10 Commission Tips!+Are You a College Student??

I thought I'd post a journal offering some helpful tips and resources to people! FIRST OFF: Are you a college student??? Do you REALLY HATE paying stupidly high prices for books, especially used ones? WELL THEN USE THIS SITE INSTEAD to buy or rent your books, I used it through 4 years of college and it saved me hundreds of dollars. And they're just straight up a nice company--every time they mailed me my books, they included stuff like laundry soaps and energy drinks, free of charge. xD

www.chegg.com/

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Onto the second thing...Do you want to open your own commissions? Don't know where to start? Or maybe you're new to it and haven't quite gotten the hang of it? Well here's some tips for you born of my 8+ years of doing commissions on this site, and several people have come to me asking for some help.

1) DON'T TAKE COMMISSIONS IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE TIME OR MOTIVATION. I cannot stress this enough. If you WANT to do commissions but aren't sure if you can keep up the motivation, do a dry run first by doing ART TRADES with a few people, and watch yourself on how you feel and react to time constraints and pressure to get something done for someone. If you can't do art trades in a timely manner, you probably shouldn't do commissions until you can find a way to get that self-starter attitude up. 

2) Prices are always a hard thing to settle on, especially when you're new. I recommend starting relatively low but NOT DIRT CHEAP, you know, around the $5-$40 range to start. You can raise your prices later, but try not to let them fluctuate much, otherwise people will be like "well you lowered your price a couple days after I bought a full-price commission from you, now idk about your consistency." Maybe raise your prices once a year, if demand is high enough!

3) Signal boost other people, and in turn get signal boosted!

4) YOUR REPUTATION MATTERS. If you take forever to get a commission done, or you ask "what did you want again?" or don't ask the commissioner for clarification on details, it will come back to bite you! I've had a ton of people order comms from me saying "My friend got one from you and really liked your friendliness and speediness, so I'd like one!" Alternatively, if you do poorly at commissions, people DO tell their friends about it.

5) MOST of your customers are going to be repeat buyers, so be nice and chill to everyone because you don't know who's going to keep coming back vs. who will be happy with just one. And if someone tends to buy lots of commissions from you, do something NICE for them once in a while! Like give them a discount, add in some extra detail, or offer to mail the traditional sketch/linework to their address! After all, they're paying you to do something you love: art!

6) Set limits for yourself. If you're new to commissions, only take one or two in a batch and see how long it takes you to finish them. Don't overwhelm yourself!

7) Difficult commissioners do happen. If you have a difficult customer, don't lose your temper (again, going back to reputation). Chances are, that commissioner is just anxious about how their beloved characters are going to turn out in your style, and they want it done right. With those, just be sure to get LOTS of details of their specific request (more is better than less) and ASK FOR REFERENCES. Of course, difficult people who are just unhappy no matter what WILL Come up, in which case I recommend just finishing the commission to the best of your ability and maybe offering a PARTIAL refund and explaining you will no longer be taking commissions from them. Say this tactfully!

8) For the love of God, keep a LIST in a journal/on a piece of paper of who has ordered a commission from you. Forgetting about commissions until two months later is NOT a pretty feeling.

9) If you post the commission to DA, be sure to say something in the description, like what you enjoyed drawing, or what you think of the character. It's nice to hear a commissioner's feedback on what THEY think of your character, especially if you really respect them, right?

10) Have a good collection of examples you can show people, so they'll know exactly what they'll be getting (i.e. chibis, sketches, colored art, etc). Heck, use your finished commissions as example work!

I hope these are helpful to a few people.  

~Zerna 

COMMISSION INFO: zerna.deviantart.com/journal/L…