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Long time no see! That's because I haven't had a full blown real SC story since I started the self employed artist route after getting freed from Sub Hell.
There is one small aspect, though, that I am starting to find out about the types of people who want my services.
Most of my commission work comes from sites like Fur Affinity, and sometimes DeviantART, with a little bit from people I already know in person thrown in. About 95% of the people who commission me from those places are members of those sites, themselves. They also have a good grasp on the commission process and have easy access to my journals on said sites that list my commission prices/info/slot availability. They have a strong understanding of what work really goes into creating art. They may not be artists themselves, or they are artists but love commissioning their favorite artists for renditions of their original characters. Stuff like that is what's keeping my self employment thriving.
There is, however, another type of commissioner that lurks around those art sites. (Mainly DeviantART) These are the people who don't have an account at said site and are almost always the more corporate, starting up a business, who really know little to nothing about the art process or how Photoshop works. They see an artist whose art they like and then contact them through a personal email offering them some form of art related job.
You would think that sounds really nice, right? But from what I have come to find from the latter group is they almost always want to make the artist they are commissioning do the maximum amount of work with the minimum amount of pay. (All the while being 3 times as picky as anyone else) They also almost always state in their emails that they are a "start up" business (thus implying they aren't willing to spend what they think would be too much money on art) I quote a price and they him and haw and claim they need to run that through their boss first, etc.
Another thing I dislike about this group is if I accept an offer then I feel like they are now my boss and have a lot more pressure under me. One of the things I love most about self employment is being my own boss.
Anyways, I think I just got one of those recently. Some start up place in another country who really liked an image of mine that I had already made asked me if they could use it for their business. I told them that I would be happy to sell them the rights to use the image in any way they wish. I quoted them a price, and also stated that this would include me sending over the full psd file with open layers after I received payment through PayPal.
I just heard back from them today saying they would do that price, but then also told me they wanted me to enlarge some things on the bottom of the drawing for them first.
Wait a second. They never once mentioned that when they were saying how much they liked my image in the first email. Secondly, on an already finished drawing, even with un-merged layers, it's almost literally impossible to do something such as that, especially when the inks are on their own layer, the flat colors on another, and the shading, then highlights on their own layers. (That's how I do my layers. I share my layers because it's more efficient and optimizes space rather than each object from outline to shading having its own personal layer)
Also taking into account of the other parts of the drawing surrounding the items they want enlarged. I would have to actually re-do the things they want enlarged for that to even happen. And even if I could do a simple click and enlarge on each item, it would stretch them out and make them blurrier. (Which is what happens when you go from smaller to bigger)
I sent them a reply stating what I just stated above in this post, and I could go and re-make those things but that it would raise the cost of the image.
I guess I will see what they say, but the great thing about being self employed is if it gets stupid enough I can simply walk away and not deal with it.
There is one small aspect, though, that I am starting to find out about the types of people who want my services.
Most of my commission work comes from sites like Fur Affinity, and sometimes DeviantART, with a little bit from people I already know in person thrown in. About 95% of the people who commission me from those places are members of those sites, themselves. They also have a good grasp on the commission process and have easy access to my journals on said sites that list my commission prices/info/slot availability. They have a strong understanding of what work really goes into creating art. They may not be artists themselves, or they are artists but love commissioning their favorite artists for renditions of their original characters. Stuff like that is what's keeping my self employment thriving.
There is, however, another type of commissioner that lurks around those art sites. (Mainly DeviantART) These are the people who don't have an account at said site and are almost always the more corporate, starting up a business, who really know little to nothing about the art process or how Photoshop works. They see an artist whose art they like and then contact them through a personal email offering them some form of art related job.
You would think that sounds really nice, right? But from what I have come to find from the latter group is they almost always want to make the artist they are commissioning do the maximum amount of work with the minimum amount of pay. (All the while being 3 times as picky as anyone else) They also almost always state in their emails that they are a "start up" business (thus implying they aren't willing to spend what they think would be too much money on art) I quote a price and they him and haw and claim they need to run that through their boss first, etc.
Another thing I dislike about this group is if I accept an offer then I feel like they are now my boss and have a lot more pressure under me. One of the things I love most about self employment is being my own boss.
Anyways, I think I just got one of those recently. Some start up place in another country who really liked an image of mine that I had already made asked me if they could use it for their business. I told them that I would be happy to sell them the rights to use the image in any way they wish. I quoted them a price, and also stated that this would include me sending over the full psd file with open layers after I received payment through PayPal.
I just heard back from them today saying they would do that price, but then also told me they wanted me to enlarge some things on the bottom of the drawing for them first.
Wait a second. They never once mentioned that when they were saying how much they liked my image in the first email. Secondly, on an already finished drawing, even with un-merged layers, it's almost literally impossible to do something such as that, especially when the inks are on their own layer, the flat colors on another, and the shading, then highlights on their own layers. (That's how I do my layers. I share my layers because it's more efficient and optimizes space rather than each object from outline to shading having its own personal layer)
Also taking into account of the other parts of the drawing surrounding the items they want enlarged. I would have to actually re-do the things they want enlarged for that to even happen. And even if I could do a simple click and enlarge on each item, it would stretch them out and make them blurrier. (Which is what happens when you go from smaller to bigger)
I sent them a reply stating what I just stated above in this post, and I could go and re-make those things but that it would raise the cost of the image.
I guess I will see what they say, but the great thing about being self employed is if it gets stupid enough I can simply walk away and not deal with it.
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