Hello guys ! since many of you have been asking me for advice on how to start receiving commissions from others, I thought I would try my best to tell you guys what I have personally learned so far as a full time commission artist.
- first things first, If you have not already, please advertise yourself in the forums if you have not already,
many people in job postings are looking for someone to do work for them on a daily basis so please look there if you do not already. Also make sure to put your artworks in different groups so that it has more of a chance being seen by others interested in those topics, if you draw anime, put it in anime groups, chibis? groups are out there specifically for that , etc.
-secondly, make sure your pricing matches what you are selling.
When you start out, most likely people wont know you by name so you will need to look at how long something takes you to create but also keep your quality in mind! Its a hard thing to balance but as a rule of thumb if your quality is lacking, even if it takes you a long time, people will be less inclined to buy it. So it may be better to just wait and improve your artwork as a whole than make chump change ( in my humble opinion!) For me I started at a lower pricing, and increased my price as I had a larger clientele and my quality was increasing, so patience/perserverance is definitely a must!
-third is probably the most important but the harshest reality of it all, but this is in no way an easy profession to have.
When I first started taking commissions here, I never made any no matter how many job offers I responded to, how many groups I was in, how many times I posted I was open. This is not because I was a 'bad' artist but I sure thought so at the time! he biggest realization you have to make is , where are you selling and what do people want? If you haven't noticed, this is a place where artist post content so the majority of people here are ARTISTS also wanting to SELL not buy. This means there is less people looking to spend money, and vastly more people competing to fulfill that commissioners request. The reality? your art may be great and people may ADORE it, but not be looking to buy, or they may be looking to buy but out of the 300 plus talented artists, they could only choose one.
soo what can you do if this is the case? the advice is not simple,
but you have to go places less concentrated, you have to have multiple places where you post and where people are looking and posting a variety of things, so it is less saturated, plus the more places you are the more people will find you! Secondly and the hardest one for me is, you have to be patient. It takes years to build up clients, which means part of it is hopping on certain trends people look up, like bowsette for example will get you a lot more views than your personal oc because people can search for it, but then the other half is a waiting game. This is my least favorite thing out of it all but you CAN influence your growth over time, even though results are not immediate. Draw trends, put out consistent work that is quality and represents what you want to be commissioned for, and make sure its easy on every page you have to see your commission pricing.
on an ending note people tend to say things to me like "I wish I could draw like that, do what you do, etc" and people used to say " you care not good enough to sell your work" , I did not suddenly become more "talented " but it is a true reality that my work ethic is 10x better so I am improving quicker. We all have daily commitments, but our work does reflect how many hours we set aside for what we do. I draw pretty much everyday , this is my full time job, we can all become masters at our professions but it does take time and patience. I hope this helps! feel free to add more or ask questions below!