#i should be. other creators have higher prices and are still underselling themselves.

[ennakros]

hey loves. i know this isn't ideal, but any future icon borders will start having a minimum price on ko-fi. i love creating things and coming up with designs, but i need to also focus on breaking even with the costs of my licenses, and perhaps stop making a loss financially with this. it's my hobby, yes, but i also view it as a side project & a pocket money style income stream. prices won't be expensive, but expect the minimum to be between £0.50 and £1.50 from hereon out.

free borders and dividers will still be shared, as well as psds when i come to making them. paid dividers will be due to their levels of customisation.

with all this being said — the rules remain the same regardless if they are paid or free: all content must be credited appropriately, failure to do so will result in blacklisting, if it happens on a consistent basis then that will result in all downloads being made private & through IM only, with evidence of crediting being provided. if you buy a product that allows you to input your url, that does not mean you can claim you made it yourself. credit me.

#ennakros posts . #i dont like having to focus on paid content but when you pay hundreds out in licensing and commercial use— #there comes a point where you want to start feeling the benefit. #and i wont be charging a lot. #i should be. other creators have higher prices and are still underselling themselves. #our time; work and the content we acquire and licenses cost more than say... 15usd. which seems like a standard rate. #we shouldn't be underselling ourselves but we do. #and i won't be asking for a lot. i've got the statistics for my downloaded items. #if each person paid £1 i'd have already made a tiny dent in my costs. #but yeah. free content will continue but just less so.

[horreurscopes]

Hi! I had a question about commission pricing in regards to other artists. I have a friend who is very upset she doesn't get many commissions and constantly feels lost in regards to it. The issue is mostly, though, that she charges minimum price 75 dollars for her art (a b/w lineart of one character) and her art is not what people would think is the type of quality for that price. She says though because she has an art degree she cant lower her prices. Any ideas? :(

i mean i would be more comfortable giving this advice if the artist themselves asked for it because not only is putting yourself out there and trying to selling your art a nerve-wracking, stressful endeavor in a market where clients are prone to devaluing your work while simultaneously feeling entitled to it, it is also a very  emotionally vulnerable process, so i don’t blame her for feeling upset and lost. everyone does, from beginner artists to people who have been doing this for years, decades, specially, specially female artists, who are prone to impostor syndrome. people are constantly trying to weigh in on how artists price their creations (which given the emotionally charged process of creating art, will never be an exact science), so a third party coming for advice that might be unwanted strikes me as unnecessary chagrin on an already troubled creator

i’m not going to tell your friend to lower her prices. i’m glad to hear someone knows the worth of their time, skill, practice, career investment, and is sticking to it despite the difficult market. i never went to art school or have been able to access any type of higher education, but i’ve invested over twenty years --basically my entire life ever since i could hold a pencil-- into honing my skill. i can only imagine how higher the stakes are when years of loans and a career path are at play.

selling your art feels like going on a stage for the first time in your life to try to entertain an extremely difficult crowd of strangers when you’ve only ever told jokes to your pets. i know that sometimes, no matter how much your art really is worth, skill and practice/time investment are a learning curve, art is a newly acquired skill, or not one that comes easily, and people won’t want to pay for the backstage preparation that it took to create their piece. it sucks. the economy’s gone to shit, sometimes, in difficult situations where money is more important than the value we know our art has, there is no other option but to stick to minimum wage and hope some bastard takes advantage of that desperation. i’ve been there, i still am sometimes, i don’t want anyone to think i’m coming from a place of privilege where i can say this stuff because my art is quote unquote good. the first time i started selling commissions five years ago, my prices went from $6-$20. i’ve drawn full illustrations for $50 because i really needed to pay a bill or get groceries. it doesn’t mean it’s fair, and it absolutely does not mean starting artists should undersell themselves.

to create a fair artist-client market, its imperative for clients to understand that art is not fast food. it is not fast fashion. its not mass produced, cheap labor, or second-hand. i keep coming back to this sugar baby advice i read once, where a girl was like, “you are a luxury service, and if someone wants to haggle, they cannot afford you.” the same applies to art, i think. commissioned art is a luxury service.

sometimes, as artists we have to be realists. sometimes, because of how much time we spend on a piece, the level of our skill, or other variables such as not having made enough connections yet, it is not a possibility for everyone to live off their art or even sell it at this particular moment in time. sometimes you have to bite the bullet and look for a way to feed yourself somewhere else. like any other market, its competitive, and clients will flock to people who have spent longer honing their skill. i don’t think it's cynical to say that there’s always going to be someone out there who’s better, more popular, or has more connections.

the good thing about art is that we do it (i hope), at our core, because it's a pleasure to create. in this capitalist hellhole of a planet it's very rare to say that. the best thing we all can do is practice, draw every day, draw everything we see, everywhere we go. not for a client, or even your blog, or your friends. drawing for yourself, for your secret self and their eyes only, the things you like and the areas where you feel unskilled until you no longer feel unskilled is the second best thing an artist can do for their craft and their business. everyone’s artwork is unique to their personalities, their experiences, the way they see the world. no one out there will ever be able to draw exactly the same way you do. and that original spark (that, plus learning about the business/marketing side of selling your art: networking and advertising and all the boring non artsy parts of freelancing) will get everyone farther than you thought you could go

the very best thing an artist can do for their art is to realize, remember and internalize that how much money people are willing to pay for your artwork is not, in the end, what gives it worth

#genuinesoftboy