Fewer things get me as riled as people not paying artists what they're worth. I'm writing to alert folks of a specific example of this, simply by giving the details of what the pay rate is. You can make your own decisions for yourselves to work for this individual for these prices, it's of my opinion that any artist who contributes to something like this further encourages the low pay of skilled artists and perpetuates the opinion of non-artists that good art is cheap.
If you are approached by a user named Ken09199 on DeviantArt to draw items for his virtual pet site LuraPets http://www.lurapets.com/, please be aware of the pay rate he quoted me when I asked for more information.
Pay rate for items: $0.50 per completion of each item. Example here:
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i315/maison66/items/lettuce_iceberg.png
Pay rate for NPC's (characters): $5.00
Also, you can get up to $2.00 for items and up to $7.00 for NPC's if the artwork is, to quote, "fantastic". The owner of this site told me that they pay based on the quality of the image. If your art is better, naturally they'll pay more. A dollar more.
I'm aware some people may feel this is a fair deal. It's your choice of course, but realize that items of that quality, for most people, would take about 20 minutes to a half an hour, earning you a pay rate of $1.00 per hour for an item you can't sell elsewhere. Minimum wage in my state is something closer to $8.00 for reference.
I asked if that price was per useage of the item, like if someone buys the item on the site, is the artist entitled to a fraction of the proceeds. The answer is no, this is a one time payment of 50 cents per item drawn.
Here's my official response:
I'm sorry but that is horribly unreasonable. Especially as pay is
completely based on someone's opinion . If my work is as good as you
said it was when you approached me you'd already know that I take my
work very seriously and consider it just that: work. I wouldn't ask
you to do your job for a dollar an hour for something you won't be
able to sell anywhere else, please don't ask the same of me.
Best of luck finding "quality" artists who will find these prices
reasonable but I can assure you, they're hard to find.
I'm of course not here to bash the individual, after all he approached me on his own accord and complimented me on my work, but I felt the need to draw attention to yet another example of why our market is so bad, that these are the prices people expect to pay for quality work.
If you are approached by a user named Ken09199 on DeviantArt to draw items for his virtual pet site LuraPets http://www.lurapets.com/, please be aware of the pay rate he quoted me when I asked for more information.
Pay rate for items: $0.50 per completion of each item. Example here:
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i315/maison66/items/lettuce_iceberg.png
Pay rate for NPC's (characters): $5.00
Also, you can get up to $2.00 for items and up to $7.00 for NPC's if the artwork is, to quote, "fantastic". The owner of this site told me that they pay based on the quality of the image. If your art is better, naturally they'll pay more. A dollar more.
I'm aware some people may feel this is a fair deal. It's your choice of course, but realize that items of that quality, for most people, would take about 20 minutes to a half an hour, earning you a pay rate of $1.00 per hour for an item you can't sell elsewhere. Minimum wage in my state is something closer to $8.00 for reference.
I asked if that price was per useage of the item, like if someone buys the item on the site, is the artist entitled to a fraction of the proceeds. The answer is no, this is a one time payment of 50 cents per item drawn.
Here's my official response:
I'm sorry but that is horribly unreasonable. Especially as pay is
completely based on someone's opinion . If my work is as good as you
said it was when you approached me you'd already know that I take my
work very seriously and consider it just that: work. I wouldn't ask
you to do your job for a dollar an hour for something you won't be
able to sell anywhere else, please don't ask the same of me.
Best of luck finding "quality" artists who will find these prices
reasonable but I can assure you, they're hard to find.
I'm of course not here to bash the individual, after all he approached me on his own accord and complimented me on my work, but I felt the need to draw attention to yet another example of why our market is so bad, that these are the prices people expect to pay for quality work.
Do NOT repost your old bewares. They are being archived.
https://artistsbeware.info/
Profile
artists_beware- Commissioner & Artist, Warning & Kudos Community
- Artists Beware
Comments
Nothing surprises me anymore but I sympathize with the situation. :/
NOT talking about myself at all here, since I'm not fantastic and don't ever claim to be - but it's a problem I see all the time happening to my peers on FA and other art sites - price wars.
In an ideal world we'd be able to charge by the hour, but realistically people want to see a price list and order art as if they were ordering food off a menu - piece w/ background, sketch, full CG coloured lineart, etc. The fact that each piece takes different amounts of time and effort to complete satisfactorily is something that most people who aren't artists don't really seem to understand - not saying they don't know there's a lot of work involved, it's more of a question of not knowing that there's no 'template' for the work that most artists do, and that you can't pull good poses and anatomy and colouring out of a hat (good referencing practices notwithstanding - a point for another time!). Really, it's a terminology problem - customers want a product when they're really asking for a service that produces a product, and it's the process you pay for.
The real problem comes from the fact there are so many artists around who offer commissions now - and why pay $50 for work from artist A who's charging 'real' prices when artist B does work of a similar quality for $30? People don't charge what they're worth because they can't afford to when people are undercutting significantly all round. The market's now full of customers who don't understand the process or value of the work involved, and so to survive you've got to either lower your prices or just... become much, much better and hope your work attains some sort of 'name brand' status, because no matter how good you are, unless people know about you and talk about you, you ain't going nowhere in the fandom :|
sad. :(
Lesser known or not, you should not allow yourself to only paid for 50 cents to 7 dollars for a single piece of commercial artwork ESPECIALLY when when there are no royalties.
I myself charge crap change for my commissions because really? I've offered them at higher prices, and got no bites, and I really undervalue my work because frankly, I think I'm terrible.
I know part of my problem is because I'm relatively unknown, and because I'm rather nervous, and come off unsociable and distant.
We really need people to start giving general prices, or perhaps have a forum where we can get Price checks. That way, people like me who are not really sure about the quality of their art, can have those who know more about art, and pricing, give their two cents.
To add insult to injury, this guy obviously wants the commercial rights to the art as well.
Crap on that.
hence in my opinion, 13 yr olds sholdn't try to run communial pet sites.
i don't know if there is one here that has something like powerpets or even wajas caliber here.
so i guess 'sorry' to them if they achived it.
The convo usually goes like this
me: How much will I get paid?
them: paid?
yeaah...
I also echo what a few other people have said about it being difficult to charge for commissions, being in the UK. I was offering conbadges for $30 usd recently but thats only about £10 gbp by the time paypal fees and shipping comes off. Which is really, nothing, everything here is so expensive. But I enjoyed doing them so I don't mind too much. But I spent about 10 hours on each of them... so, if I was to pay myself minimum wage, I should charge at least £50 (£5 per hour, min wage is actually 5.52..), but no one's going to spend $100 usd on a con badge!
examples if anyone's curious:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1496116/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1476758/
Ken
Ken
Items - 1.00usd - 80x80 image
NPCs - 7-15.00USD - 250x250 image :)
Ken