Commission tips

Posted on 26th Apr at 9:25 AM

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I just counted and I have commissioned him six times(actually, eight. I got a kiriban @ dA that was never delivered and I'm on someone else's wait list). And I've learned a few things. I would write them all but I'm sleepy and not thinking straight, so here, have a few:

-Don't bug the artist asking for your drawing every five seconds. Check their journals and see if they say anything about recent problems as a justification for delays. Most of them are real, cause intelligent artists wouldn't risk their name by delaying a delivery. But if it takes too long, you might, yes, politely ask them about the progress so far to put some pressure. When I have to do that, I usually write something like "Oh, I can't wait to see how he's gonna look! I'm so excited!" Which, you know, it's true anyway. I, thankfully, never had problems that could not be solved this way.

-You are paying for it. If there is something wrong, like the color or something, you should ask the artist to change. They are not doing you a favor, you are their customer. But, please, don't change your mind every five minutes. Be sure of what you want when you ask the commission and avoid to change something because you changed your mind.

-If you only want to see your character, you might want to leave the position up to the artist. This way, they'll draw something they're comfortable with, which decreases the odds of anatomic discrepancies. This is specially good if they're not the "bestest" artist, but applies for everyone.

-Their desperation is, I'm ashamed to admit, good for you. When people get sick or need something real bad, their prices drop! And it's oh-so-nice. But this strategy has two down sides: 1 - you might feel bad for being so happy for someone else's misfortune and 2-you never know if this is going to happen to YOUR favorite artist.

-Check their gallery first. See if they've done other commissions. This way you can see how they work under "pressure" and be a little more sure that they're are not trying to rip you off or something. People with some serious trust issues can always send a message to someone who commissioned your artist-in-question and ask if they think it was worth it.

-Give lots of reference and talk about your character personality, it's gonna make it a lot easier. Also, if you can, giva color references too.

-Give non-Americans/non-Europeans a chance. Dollar and Euro are very expensive. That means the a dollar is worth much more to, say, a Mexican, than to an American. That means Mexicans, for example, can offer a more competitive price.

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