But what if half your ocs are softys and not made for fighting?
dating sim
this post changed the game
Hey btw if you don’t know how to program, you should check out [novelty], which is a free Visual Novel creation software. Absolutely no programming required, and it’s super easy to use, I played with it some when I was a teen but the only reason I didn’t do much with it is cuz I made my story complicated and had like 5000 different branching routes that kept spawning new routes and made myself confused LMAO
But yeah, it’s a WYSIWYG with a really straight-forward GUI, if I remember correctly.
It even comes with some free backgrounds and characters and stuff, and this is what it looks like:
Did I mention it’s super duper free? It hasn’t been updated since 2010, but it has basically all you’d need to make a simple visual novel.
Just make sure your DirectX runtime is updated, cuz it can act buggy if it’s outdated, but this program is so old that I doubt it’d even be an issue lol
holy shit
This is so cool? Can you imagine fanfic in this format?
So @dreriart made a post about commission pricing and I thought since it is doin’ the rounds I’d copy-paste this thing I wrote on DA over to Tumblr because for some reason I … never … did that … before??
So one recurring thing I see a lot in the art community in many
different formats is ‘how much should I charge for my commissions?’
What
normally follows is a lot of bad advice. Terrible advice. So I’m here
to give you some good advice and tell you all about how to value your
skillset and price accordingly. This guide has been written with the
intended audience of folk who are just starting out with commissions,
but I hope it will encourage other artists to give themselves a fair
wage and, of course, a lot of this can be transposed over to other
creative professions as well.
So let’s answer the question of ‘how much should I be charging people for work?’
The answer to this is deceptively simple. Here are the questions you need to ask yourself to form an appropriate response:
Where do you live?
How old are you?
For obvious reasons I cannot assist you with these. But once you have these you go to Google and you type in the following:
‘minimum wage per hour in <location name>’
Which is more than likely going to bring up an official government page for your area. Here is the one for the UK since that is where I live.Now
what? Well. How old are you? Because some locations have different
rates for those in different age brackets. But essentially all you need
to do is get the following info:
How much is the minimum wage per hour for my age in my area?
Now
that you have this, how long does a piece take you? You do not need to
be exact. A rough guesstimation will do. This will form your base price
of:
Minimum Wage x Estimated Hours
Therefore if I take five hours to paint a portrait and my min wage is £7.83 then my base price for a painted portrait is £39.15.
That is the absolute minimum you should be charging for your work.
And please take into considerations the following:
Working outside your comfort zone will up times taken on a piece.
If you’re working with traditional materials, how much for paper/canvas/paint/pens/etc?
Minimum wage is quite often garbage anyway.
Whenever
I say this though, I often get a variety of responses in the negatory
for this method. I have answers for each of them. So, let’s run a
sort-of-FAQ on this method shall we?
I’m not good enough to price that high.
Yes you are. Who says? Your government, for starters. Also me. Here’s the thing. No matter the quality of your art, you deserve a fair living wage for your work.
There
are lots of people out there with no understanding of the time, effort
and tears that go into honing artistic skills. Digital art, making
comics, mastering musical composition, sculpting, or whatever it is all
takes time to learn and we are constantly growing and improving. And if
someone wants to hand you money for what you are producing guess what?
You ARE good enough. That is the proof right there. Another human being
wants to give you cold hard cash for something that only you can make.
If
it puts a different perspective on things for you, think of job roles
that would be traditionally minimum wage. Probably the one most people
will go to is ‘burger flipping at McDonalds’ as an example of a low
skill occupation that is stereotypically easy and for those who failed
in life etc. etc. (spoiler alert: it isn’t, but that’s a journal entry
for another day). Why should this theoretical failure of humanity earn
more than you doing a job that ‘anyone can do’? Because art is
absolutely more difficult than cleaning out a McFlurry machine (that’s a
legit fact by the way: I’ve cleaned one of those and art is way
harder).
Also, art is a luxury product my friend. No one needs to
be buying commissions of their MMO character. They want it? They can
play by our rules. And they will.
My family member/friend/random internet guy said that’s too expensive and I should lower my prices.
Your
family member/friend/random internet berk is a fucking idiot at best,
or intentionally trying to get you to undersell at worst. Firstly, I’d
be willing to bet that the person who said this to you is not an
artist. If so, what makes them more qualified than another actual artist
to tell YOU how to price yourself? Because you trust their opinion?
Yeah, but what if their opinion is formed on a factually incorrect
assumption of how much art costs/the time it takes to produce because
that is a HUGE deal in our community right now. And what if they just
want you to stay cheap because it threatens them? Or, as a consumer,
want you to stay cheaper for their own selfish purchasing habits? What
then? Tell them to fuck off.
But there is someone better than me charging less! Why should a client pick me over them?
Spoiler
alert: there will always be someone better than you charging less.
There are thousands of mega quality artists out there. I’m considered
expensive for what I produce, especially as I live in a country with a
currency that translates highly to other currencies. Yet people
constantly ask me for commission work. So what gives? Here are some
reasons why a prospective client might chose you over someone else:
You are nicer than they are.
You are faster than they are.
You’re working in a niche sector.
They know you personally.
They like your art style better.
You have lots of good feedback.
A friend recommended you.
They aren’t even open for commissions right now.
They had a bad experience with that artist in the past.
You’re easier to purchase from.
You have a larger following and purchasing from you exposes that audience to them by proxy.
There
are lots of other reasons but price isn’t necessarily often the
deciding factor for a lot of clients. Don’t spend your life being
concerned with how other people are better than you or you’ll never be
happy.
I’m nervous about pricing so highly! What if no one wants my art?If
a client doesn’t want to pay you a fair living wage for their luxury
item purchase then that’s a client you can probably do without to be
honest with you.Someone complained about my prices being so high! What do I do?
Refer them to this:
Something worth noting is that minimum wage is normally used for people who are employed (not self employed). So people who work contracted 16, 24, 37 or 40+ hours per week for an employer.
Anyone who is not guaranteed work for a set amount of hours per week is absolutely within their right to charge well over the minimum wage, to cover those hours that they are not guaranteed.
Ever wonder why the plumber is so expensive? Or the electrician? The pc repair guy (£60 to transfer my data? Really? All you do is plug it in and leave it for a few hours..)
That’s why. Because most traders/self employed people don’t have work lined up 9-5 mon-fri (though it’s great news if you do!). If my lovely pc repair tech only charged me £20 to transfer my data, or £5 labour (half an hour) +
>insert price of laptop screen here< to repair my screen, he’s never going to make enough money to stay open, because he doesn’t have people coming and going in his shop all day every day.
If you’re considering being a part or full time artist, then perhaps consider not just how many hours it takes you per piece, but how much of your time you want to spend on commissions. If you plan on spending 20 hours per week on it (not just the art itself, but consider things like liasing with customers and promoting yourself as well) then calculate the hours with the minimum wage (in the above instance, it would be 20 x £7.83 = £156.60). Then you figure in that week you can hopefully (and realistically) complete let’s say, 3 commissions. That would be £52.20 each. Already that’s more than the base price stated above (which I am not saying is wrong at all). But you’ve covered yourself for the additional work and downtime hours, and given yourself a real expectation that of what income you’ll be earning per week.
Commissions are open! (Doesnt have to be mlp!!!) Ive recently been saddled with 2 trips to urgent care and medicines amount of bills and REALLY could use the help. I borrowed money to pay for the bills but now need to pay back a family member $600 AND get my car fixed, so if you cant help maybe you can reblog this post? if you dont want a commission i also have a patreon and a kofi if youd like to support me there
still REALLY need commissions, my husbands medcal issue is getting worse and now he is in medical leave with no pay, meaning my only income is commissions/patreon until further notice, if you cant support me please PLEASE reblog!!
You like this kind of art?
I do too~
Give my lovely friend a message and commission her for your own beautiful and sexy pics!
Hey, this post may contain adult content, so we’ve hidden it from public view.
Working over her cauldron one hearth’s warming eve, A curious thing happened, one wouldn’t believe. Mixing alchemical concoctions with sugary sweets Turned this mare into candy! A peppermint treat!
((hehe, thanks dude for the christmas gift! anyone wanna try a lick?))
I made a thing! I was thinking about this for a few days - because I realized that when I was young, I was also frustrated about being given the same advice over and over - without really knowing what it meant!!
Here’s 5 techniques which I have done before which have helped me grow as an artist, which are good for 5-minute warmups or just straight up challenges for your sketchbook!
Obviously, these are not the ONLY techniques - they’re just the ones I find most fun! And maybe they’re not the most ‘correct’ ones out there, but it’s better than another comic about practicing more, right?
it’s important to think of ears as having 3D volume, and not just being flat bits sticking off the head. it can help to visualize ears as stretchy cups, with a rim and a base. from there you can more easily imagine how their shape distorts as they move in space.
also, don’t forget that the ridges or fur lining of an ear follows the inner curve of the ‘cup’, and can be a great way of further indicating that volume.
It’s been a while since I’ve made a post, and I figured that these tips might be extra helpful with exam season approaching. As someone who struggles a lot with procrastination, I do everything I can to fight the urge to put assignments off until the last minute (even though I’m not always successful).
