How to be successful with commissions?

Hello everyone

This is a guide for people who start with commissions, the compiled points serve as advice on how to proceed. Sometimes I was asked for tips and decided to write this. After being on deviantart and other places and making commissions for few years I have gathered quite a bit of experience.

I hope you will find this helpful and enjoyable.

To sell anything (pictures, writing, crafts...etc) you need first to be discovered and seen by potential customers. Here is how you can make that happen!

Step 1: The start - make people see you!

Make the best of what various sites offer you, many for free. Take any chance to be visible you can get.

How?

Join social sites - not only deviantart account, but facebook, tumblr, twitter, etc... social because you look for people and possible clients who can discover you and interact with you.

Display your works online. On each submission share links leading to other sites: either general link to the account or links to each thing you made directly. This is called cross posting or x-posting.

Why?

Someone might not have a FB account and prefers to use tumblr. Each person is different, best bet is to make yourself accessible on all sites.

For example, this is what I display here on DA usually following my pictures or journals:

Step 2: Present yourself

Where?

Places with lot of people! Submit your works in clubs, groups. Users often invite you to advertise your services, feature memes, oc features, commission prices etc.

Enter contests, people are curious to see results and might see your work.

Make tutorials, sure others probably made something on that topic, but people may be interested how you do it. It helps to show how you work, think and again gives a chance to get to know you.



Make fanart, the theme or fandom gives already something to people to connect to. Fanart of fandoms artists enjoy show sometimes their best work and great rendered ideas. It also tells about what you enjoy, something clients can connect to.

How?

Most importantly make sure the quality of the pictures and presentation is good. Bad photos, not cropped scans and incomplete information wont impress. Make best of your chances, people will look on your things for few seconds. Think of it as visit in store. You want to buy meat - can you find it fast? Is it packed well? Is the price visible?

The way you present yourself is going to affect your success. Do it effectively.  Comment on people's work, it builds connections which will help you a lot; comment on commissions made by other artists, engage in discussions - you might be working with references made by the artist later or they will work with yours, clients collect various styles of their characters and might consider you seeing you enjoying the characters in comments etc. Honestly commenting topic could become a whole new journal entry, but you should get the idea.

It is not only the art you market, but yourself. Your art is good, but you need to give the client reason to order from you! Be positive, show your personality and how you do things as well. Be open, it will invite clients just like open door.

Step 3: Prepare yourself for selling

Alright, I am seen, art is up! What now?

Have clear understanding of what you can and cannot do. It will avoid a lot of confusion and hardship for you and your client. With time you can grow and try new things, but for starters work in conditions which make you feel the most confident.

Manage out how long it takes you to create the things you want to sell and set price accordingly. You can do that by measuring with timer while drawing. There are useful tips on how to price yourself all over the place, here is one I enjoyed the most.

Put it into writing, make a chart or pricing list - you can have a written one, visual example or both. Having both helps to cover both preferences of your clients. Some artists give quotes on the commissions privately, but a public one is more inviting and makes buyers more confident in approaching you.



Submit these charts to groups, clubs and post it to forum on deviantart as well - some groups have commission IDs, which are supposed to be filled out, it depends on the group/club itself. Just make sure to follow rules of each group and read all information properly when posting it.

Step 4: Maintain your presentation

What else? Do I wait now?

Just continue doing what you started and be productive.

Here on DA it can help to offer point commission as well - people who are interested into point commissions might find you through them and commission you for regular money commission or vice-verse.

Make trades - arttrade, writing trade - collaborations - these all introduce you to the audience of the person you trade with. Trade is basically a mutual promotion. It is also a good way to try if you can do a commission. You take in order but are paid in goods or service.

If possible, stream when you work. There are various programs you can use - livestream, join.me, usstream... Its a great way to see how fast you work, you can talk to viewers.

My livestream is here.

When you are finished streaming you can do a follow-up - create speedpaint videos of the streams you did - that is helpful for people who cannot visit your streams, or just want to watch it again (I do! :d)

Here are speedpaints I did so far:



When making commissions, create special slots - with special price or something different than usual etc. One important thing to keep in mind is - price accordingly, do not undercharge yourself. It will affect you greatly if you do and also other people. It does not help to cultivate clients who hunt for art wanting to pay pennies. You want to sell your skill, so be prideful and confident!




While uploading your commissions, credit your commissioner, artists or works you used as reference. Everyone mentioned might check out your work, even people who want to see how someone's stock photo was used or similar. You can feature other commissions in the description of your submission too. People can discover your older work or see the ones you find important. Example in picture bellow.

Step 5: Keeping up with market and culture

Stay allert! Follow practices of others, read their charts and observe prices. Look for leads or making things better while learning from others.

When someone is advertising their commissions, you can advertise them as well. It is mutual help and they might reciprocate the gesture in future for you. When you get advertisement, make sure to show you appreciate it and keep it going - no one like people who only take.

Inform yourself about rules of sites you advertise on, about paypal policies or other methods of payment, postal services etc. Practically about anything which is having to do with commissions. Keeping on top of things is always a good practice.

I recommend to follow this group - you can learn a lot there from people who post and from the comments shared on the posts. I also try to engage in discussion on various commission journals or polls. It doesn't hurt to talk or ask your clients or other artists about the problems they encountered. For example: till this day I tell clients that its against TOS of paypal when artist asks them to send payment as gift. It won't fix the whole culture, but it makes effect for each individual I educate.

Most of all - be polite! Its very important in any business and offering services. You would not want to engage with a moody and poorly mannered cashier in store, right?

And don't forget - keep evolving and be alert. These might work for some, all or just a few. It all depends on what kind of person you are and what are your needs and your customers. It's just a guideline

Thanks for reading, here are other tutorials I made.

For tips how to improve your commissioning skills, check here.

For commission you can check my information: