ive been considering opening commissions, so I’ve been dropping into the inboxes of a few comm artists in the fandom. Do you think you could give me some advice? Any idea of what it’s like, how you manage it, stuff like that. Also sorry for being anon, I just feel worried about people being disappointed if I decide not to do the comms :( your art is very nice to I like it a lot ♡
Hi! Ah gosh, that's so exciting – I wish you the best of luck with commission work! If you do decide to open them, I hope you find a lot of joy in it ❤️
I do think that doing commissions can be both incredibly rewarding but also an unexpectedly slippery slope to a stressful practice if you're not prepared haha. I'll do my best to give advice that I think has helped me!
I've been doing commissions on and off since about 2019/2020 and I guess these have been my biggest takeaways:
1. Under promise, over deliver –
This is going to be the biggest help in managing expectations (both yours and the clients!) However much effort or however much time you think it'll take you to do a single commission, at least DOUBLE that. Heck, TRIPLE or QUADRUPLE it. If you think it'll take you two weeks, promise to do it in six weeks.
I do feel like I have seen a lot of people new to taking on commissions (myself included btw, I definitely made this same mistake when I started out) go into them expecting that doing a commission will only take as long as it does for them to create a "normal" piece of art. But there is a HUGE difference between creating art pieces for yourself/fun vs. creating something that is paid for and caters to and is directed by someone else's vision.
If you've ever procrastinated on homework, even for your favorite subject– that's sort of what happens here. Expect for commission work to not take precedence over life / socials / illness / mental health (both for you or your client) and you'll have an already baked-in timeline for you to have some leeway with deadlines.
For example, my usual promise to deliver is 8 weeks. My most recent commission that I worked on only took me about 2 weeks to complete from payment to delivery; I was energized, motivated, and healthy, and communication with the client was super prompt on both ends so things got done fast and snappy.
In contrast, a commission I worked on just one month right before the other comm took nearly the whole 8 weeks to complete because I fell really ill in the midst of it (COVID) and the client also went on vacation for a period of time so they were unable to be reached for updates/client approval of some requested edits. But luckily we both already knew going in that there would be delays with their vacation. Which brings me to number 2...
2. Communication, communication, communication! –
Whatever happens, whatever you do, ALWAYS TALK TO THE CLIENT. Ask questions, set boundaries (things like when you're usually available to be reached– i.e. "work hours", how long they might be able to expect a response after messaging you, etc), don't be afraid to reach out for clarity or ask for more references, and give clear expectations and deadlines.
For example, I always give an expected check-in date for the next update. If at any time I think I can't meet that deadline (day job workload suddenly increased and is eating up my time, I'm feeling under the weather, family emergency, etc.) I'll let the client know ASAP that something has come up and I'll need to push the deadline by a couple days, maybe even a week.
The worst you can really do is leave someone in the dark and have them feel like a bother trying to reach out for updates on something that they're willing to pay for. Take initiative and remember that they WANT to hear from you, the artist 🫶
But don't let pushing out and delaying deadlines become a slippery slope that you fall down, which is number 3...
3. Set deadlines and EXPECT to stick to them! –
We all know life happens and sometimes you just need more time. I've personally found people to be incredibly kind and understanding when I've had to reach out to let them know about potential delays!
But always know that there is a fine line between good communication and understanding to accommodate occasional and situational delays vs. exploiting a client's capacity for patience and kindness in order to ask for never-ending extensions.
This one is hard, because I feel like most instances I've seen of this are not done maliciously, but constantly extending deadlines is just one of those habits people can fall into when the work gets too overwhelming.
So I would say that any deadlines you explicitly give to a client should be something you try to stick to– tell yourself it's a non-negotiable and that extending it is the last resort if you truly cannot make it. Sounds simple in theory but requires a good bit of self-discipline! And so to help build up your self-discipline, I present number 4...
4. Start with small batches and work your way up! –
This is really to help prevent the overwhelm and overwork! I think it's easy to expect to love and want to work on commissions all the time (it's art! In your style! After all, why wouldn't it be fun and what you always want to work on?), but the reality can be really different once you have the pressure of money being exchanged and having people waiting on you for updates and to meet deadlines.
Someone could very well be amazingly suited to work on commissions non-stop! But until you know if that's actually you or not, I'd suggest taking on only small batches of work. Even 1-2 slots that you commit to getting done within 2-3 weeks, just to see if you can! And if that turns out to be easy peasy, then awesome– you're able to open commission slots again sooner than you thought and maybe even try to take on 3-4 slots this time.
But until you try it's hard to gauge how you'll do with them, you know? So I'd suggest approaching it like you're building up a muscle and endurance 💪
Even if it's just 50% upfront and the last 50% before final delivery, I'd really suggest only agreeing to take on commission work after some kind of payment!
Nowadays, I do the full payment upfront with a clause in my TOS for situations regarding partial or full refunds and cancellations, but I had previously started out with the 50%-50% method a few years back with the condition that the first 50% payment was absolutely nonrefundable if the sketch update had already been provided.
Other tips and about my process:
I personally schedule specific days during the week dedicated JUST to commission work! If you try to schedule it as a priority in your calendar, it may help prevent commission work from being an afterthought amongst all your other work/home/social life and from becoming a product of procrastination haha.
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These days I try to stagger clients and different projects so that I'm hopefully not working on 4 different sketches for 4 different clients all due the same week. Not a perfect system yet as there's still overlap, but it helps!
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Like I mentioned, my proposed timeline that I give clients is to expect 8 weeks total to complete their commission, from time of payment to delivery. That usually looks like 2 weeks for the sketch, 1 week for any major revisions to the sketch, 2 weeks for the color, and 1 week for any other revisions to the colored piece. And then that gives me 2 extra weeks for hopefully any unexpected delays. I find that I rarely ever take the full 8 weeks except in rare cases, but it's best to bake it into the timeline just in case!
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A clause I like to include in my TOS is how many revision stages, as well as how many "major" revisions are allowed to be requested before I will start to charge additional fees. Generally I allow a total of up to two major revisions (things that require redraws, change of a pose, etc). I find this helps clients be a lot more mindful to really assess everything when I give them an update and they're able to give more valuable feedback when requesting edits, which saves a lot of time on both of our ends so that there's not "one more edit" after like 5-10 stages of revisions. I'm also confident that I'm able to really capture what they're looking for within the first try, maybe occasionally the second.
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If unsure, thumbnail sketches are great to throw together at the beginning to make sure everyone is on the same page! Occasionally I run into a commission where I'm unsure what is the best way to portray what the client wants – that's when I might make 2-3 thumbnail sketches of general compositions or poses for the client to choose from or help as a visual aid to discuss what they're really looking for.
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Something new that I only took on doing in the last year and might change because the landscape itself is changing a lot is that I've started running any progress updates (sketch, revisions, draft colors) provided to clients through Glaze / Nightshade to hopefully help prevent clients from booking and running with just the sketch to try and generate the colored pieces themselves. It also helps that I take FULL payment upfront anyway so they might as well stick around for the long haul of getting the finished piece from me lol.
Luckily, I've only had experience with literally the kindest and most genuine people for clients so I've never felt like I truly had to worry about that sort of thing (I kind of think coming from a fandom space where people are generally a lot more supportive of artists has helped a lot!) but I figure "why not/just in case" 👀 Though I've also heard that running art through those filters haven't always worked to protect it entirely, so like I said, this is something that might change with how the general landscape is changing as well...
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Another misc note– not really a tip or advice but just about my way of managing comms: I used to use Ko-fi with limited slots (about 3-5 each time), but the slots would sell out in like 5 min and was creating this false sense of scarcity with my commissions. I personally haaaate when companies do that, so it made me feel awful to be doing that with my commission slots, as unintentional as it was. Unfortunately I find that I can't really work on more than 3-5 separate commissions at a time so that's all I could offer and open.
I've since switched to a form submission system on my website so that people can submit to reserve a spot on a waitlist and I can communicate with them ahead of time/give expected wait time estimates and they can stay queued without any money being exchanged until I'm actually ready to work on their commission. I now send invoices and process payments through my own website and so far...so good. Still kinda new, but I'm optimistic so far with how this new system is going lol.
Besides the whole payment due upfront and thus only being able to open small batches of slots on Kofi, I really liked Ko-fi as a way for people to easily purchase commissions. Alternatively, I've heard good things about other commission websites like VGen and Artistree though I've never personally tried either one.
I hope that this helped! I promise commissions are not as scary as I might have made them out to seem 😅 They're actually super fun and it's one of my favorite things being able to chat with clients about their vision (especially in shared fandom stuff lol!) and bring it to life and see how happy it makes them. And I've personally never had a bad experience or a "bad/rude" client yet!
It was just poor timing back in 2024 with a family loss, travel, and illness hitting me all at the same time as one of the largest commission batches I had taken on, which sort of inspired most of these new rules I've set for myself haha. Even though everyone I was working with at the time were incredibly patient and understanding, I figure it's good to plan ahead for the worst scenario now lol.
Take care, anon, and I wish you best on your new endeavor! ❤️ Feel free to ask me any more questions in my inbox if you need to~
And if anyone else has any other advice to give on commissions pleeeaaaase feel free to add-on or share in the comments or a reblog 🤲 I am but one person after all with limited experience in my own sphere lol.
