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"offering" to pay an artist less than their asking price... by cial

is not a compliment.
even when you surround it with compliments, it's not a compliment.

it's also not a good deal for the artist.

if an artist is offering discounts to people who do a certain thing (ie, buy them art supplies) that means the discount only applies to those people.

it 100% does not entitle you to ask for the discount while spinning a sob story about how you can't fullfill your end of the bargain.

artists create incentives in order to reach an end goal. be that new art supplies, more kickstarter backers, more buzz for their work, whatever. they're trying to offer you a deal by saying "hey, you do X for me, and i'll lower the price on Y for you."

there's no benefit in it for the artist when you go "i can't do X! but i'll LET you do Y for me at the lowered price. :)"
in fact, that's kinda the opposite of what the artist was going for in the first place with that deal. so don't do it.

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"offering" to pay an artist less than their asking price...

cial

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  • Link

    Sometimes I feel like writing a tutorial on how to be a good commissioner. My friends and fiancee get some ridiculous ones.

    • Link

      There's a video for that already. YouTube search "how to not suck at commissioning"

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      every now and again i get a real piece of work note. usually 'offering' to 'let' me draw their characters, either for free or severely discounted prices. wowie zowie, what an honor. :P

      • Link

        Yeah...no

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          i think many people seem to believe they are sly

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        I don't think they realize how much people undercharge for their services in the first place. I did a breakdown of my fiancee's prices in relation to how much time spent on her art and it was like 2.40 per hour or something. So its like insult to injury when they do that kind of crap @.@

        My friend recently got a note from a guy requesting she draw him -ten- sketches in comic fashion of a fetish (but not pornographic) character. |8 free. like. f'serious? I offered to write her note back to him for her.

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          hella rude wowwowowow
          yeah, i mean...i know people talk about BOYCOTT ARTISTS WHO UNDERCHARGE but that's not fair. the artist should be the one to set their prices. if they're not confident they'll get enough work with higher prices, that's literally their business

          but nowhere in the equation of 'let the artist choose what to charge' do i see 'let the COMMISSIONER demand freebies'

          • Link

            Right?! Mind you she's got a really cute style, kinda rough, and she lacks confidence in her digital capabilities too. She already seriously undercharges because of that, then that guy came in to ask her to do something that makes her uncomfortable + large load + free on DA, when she has a note up saying she -isn't- open for commissions there right now.

            It infuriated me. (Also I've talked to all my undercharging compadre's, and we up our prices by so much every so many followers, to try to get up to the price needed. I find its a good way to balance the desperate need to pay the bills and not scare off people used to the lower costs)

            • Link

              i've found DA is the worst with people making "requests"
              FA is a bit worse with people asking for "discounts" or "my birthday is coming up" etc

              • Link

                Darkomi (Vernoncross on here) is pretty good about not having problems on FA, so I haven't heard a whole lot of that. I wasn't very well noticed there, so I didn't run into anything myself. The only thing I really noticed was some users were a little more entitled in terms of expected time frames. But I can totally imagine.

                I don't even post on DA anymore, cause every commission experience my fiancee or friends have had there has just been miserable. Dark offered someone back their money cause she was taking so long and they started calling her a scammer |8 like, seriously?

                So far I like it over here, even though most of my active commissioners are old FA followers XD

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                  yeah, that's DA in general... you'll be lucky if anyone wants to pay you 2$ for a fully coloured drawing, even if they're a follower. at least on fa and weasyl people are willing to pay money.

                  whenever i get a new commissioner specifically through DA i almost always go on the defensive...get contact details up front, prepare to invoice them (because not getting paid SUCKS) etc.

                  • Link

                    XD oh jaybus. The only DA commissioner I ever got, is my ex. |8 I still haven't worked on her stuff, I feel bad. She's been awesome. But yeah, I've heard horror stories. I'm sorry you get stuck with shitty people, mang

        • Link

          Ouch, scary! For just the reason you said, one can get to thinking, 'So, I do this art...would I want to be paid half of minimum wage?

          I do hope any artist who offers commissions, no matter how much lack of confidence comes in, can feel they're worth at least minimum wage hourly. Hopefully more! The ability to create art is grossly undervalued, IMHO.

          • Link

            Preach. I've run into the conundrum myself. I know I'm not as good as I could be, I have limited followers, and I don't get much response to my offers. But I'm trying to go to college, pay rent, supplement groceries. Min wage is needed. Artists who do use this as a way to get on in life struggle brutally. When oh man when you look at industry wages? We realize just how much more that art is worth and its kind of a low blow. I remember when I saw the difference I didn't work on my commissions for almost a month cause of how indignant I was.

  • Link

    Yeah, I dealt with this once.
    I opened for commissions once and someone couldn't afford $7.
    I ask how much they are willing to pay. Offer : 5 da points. That's not even a dollar.

    • Link

      i had someone offer to give me 5da points for a 5$ drawing once. i explained that was not a 1-to-1 conversion rate. never heard from them again.

      • Link

        Yeah; that's 6.25 cents. I wouldn't do a commission for that much, ever

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          not to mention doesn't DA take like a 20% cut when you cash points-to-dollars? so even if they gave me 5$ worth of DA points, i'd wind up with a percentage of it shaved off just because of DA's skeezy overhead fees

        • Link

          ^ Hooyeah. If you are making art for less than your time is worth, of course, the term if we're doing 'tell it like it is' is 'gift art'.

          I wonder, if artists in general thought of it this way, if the axis would shift a little. ~~~

          'Someone wants to pay you less than your rates for your art. If you accept that proposal, no matter what the reasons, you are giving this person a gift. Are you sure that's what you want to do? Okay, great! Go for it! But, now we tell it like it is; your and their expectations (deadlines/urgency, effort, corrections, etc.) is and should be in the Gift Art family.'

  • Link

    ugh I can't believe people do this.......

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      it's like walking into a resturaunt and going HEY I'LL LET YOU GIVE ME A FREE PLATE OF FRIES

      • Link

        I'm the person who gives people MORE money than they ask for. I asked LodiDah for a commission when I met her at AC, since I don't have PayPal and couldn't commission her otherwise...I gave her $5 more than what she asked for, because I know artists work hard on commissions. Because I draw myself, I know how much time and effort go into commissions!!!!!

        It would be nice if people understood this more and appreciated WHY artists charge the rates that they do for real reasons, not made-up prices.

        • Link

          i think al ot of people for some reason think that 'starving artist' is a myth. true, most of us aren't really starving, but we're often struggling. i guess instead of realizing that's the reality, they decide we're all just rolling around in giant piles of disposable cash, blowing our noses on 50$ bills and stuff.

          • Link

            I don't know how different it is for digital artists and stuff...but to be a traditional artist, I know I don't have to tell you how ridiculously expensive materials are. I think most artists starve just to keep up with their art supplies and their income by doing art. flops like a Magikarp

            • Link

              digital artists may not have to sink cash as often as analog artists, but when they do have to sink it it's usually more. like their whole computer dies, or their tablet dies, or they need to purchase new software, or the video card croaks, etc etc. so i feel like it evens out? like okay i spend 80-100$ every time i refill my marker stocks, but if i had to buy new tablet nibs or whatever i'm sure i'd also be grumbling about the cost of it.

              • Link

                That's probably true. I've barely touched my tablet in comparison...so I don't know how often they have to replace such things. chuckle But if someone uses it a lot, there's probably plenty of wear and tear.

                I'm gonna try and replace my cool grey marker set pretty soon...so I saved back a little money post-AC to do so. Blacks (with grey base) are the most common color I use.

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                  i go through greys, blues and greens pretty speedily. also browns. sometimes purples. but those are always runnign low, hahahaa

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                    It seems that most people I do art for nowadays have a lot of black in their characters...I use a dark grey (Cool Grey 90% in Prismacolors) as my base color for black and do the shading in black and lighting with a mid-grey.

                    I have lots of characters with red. I need to replace my Strong Red (Copic) the most--I love that shade of red a lot, not too orange and not too pink. lol

  • Link

    I tip.
    On one hand people can try and pay artist's less, on the other hand they could pay more. I know the artist is going to work harder and be more satisfied giving me artwork. n.n For artists that are genuinely surprised by being tipped, I've just telling them it's custom here as bon fides (Lt: 'Good Faith') which I think was something given to Artists on commissions during the Mercantile era in European History for delivering pieces of art that exceeded expectations or was of superior craftsmanship.

    • Link

      MAN, PROPS TO YOU. SERIOUSLY. people who tip are freaking the best.

      it's rare, it's delightful, and it honestly does motivate artists to work a little harder on the pieces. cause they know the person they're working for values their time and skill. it always feels great, too.

      • Link

        I get called by artists as their "number one customer".
        It's worth every penny. c_c every goddamn one.

  • Link

    That is such bullshit! You can't just blatantly give an artist less money than their art is worth. This ain't Pawn Stars.

    • Link

      EYUP and you certainly don't try to dress it up like you're doing them a favour by ripping them off.

  • Link

    My sister once asked me to do a poster for her improv group. No biggie, I'd done posters for her theater stuff in the past, right? Then she said it needed to be a group scene (I think it was a bunch of grandmas all dogpiling one or more members of the troupe?), and would be "for exposure." During a time when I was stressed and low on funds. Needless to say it didn't happen.

    Happy ending, though: she now is adamant about her boss paying his artists and knows that "exposure" is evil if the artist wasn't going to do it anyway.

    • Link

      wish i had a similar happy ending to my similar story.
      childhood buddy started a microbrewery. he wanted someone to do a weekly comic for his brewery's website, to keep people coming back. his scripts weren't the least bit funny, but y'know, w/e. i ask what it pays.

      'exposure' and 'maybe if we do some marketing like t-shirts, you'll get a cut of that.' oh, or i could have taken him up on the offer for free beer. which is great for someone with a family history of alcoholism who still considers themselves in the 'recovering' camp.

      i told him maybe i'd get around to it if i ever hit a lull in freelance work of my own. aka my nice way of saying 'yeah, no, come back when you can pay me.'

  • Link

    Ouch. Another story for the wall.

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      it's much less 'a' story and more 'a reoccuring epic, artists are in a constant state of wanting to remind people of this.'

      • Link

        A bateaux tapestry of warning and idiocy

  • Link

    Yeah I just assume that these kinda people are kids with no responsibilities.
    Or major jerk-wads that get offended when the cashier asks for your money.

    Which would make for a funny video.

    • Link

      heh. sadly, they are not kids with no responsibilities. only one was a complete stranger. the others i do are adults with jobs and adult responsibilities.

      it's not immaturity at fault here
      it's an inherent lack of respect for the crafters and the craft

      • Link

        Huh. I always thought it was that people don't stop to think that you have to pay bills because you don't have 'em.

        Though I've really only had one person guilt trip and belittle me... had to fucking cut him off. Looking back I dunno why I put up with him.

  • Link

    I've luckily thus far never run into any of THESE. It still never ceases to amaze me that anyone would be so stupid as to try.

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      they ALWAYS try. just like there will always be someone who tries to scam the resturaunt for a free/discounted meal, or scam the supermarket for free/discounted items, there will always be that one jerk trying to scam artists...

      • Link

        Well, yeah... some people think they're more important than everyone else. Just ignore them as best you can--because like you said; they're everywhere.

        • Link

          yeah. three in one week is what prompted this post. TOO MUCH FOR A SHORT PERIOD