# wondering if my commission sheet is readable



## bluezcherry (Aug 14, 2018)

Hi! I'm a new artist, with a few commissions under my belt, and I am having a bit of anxiety about my prices. Would someone with buying or selling experience give me a review? Thank you!


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## PrivateCompanyMan (Aug 14, 2018)

Your prices seems fine save for the upper end comic price.
Sequential art is a sticky subject, if you can't produce it in a timely manner I'd just avoid it.
I'd also avoid listing the "based on $x per hour" as clients may make far less than that.


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## bluezcherry (Aug 15, 2018)

@PrivateCompanyMan the upper end comic price is based less on time and more on detail, so i guess the $/hour doesn't apply at that point... so yeah i'll cut that. thank you!


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## Fallowfox (Aug 15, 2018)

Yeah I think these look reasonable.


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## bluezcherry (Feb 6, 2019)

I actually decided to change my sheet! And now instead of wondering if my prices are too high or low, I'm wondering if anyone has critiques on the readability of the sheet. I want it to be as easy as possible for people to figure out my prices/stuff I can draw.


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## BedsheetWalking (Feb 6, 2019)

ive had my fans tell me that 50% off for another character isnt good, you wanna have a price for characters across the board 

i recommend breaking it down like this

1. consolation (sketch, poses, data gathering, "these are my ideas for the piece") if they green light you (they like everything) ask for the full price right there. The sketch is ENOUGH to prove you're doing it, and if they dont want to pay now they wont want to pay later. (ive been doing this for 20 years [im old], dont fall into that trap)

2. invite them to a stream or tell them how the picture is going from here on out. (they did their end, now you gotta hold up your end!)
---
2-0 your base fee should be however much money it would take for somebody to rip you out of bed and NOT be too mad. For me im pretty chill, so 5$ for me would get me to be confused but not mad. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS ask for this. Some people call it a tip, I call it my "grumpy tax". You add it on so you can haggle, and so if there is tax collected on your art you wont notice that much. If none of that happens you've made sure you got your tip, and a tip makes you feel good. Some people need a little more "grumpy tax" than others. Professionals call this a consultation fee  And if youre too shy to ask for a tip upfront this helps you get that confidence. 

(price setting)
2-1 refine art lines and correct: even if this step takes you 45 minutes you charge for an hour of your life. Minimum wage is 8$ here. I used to sell my art for 2$ a hour (often times turning out to be more like .30) and it did NOT feel good, and it attracted customers who didnt care if i felt good. 

If youre going to attract a customer you have to trust me here: when the art fairy comes by to drop you off a customer IT IS NOT ABOUT YOUR PRICE if youre low they might want more from you... but generally speaking people have X amount to spend and dont want to task you with more than one comm. So they will task you for 10$ and task another artist for 10$ ... you want the whole pie, not a slice! You help your fellow artist not by making sure they have a slice of your pie, but by making sure that there are more pies to go around for everybody and that there are no fights over any one single pie (commission period). 

*TIME* your art stages, how much time do you spend drawing? 
*MONEY* don't go below minimum wage, charge however much someone would have to pay you per hour to sit around and watch somebodys annoying kids. (not that you dont enjoy your work >w<' but if you want to do what you love for a living you gotta make enough to beat something else you could do that would make you miserable. art is a COMMODITY, not a necessity. Its a luxury item. You are a theme park owner and your rides are art! People WANT to go on the ride, and you should NEVER feel like you have to let them on for a penny less than what its worth. NEVER haggle a penny less than your consultation fee. )

2-2 do the art thing you do, but check in at each stage because people like that. If they ask you to change something on a whim (something that was NOT stated in the sketch phase) charge them for it. How much? How much time did it take for them to convey that? How much time will it take to do it? If its small and easy, charge the amount of a cup of coffee. If its going to take you a significant amount of time you can charge your hours or charge the amount it will take for you to go get a lunch break. 

When you're done give'it to em 
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TLDR:
Tip/ Consolation fee : $10? $5? $20? How grumpy you feelin?
(How much money does it take for somebody to barge into your personal space and get away with it? Charge how much you would want if you had to spend an hour dealing with angry, and mean people? [commissioners are generally nice but there are some rough ones out there!])

How many hours will this take? 3:00? 5:30?
How much would you get for watching someones brats? $10? $15? $20? $25? 
(Hours) X (Money) = Base Fee

Did they give you any trouble? Did they ask you to fix stuff that they never specified? (Yes?)
Charge em for:
A.) A nice relaxing cup of wholesome (You're gonna need it after that! >w<)
B.) Lunch for one! (Working hard makes me hangry!)
C.) Every hour spent actively wasting your time (don't wait around all day for them to respond to you, have 2 projects open at any given time.)
D.) Twice as much for every hour that they spent being rude to you. (Make an example of them! Nobody will push you around!)

Hope this helped 
If it did you should totally come check out my page!

Userpage of BedsheetWalking -- Fur Affinity [dot] net


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## luffy (Feb 6, 2019)

Not very in either rendition.  It looks like a wall of text and is bearing down on my senses with how large it is.  Try to differentiate the headings and points (the + information) by varying the text weights, sizes, and color a bit.  The white drop on the text makes my eyes strain.

It's also huge, which is a big turn off for me when looking for people to commission.  You want to be able to take in all the information at once without zooming out to make it too small to read, or without having to scroll around the image and piece things together.

I like the text to be easily distinguishable, categorized neatly, as short-worded as possible, and relevant to the example it's next to.

I attached an example of what I mean.


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## bluezcherry (Feb 6, 2019)

@BedsheetWalking that makes sense on the 50% thing, I just know that it takes me longer to get two characters in the same image with lineart vs with a sketch, or so on, so i'd have to find a different way to communicate that. and most of this other stuff i've heard, but the "grumpy tax" analogy i haven't! thank you!
@luffy thank you so much for the feedback!! that looks really nice  do you mind if use that with credit to you for the text design? (i'd personally make the adjustments of the bullet points matching the text like the first one, and i need to change tumblr to furaffinity, but otherwise yes, that looks much better than my current one)


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## luffy (Feb 6, 2019)

You don't have to credit me, you can feel free to just use it.

Or if you wanted to edit it, it's a text layer with a 2px stroke set on overlay.  The light color is the green that you already have, the dark pink is black, and the lighter pink is  the pink color you have.


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## BedsheetWalking (Feb 6, 2019)

*construction noises*
*looks for your FA page*


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## bluezcherry (Feb 6, 2019)

@luffy tysm!


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## BedsheetWalking (Feb 6, 2019)

Here.


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## bluezcherry (Feb 7, 2019)

@BedsheetWalking  Whoa!! that looks pretty good! I got kinda thrown by how you edited my character out of the bg example XD It's a really good edit

I actually made a quick wip based on feedback. I'm going to add that 2px stroke once I get access to photoshop, since the program I have (medibang paint) doesn't have it.




And bonus, I found a really old version of my sheet while I was going through my files XD


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## luffy (Feb 7, 2019)

That's much better.  The stroke will tie it together perfectly.


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## MissNook (Feb 7, 2019)

I like how you've put characters to emphasis the text and fill the space

However, terms seem still kinda messy to me. Maybe try to justify the text and put some more space between your points? You can also change the size of the header "Terms" since it's bigger that the other headers. 
You could also reduce the size of the banner with the title to give more space to the rest 
But I guess you'll still do some adjustments since the stroke might change the position of the text already ^^

Also I think the picture with the background doesn't feel right around the others. It looks messy against those clear lined work and kinda out of place in my opinion.

I hope that helps ^^


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## bluezcherry (Feb 7, 2019)

@MissNook Yeah, I think I have a better example for that. I've just been using that one because it's my highest res bg. And I thought I changed the Terms header size, but I guess it got fricked again :/ ty!


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## bluezcherry (Feb 7, 2019)

Alright, here's an updated version with the stroke and some formatting adjustments! The header really was too big, and I think I like the aesthetic of how it is now better anyway ^v^ Also, I decided to use the 2px stroke for the headers, and a 1px stroke for the description text.

I am a little bugged by the blank spaces at the bottom and up in the top right corner, but I think I'd rather leave them than clutter up the sheet too much, unless I'm missing some info that I should add (besides the fact that I do comics, which wouldn't fit anyway)


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## luffy (Feb 7, 2019)

I think they bug you because they are light and look more empty that way.  Make a new layer above every other layer and then select all and put a small stroke black around it (matching the text), that might help.  But the blank spaces are good and make it look not too busy.


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## Fallowfox (Feb 7, 2019)

Can I recommend that you make the punctuation consistent throughout? Always finish sentences with a period for example. 

It would just help things read better. :]


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## bluezcherry (Feb 7, 2019)

@Fallowfox yeah I thought I got that but I should go back and. fix that  ty
@luffy I'm not entirely sure what you're recommending? Do you mean a stroke around the block elements, around the entire sheet, both, or something else?


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## luffy (Feb 7, 2019)

bluezcherry said:


> the entire sheet


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## MissNook (Feb 7, 2019)

Oh I just re-read your terms, and I think that saying "it's fine if you use my art for anything" is not a good idea. That can mean pretty much anything, like they can re-sell it for example.
I can suggest something like "You can use my art for any non-commercial uses as you as long as you credit me by a link to this thread (preferred) or my name "bluezcherry" next to the image."
Except if you indeed intend to sell your rights on the image (which is usually not a good idea without a proper contract).

And sorry but I still find the terms pretty dense. I don't really understand why all the text is stuck to the left like that while there is space for a lot of words to be on the same line (I can understand for the first paragraph but not for the next one ^^ )
If I keep your text and put it like that, it's more readable.
"Please note that it's fine
if you use my art for anything,
but please credit me if you do!
Preferably by linking back
to this thread, or by having
my name (bluezcherry) 
next to the image."
7 lines instead of 8 and I tried to cut the sentence where it's not an hindrance to read. 

I hope it helps!


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## bluezcherry (Feb 7, 2019)

@luffy oooh ok!  thx
but idk if I should do that, since a border might just be even more distracting :/ i think I'll just live with a couple blank spaces
@MissNook oh yikes  you're right.  i just meant that i could make book covers/logos/etc but I suppose that should be negotiated on a case by case basis rather than a general hand wave. and I just have a personal thing with text being justified all the same way, and preferably not centered, but you're right, that would improve readability. i'll shift it around 
plus I should change that wording! it's specific to my art shop thread, I ought to change that to 'link back to where you ordered' or such like that. 
tysm again!


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## bluezcherry (Feb 7, 2019)

Alright! I redid the terms, so hopefully they're more readable now. Plus, I did actually try the border, and while I'm not particularly a fan of it, it made me realize all my elements were off center! So here's both


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## bluezcherry (Feb 7, 2019)

Also! 
@luffy 
@BedsheetWalking 
@Fallowfox 
@MissNook 




All this feedback and advice has been so rad, you people are awesome!


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## MissNook (Feb 7, 2019)

That's great! Good work!

Also I think the one with a border can work pretty well depending on the site where you submit it (for example if the background color of the site is pale) but even if it gives a contrast boost, I also like the version without border better ^^

I'm glad we could help you! (your thank-you picture is so cute!!)


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## bluezcherry (Feb 7, 2019)

@MissNook yeah, I agree, I have a site with a green bg so that would be a good idea to have some contrast there  thx
and yay!!


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