# Your thoughts on the current commission economy



## Chiobsidian (Apr 13, 2014)

Greetings all. Let me preface this a bit. I don't post much on here, nor have I done much furry art (I like the costuming aspect of it more myself). I have four years of education as a digital illustrator and greatly enjoy painting realistic animals. My mind has been wandering to perhaps enter the scene here, but the more I've looked, the more... concerned I am. 

I can confidently say a finished and polished piece by me is worth at least a hundred dollars (and have gotten commissions for that much and more) But when I stroll on down to the Black Market on here and see people with budgets of no more than 30$, and often for even less... well it's certainly less than I think even one of my quick sketches is worth. 

I'm not trying to brag or anything, and after thinking on it I've decided to not invest time into trying to get commissions here. 

What I really want to know is what you all think of how pricing works? Do you feel you're getting paid fairly for your work? Do you accept how cheap art goes for here and adjust your effort output accordingly? 

(If this is in the wrong thread Moderators please feel free to move it)


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## Taralack (Apr 13, 2014)

I can't find it anymore, but there was an image comparing typical furry artist pricing vs. professional freelance artist pricing, and there was a huge disparity between the prices. Unfortunately that's just the nature of the furry fandom, I'm not sure how or why it started but it's difficult to price yourself for the true value of your work unless you are already extremely well known in the fandom. I think part of the reason why people's budgets are so low is because the market suffers from an oversaturation of artists.

Speaking personally though, and this is as someone who can draw quite fast, I average about $20 per hour for each piece I'm commissioned, but this is after years and years of being active in the community and slowly increasing my prices. Which isn't too bad, because my current price for professional freelance projects is $25-30 an hour.


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## Chiobsidian (Apr 13, 2014)

Yeah that's certainly more than I make currently! And is your icon a druid cat


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## Hewge (Apr 13, 2014)

That's clearly a worgen DK!


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## FireFeathers (Apr 13, 2014)

I think you're mistaken,  this is an active commissioning community, and compared to someplace like DA, I get about 98% on my work here.  Just because you see posts of people charging 5 bucks for a sketch,  that doesn't make up the whole pool.  I charge three times as much as you, and I haven't had a problem filing my queue. I don't even take smutty work.  

My favorite thing is telling people that my commercial work tends to pay significantly less than my furry commissions.  Active markets like this don't exist many places,  and if you dismiss this group , you're making a huge mistake.

Blah,  your post leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, you and your four whole years of digital painting regality makes you sound like an asshat.  These people are good,  good folks.  Like no one, on any other forum or site,  ever undersells themselves.


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## Chiobsidian (Apr 13, 2014)

FireFeathers said:


> I think you're mistaken,  this is an active commissioning community, and compared to someplace like DA, I get about 98% on my work here.  Just because you see posts of people charging 5 bucks for a sketch,  that doesn't make up the whole pool.  I charge three times as much as you, and I haven't had a problem filing my queue. I don't even take smutty work.
> 
> My favorite thing is telling people that my commercial work tends to pay significantly less than my furry commissions.  Active markets like this don't exist many places,  and if you dismiss this group , you're making a huge mistake.
> 
> Blah,  your post leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, you and your four whole years of digital painting regality makes you sound like an asshat.  These people are good,  good folks.  Like no one, on any other forum or site,  ever undersells themselves.



I meant no offense, really. But that is one other thing I've noticed on this community. People are so quick to pick fights, when some people like myself really just wanted a civil discussion. There always seems to be eggshells to avoid stepping on.


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## PastryOfApathy (Apr 13, 2014)

The "furry commission economy" runs one simple rule; The person who hideously undersells himself the most wins. The only exceptions are the people who are willing to suck up and pander enough to become "popufur" (god I hate that word) and can get away with selling their shit in bags.


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## RTDragon (Apr 13, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> The "furry commission economy" runs one simple rule; The person who hideously undersells himself the most wins. The only exceptions are the people who are willing to suck up and pander enough to become "popufur" (god I hate that word) and can get away with selling their shit in bags.



Aka Cheap comissions and YCH.


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## spanglish (Apr 13, 2014)

We've just started up a collab account on FA and it's always incredibly hard to price your own work. I think you have to start with low prices, attracting more people, improving and demonstrating a range of skills before slowly raising prices to something you can actually use or even potentially live off. I've seen around FA that the art starts off as bing the most important part of attracting buyers and then the popularity becomes about 50% of the reasoning behind being commissioned.

Just keep at it and good luck


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## BRN (Apr 13, 2014)

Hey, welcome, come on in. Mind the cynicism on the floor there, let's just step past that.

Anyway, hi, I'm a commissioner. Gallery's full of stuff, clean and adult.
By and large, the economy here is staggeringly lively. Money flows constantly, and in large amounts. The trouble is the previously mentioned saturation of artists,

There are some commissioners who just want their idea created - and will go for whoever strikes them as being a good enough artist, and whoever's willing to sell their work cheaply. Think of this as the street-level market. Building a name for yourself here, however, is like having your own premises -- and people will seek you out especially because they like your work. Don't get turned off too easily by the fuddle and bustle of the urban sprawl when people like me refresh individual artist's pages over and over waiting to see if they'll open commissions. Those artists are able to charge what they deserve and more, and do so rightly, and we pay happily.


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## FireFeathers (Apr 13, 2014)

Chiobsidian said:


> I meant no offense, really. But that is one other thing I've noticed on this community. People are so quick to pick fights, when some people like myself really just wanted a civil discussion. There always seems to be eggshells to avoid stepping on.




Probably because when you come in and go "Hi, I've got what I consider more experience than you jerks, I found a post where someone said their max was 30 dollars, that sure seems like enough evidence to say "screw ya'll" and go "how do you dholes cope with making dirt for pay?" I mean... how isn't that asshat status? That's not civil discussion, you purposely went out of your way to say how much better you are than everyone else.

Also 4 years of digital painting education is like saying nothing. I had 4 years spelling education when I was in grade school, but you don't see that on my resume.  More than a few of my colleagues ( i've got 4 years painting education too!) came out of college with no significant improvement to their art. 

As for your original questions,  I do feel fairly compensated for my work, and no, cheap commissions don't affect how I do my work.


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## Centradragon (Apr 13, 2014)

FA has a pretty hopping commission community, both on and off the forums. Many people do undercharge for their work, but saying you're not even going to bother with this community just because a few people have budgets of $30 or less is pretty... petty? Ridiculous? That's like being in a gold mine and giving up after 5 minutes of uncovering coal. There are plenty of people with higher budgets than $30, and if they like your work they'll pay you well. 

That being said, your "four years of education as a digital illustrator" and "worth at least a hundred dollars" lines did come off as rather cocksure, even if you didn't intend it to. By inferring you're too good for this community (without even posting links to your own art so we can see for ourselves), you *are* bragging by putting down an entire group of people who work and have fun here. It might take awhile to build yourself up, but you'll be hard-pressed to find many fandoms as art-driven as this one. 


Like FireFeathers: I feel fairly compensated for my work, and cheap commissions don't lower the quality of my pieces. I work just as hard on a $500 painting now as when I was just starting out and charging $45 for the same thing.


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## Blekarotva (Apr 14, 2014)

If you want to get paid the hundreds of dollars you're worth, you're not going to get it on a few months here. You will HAVE to invest years for people to be familiar with your works and actually appreciate you. It's not going to be fast because most of the population are not educated professional art consumer - I'm thinking of people on art circles that would buy an sculpture for 5K, and even then the sculptor spent years making their name out there. It's no different here.

There're indeed here people that will spend hundreds of dollars on a single image, those are rare, but they're out there. This is my opinion, but I think those spend that much after years of admiring an artist. Again, years invested.

To answer your questions, the pricing works as it does here because most artists and consumers are hobbists. Few are pros that studied a for years long career related to the medium.
Yes, now after three years of selling lots cheap commissions, I work at a rate/hour that I feel happy to work on.
Not really, while I price my work by hour, I put the same effort on the drawing part, it may look weaker than a more expensive drawing, but I set my standard to deliver a piece I am happy with, if not, I start over.
I dont mind others pricing their work so low, I've been here for years and there's always people interested on my stuffs. Besides I started like them, as a hobby artist charging $10 for a flat colored drawing.
I could say I grew with the market, and people in it grew with me.

Pardon any typo/error, it's 1am and I'm writting on my phone.


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## Tica (Apr 14, 2014)

I do think there's a lot of underselling going on here, but the RL economy's taken a huge hit and a lot of furs have low budgets 'cause they're poor, yo. Personally I snap up $5 - $15 commissions from artists I like from time to time because it's what I can afford (otherwise I get art via art trades). I do think it's important to pay artists what they're worth, and I usually "tip" artists above what they charge (or at the very least absorb paypal fees myself), but considering the furry fandom is built upon visualizing your characters, I think it makes sense to have many tiers of prices so that all different kinds of budgets can be accomodated. Personally since my art is simple and only a hobby I charge less than $5 per hour for my own work. *shrug*


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## driplo (Apr 15, 2014)

im a professional and i come here to doodle my and other people's characters as a hobby.

it's fairly unlikely anyone here can pay what i usually get for my work (as my clients are usually corporate gargantuans that can actually pay a respectful wage) so i keep it simple, n just have fun. if youre seriously looking to make a living off making art, i wouldnt do it here lol

on the flip side of that i wouldnt come here trying to hire anyone _commercially _either unless i got dat $$$$$


some people had some good points tho, competition to get attention online is immensely fierce, but if you keep doin ur thing ppl will notice and you can probably ask for more just pay as you've likely garnered the attention of some who would pay that high for one of your pieces. its an uphill battle but if youre willing to do it more power to u
but i'd just keep it fun if i were u


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## Rydenan (Apr 27, 2014)

Hi there! I'm relatively new here as well, but I'll give you what insight I have on the matter.
Based on [this] sample from your other thread,
If your question is, "Can I get $100 for this here?", I would have to say probably not. No offense, but there is just much higher-quality art out there.
I've seen many pieces go for triple digits, but the quality is usually superb.
That's not to say that with practice you can't increase the value of your work.
But unless you're willing to start off at lower prices ($10-20 for a basic drawing), and increase them as your skill/popularity improves, you may indeed want to move on.

I myself am just getting started and have been researching pricing/quality/etc for quite a while.  However, I ultimately do art for fun, and I enjoy being part of the great community here.  I know that it will likely never become a real source of income, and that's okay; I enjoy it. If you feel the same way, I encourage you to stay! If you instead see your art as a business and are looking to get maximum monetary compensation, you may want to look elsewhere.

Hope that helped sorta! Best of luck!


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