Back to add a lil addedum: If you're like me and do not want to calculate how much a drawing that lasted minutes is worth,
I would suggest something like cash clock! It automatically calculates how much money you should charge for your time on your comm.
It doesn't pause when stop or tab to something else like the Work timer but y'know-
Hope you don't mind me asking but: Do you use a personal or business acc on paypal?? I've been thinking about opening commissions sooner or later, esp. with a website that I think will help me out but it requires a business acc, but I'm not sure if opening one is the right way to go for a first timer-
I have a business account because I've changed my name and updating that on Paypal is quite the hassle, but with a business account transactions are shown under your chosen business name. There's not a great deal of difference beyond that ime, business accounts just have additional features you can use to help manage a business so I don't think there's any harm in using one!
this is so useful! thank u for making this! i have been wanting to start doing commissions for money (I've been taking DA points as of now) and i rlly didn't know how to get started so I'm glad i stumbled upon this.
ik u said Paypal was good because u get the invoices and etc, but have u ever used cashapp to do commissions, and/or would u recommend it? (that is what i have since i legally can't have Paypal)
Would it be okay if I included the base terms in my terms of service? I really like how you stated everything, but I can reword stuff as well if you’d like!!
thank you for this! but even with my current prices, people don’t commission me and I feel like adding on to that won’t do me any favours especially considering I’m not the most experienced artist, do you have any advice on getting commissions ?? or any advice in general for my situation ?
It's very difficult especially with the current upheaval of social media making it difficult to direct towards any particular home for finding clients.
The best you can do is:
1. Post regularly and consistently (how frequent is up to you—i do not endorse crunch culture, so roughly around once a month is my suggestion!), and do your best to hone your craft. Work on things that you enjoy and are passionate about, and this will carry through into your art which will resonate with people and help you build an audience, and this in turn will make your art desirable!
2. Post in many different places, and advertise your commissions frequently. The wider the reach your art has, the more potential clients you can find, but if they don't know you're taking them they can't commission you! For plain advertising I suggest joining discords (disboard will help you find commission servers), posting in subreddits (there are many different commission centric ones, you can also look for specific communities that you think might want to commission and post your art there (e.g. for me i might seek out ffxiv subreddits as ive received a few clients for that game))
3. Have a lot of patience, unfortunately. I first started taking commissions when I was about your age—now 10 years later, I am able to get a reasonably consistent queue of clients, but that has come from time and experience and a lot of patience building an audience. It's always very difficult to get clients when you first start out, so the best thing you can do is regularly advertise your information, and never lose your passion for creating while you wait for clients. It's very easy to become discouraged when you aren't getting clients, so no matter what remember that they are always secondary to creating for yourself! The time where you don't have clients is a great gift where you can create for yourself freely and explore and experiment with your art without any limits :) treasure it! Clients will come with time and perseverance, so hold tight to your creative drive and keep going.
tysm for this !! i'll keep drawing all my critters and experimenting with them like you said ! and i'll definitely join some of the discord servers !!! thank you again!
i just wanna say, since I’ve received this advice 3 different people have commissioned me and I’ve gotten possibly the biggest commissions I’ve ever gotten/ will get in a while (i got £45 !!! I usually only get £10 ish so I was so glad they were happy to pay that much eek!) i think it might be coincidence but even still that’s like . so much for me so TYSM!!
Using Zapier, you're able to take a form submission and link it to something like google tasks, which means you can have a list of pending commissions and whenever you receive notes or what have you, you can add a subtask to it:
How you use it is really up to you! I'm more of a spreadsheet person than a task list person, personally, but if you google something like how to use task lists to improve productivity you'll definitely find plenty of advice on how to use this more effectively!
Nothing quite as simple as that little application, but ActivityWatch can track time spent using specific applications! And thank you :)!
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