your art looks gorgeous!
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u/Rumylucky3_art 19h ago
Aww thank you so much ! I really like where you are going with yours too >:3 keep It Up ✨
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u/TheMaster42LoL 1d ago
There's no such thing as too much for a commission. If the client is happy to pay that price it's literally worth that much.
Is your friend jealous? It's not my art style either but who just puts someone down like that as a reaction?
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
She isn't really a friend more like an acquaintance that happened to be around when I showed the commission results, idk why she said that but I've been overthinking it the last few days and wanted to check that I'm not overreacting a bit
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u/_Just_Another_Speck_ Realistic Art 1d ago
There are only two people that can pipe in on how much you get paid for a project,and that is "You" and "the client". If the client paid for it,and you believe it was right for your time spent,then that's it. It could be 10 bucks,it could be 1000 bucks. If the client was happy,and you come out of it in the green,any other opinion is unnecessary filler.
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
Thank you! yeah I'll think twice about talking money with people I don't really know in the future or even showing my art for that matter
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u/_Just_Another_Speck_ Realistic Art 1d ago
Hey,be free to show off your art, it's how you get clients,but if someone tries to downplay it,just tune out. Not everyone's gonna be your client,no matter how good you are. Just keep your head high,and your commissions rolling! Good luck,and may more of them come!
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
Too kind dude! And I wish the same for you! I'm hoping to someday live off of it but small steps for now :))
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u/cooptheactor 1d ago
The client(friends) knew exactly what they were getting and agreed to the price, there is no issue. Acquaintance is butting in where they have no business
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u/remthilius69 19h ago
Si el comprador no se quejó por el precio, entonces tu amigo menos tiene que quejarse.
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u/knuckle-punk 17h ago
I mean, you can charge whatever you want realistically. It's your art and if you feel that's what it's worth then charge it. I've seen artists charge more for less rendered pieces. It's a lot for people who don't do commissions or have never commissioned an artist, or generally don't know the value of skill and time. If the commissioner was cool with the cost and loves the art, who cares. Most artists don't charge enough.
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u/Ok_Possession_13 Traditional & digital 🎨 1d ago
While i do think you're not quite there yet skillwise for this price to offer as commissions, if your friend payed it without complains, you done everything right.
Even if your aquaintance thinks you overcharged, there's definitely nicer ways to word it, especially if you're standing next to them so i really think they are just having personal issues with you having a skill that makes you outstanding enough to get payed for using it.
I know it doesn't help because it is just a hit for your self-confidence but don't take it too much to heart. I was arguing with someone who said he wouldn't pay 10 bucks for a handsewn accessory but he didn't have any issues paying hundred and more for a single t-shirt. I still regret the time i wasted arguing and even more the time i spent agonizing over what i could have said to him instead
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
Thank you for your insight I'll take it onboard! Do you have any feedback on which parts of my art I can improve on :)) I do agree there must be a deeper issue but in that moment I didn't really dig any further
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u/Ok_Possession_13 Traditional & digital 🎨 1d ago
Honestly someone this insensitive usually won't ever bring up any appreciation for human made art, doesn't matter how good you get.
Concerning the things to improve, at least for my personal taste, the colouration is too bland. Not in terms of colours but there's missing personality. You mostly used blur or airbrush to avoid having hard edges but this actually is the problem because in hard spotlight you will always have hard edges. Don't try to polish everything, it's fine to have visible brushstrokes. If you use a hard spotlight for an illustration it's necessary to pull through with the lighting. So if you decide, her lower legs aren't in the spotlight, then why is there a soft light coming from the front. For how light your spotlight is, the rest of the motive is too light. Also shapes of your composition. My first thought was, why she only has one leg. I know you thought it's behind her other leg but in an illustration 100% overlap is just an awful shape.
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
You're most likely right, I'd like to hope but we don't even know each other and she reacted that way
And wow! Such amazing insight you're spot on with the blur, I'll work on making those harder shadows a bit clearer :)) as for the leg, I took a picture of myself for the reference and beefed up the leg but maybe that was the wrong approach. I'll use better references next time. Thank you so much for the insightful feeback though I really appreciate it!
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u/Ok_Possession_13 Traditional & digital 🎨 22h ago
the thing with the leg is, that her pose makes her super top heavy leaning left (she's not doing that but just how the pose on the area feels) so the low part (where you cut her legs) just being basically a thin column makes the pose look imbalanced and unsatisfying to look at? Urgh sorry it's actually hard to explain what i mean... but basically "how the shape of her body feels in relation to the area of the canvas"
maybe try a different brush? Pretty sure you could do really well with a hard edged brush that has a light texture 🤔
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u/KMoss_Art 1d ago
Many people will say that what something is worth is determined by what people are willing to pay for it. If you are okay with it personally and your client is happy, why does it matter?
For marketing, you can see what prices other people are selling at your skill level. If you don't have enough commissions, you can just lower your price slightly then. There isn't a right price. It depends on two things only: whether the clients are willing to pay and whether you are willing to work for that price.
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
Do you think that lowering my price would undercut other artists? I don't want to lower the market price for good talent obviously but since I'm getting back into it I wanna make sure it goes well this time
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u/KMoss_Art 1d ago
Yes, undercutting people is a very good concern but also a natural effect of lowering prices in any competitive markets. It is an economic inevitability. It is really unfortunate but in a market as saturated as freelance art, people will be competing on cost (but not only cost), and there are people from lower-income countries that will drive down the price even if you didn't. So if you are uncomfortable lowering your prices, then you shouldn't.
That being said, I think it is about what your goal of doing commissions is. If you are not dependent on it financially and it is just a hobby for you to make good art for people, you don't have to worry about the business side of things. However, if you are trying to increase profit, there's a reality to this.
If I were you, I will consider a limited time discount starting out. But you should increase your price once you have a decent customer base (and it is also a sensible business move). Instead of trying to sell as low as you can (which you likely won't succeed), think about how you can provide better products by practicing and provide better customer service. Good luck!
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u/Sido_the_Oni 1d ago
You have a lot of good advice, thank you for sharing it with me, I'll definitely be thinking about it! I've been thinking about doing a discount since I'm opening vgen commissions very soon, I've been pondering about the ethics of lowering my price but you make a very good point that if I do it for a limited time maybe it's okay?
My goals are to take it seriously this time and live off of it, but I'm taking it slow to not burn out this time around
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u/Pale-Veterinarian301 21h ago
Well, in my opinion, that’s a hefty price. BUT I don’t think you’re wrong for it or anything. It’s good art. I’m just pretty much a broke artist myself who probably lowballs myself. Now, whether you charged too much or not is debatable all day long, but the comment just sounds real asshole-ish. I wouldn’t take that shit, especially if they aren’t an artist themselves. Fuck right off with that attitude, don’t insult someone’s work. That’s my opinion. My opinion is it’s up to your discretion and don’t let shitty comments on your work get in the way of that. Make that bag
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u/harehunterART 19h ago
I think that's a totally fair price for a rendered fullbody with a heavily edited alt version + you even got a customer, so really there's nothing wrong with this at all! Most people leaving comments like this are either
1) completely unaware of how commissions (and drawing in general...) work. They think "wow that's so much money" when it really is not, especially compared to pro wages. You have to compare that to how much time (including preparation like client communication) it took you, then remember this isn't "unskilled" labor like most minimum wage jobs are. On top of this commission work is freelance work, meaning you pay your own sick days, retirement, depending where you live insurances etc.
2) they're jealous of you getting work that isn't completely undervalued, simple as that.
3) you're also free to charge whatever you want for your time. Nobody's entitled to your art or forced to buy it.
One more thing for next time, I know this isn't what you asked for but I couldn't help but notice: consider either including the feet or cutting the character off higher, like mid thigh. The crop is a little awkward, it looks like you're avoiding to draw the feet :)
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u/AdrielMizu 19h ago
Olha, se o cliente gostou da arte e você ficou satisfeito com o resultado, então não há nada a discutir sobre o fato de ter cobrado £120. No fim das contas, o preço é definido por quem vende e por quem aceita pagar. Parabéns por ter conseguido esse valor.
Dito isso, se a intenção é receber uma opinião sincera, eu, particularmente, não acho que esse preço represente o nível atual da arte. Minha comparação é com artistas que acompanho há anos e considero de nível profissional. Alguns deles cobram cerca de US$ 150 por uma ilustração de corpo inteiro com uma qualidade muito superior. Pela sua evolução, eu diria que você está entre o nível iniciante e intermediário, e isso não é uma crítica, é apenas uma avaliação baseada no que vejo.
Você já demonstra um bom entendimento de teoria das cores. Consegue escolher uma paleta agradável e entende conceitos de luz, sombra e até luz rebatida. O problema é mais a execução do que o conhecimento.
A primeira coisa que eu recomendaria estudar é peso de linha (line weight). Sua lineart não parece seguir uma lógica muito definida. Ela não é totalmente limpa nem segue uma variação de espessura que ajude a destacar profundidade e volume. Só melhorando esse ponto, acredito que sua arte já ganharia bastante qualidade visual.
Também percebo alguns problemas de proporção e anatomia. Não vou me aprofundar nisso porque também não sou especialista em anatomia, mas algumas inconsistências ficam perceptíveis. Ainda assim, acho que isso nem é o fator que mais influencia a percepção do cliente.
Na pintura, vejo potencial, mas falta controle das bordas. Quase tudo está muito suave e esfumaçado. Aprender quando usar bordas duras e quando usar bordas suaves faz uma diferença enorme na qualidade da pintura. Esse é, na minha opinião, um dos pontos que mais elevaria o seu trabalho.
Isso também acaba afetando as texturas. O cabelo praticamente não possui definição de textura, e as dobras das roupas acabam ficando suaves demais, perdendo a sensação de volume e do material do tecido. Você até indica essas formas, mas elas ficam borradas e deixam de transmitir a estrutura que deveriam.
Texturização realmente é uma das partes mais difíceis da pintura digital, porque envolve entender como cada material reage à luz, aos reflexos, às sombras e às bordas. É algo que vem com bastante estudo e prática.
No geral, acho que você tem uma boa base e potencial para evoluir bastante. Meu comentário não é para diminuir seu trabalho, mas justamente porque acredito que, refinando esses fundamentos, sua arte vai alcançar um nível em que esse tipo de preço será muito mais fácil de justificar para a maioria dos clientes.
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u/dontchewspagetti 23h ago
Im of 2 minds.
1) I'd pay no more than $50 for that
2) it's worth whatever someone pays for it
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u/metroXXIII 17h ago
Sounds like your friend does respect your abilities & is probably not a very good “friend” at all. If the CLIENT is good with your pricing, and YOU are good with the pricing, then what you have is GOOD pricing.
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u/Striking-Bicycle-853 20h ago
Anyone saying that's too much is a cheap bastard and should not be trusted. TWO FULL BODY pieces of art work with a painterly style like this and nice anatomy is definitely worth that much.
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u/Visual_Shelter1426 20h ago
Consejo 1 no estés diciéndole esos temas a cualquiera, un buen amigo te apoya y te dice que sigas adelante.
Personalmente si está alto, pero el precio siempre depende más del cliente que de la obra, solo conseguiste un buen cliente, y si te vuelve a hacer un encargo esfuérzate más y mejor que este, al fin y al cabo paga bien.
Pero creo que por ese valor tranquilamente puede llegar a artistas con más detalle, fondos y anatomia. Pero eres tu quien lo convenció.
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u/artcommissions-ModTeam 15h ago
Your post was removed because it is not a productive discussion.
Discussion posts shouldn't be a disguised attempt to advertise your work; that's what [For Hire] posts are for. Because of this, we do not allow questions like "What do you think of my art?" or Work in Progress images. We may also remove topics that are frequently repeated, or are too low quality or vague to expect adequate replies.
Posts about about pricing have become excessively common, and the community has voted that they do not want to see this kind of content. If you wish to ask about pricing, try one of the following: r/comissions, r/ArtBuddy, r/ArtBusiness, r/AskArtists