Art commissions

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Great question! There's a couple different ways you can do commissions, and a few things to consider. For example, are you doing physical commissions, where you ship out a physical piece of art to the buyer? Or are you doing digital commissions where you can just send them the finished file?

1. Pricing. Decide on how much your "salary" will be -- for example, $10 an hour. If a commission takes you two hours to make, then you'll charge $20 for it. There's also the cost of materials to take into account, as well as setting a price for any revisions the customer might want you to make. You can also set a price based on how complex the piece will be, for example a sketch versus a fully rendered drawing.

2. Contract. One thing I always tell people is, write up a contract. There's lots of videos on YouTube of how to do this to suit your needs; now this won't fully protect you legally, but it will definitely give you a leg up and show proof of your agreement if the client decides to dip before paying.

3 Payment terms --- clients dipping before paying brings me to this next part. ALWAYS require a percentage of payment UP FRONT. This assures the client is invested and even if they decide to split with the finished piece, at least you earned something. It will also help weed out the scammers to begin with; if someone's running a scam they're not gonna wanna have any skin in the game.

4. Maintain contact with the client. Show them progress pics, get their feedback during various stages of the piece and make revisions where necessary. This will save you a lot of wasted time versus finishing the piece and then the client wants something changed.

And finally, don't let clients intimidate you. Your time and effort are valuable -- don't let people harass you about your pricing or try to devalue your work. Maintain contact, keep records, take screenshots.

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