Some actual helpful commission tips for young/newer artists
1. Don’t accept people sending you messages asking for free art. I know it’s tempting because you don’t feel like your art is “worth actual money” because maybe you’re not that practiced yet but there are other ways to put yourself out there other than just taking free commissions, because the thing is people who send you messages like that do not respect you and will not respect you no matter what.
2. A way to exchange art without receiving money with people, but still gaining some notoriety and experience are art trades and requests. Request and people asking for free art sound very similar, but there is one big distinction. It’s that with requests people don’t expect you to make something for them. They are just giving you ideas. People who ask for free art expect it to be up to their standards as if they paid for it and they will treat you as subhuman. Requesters don’t usually do that and if they do, you can turn them down because it’s a request.
3. Some more advice for taking commissions because I certainly needed this advice is if someone contacts you asking for commissions and they start the conversation with a price, especially if that price is very generous; It is more likely than not a scam. If you have on your page that you have commissions opened or you have a pinned post about commissions being open, but they still message you asking if your commissions are opening, they’re also probably scamming you because they didn’t actually go to your page. One thing I fell for is someone telling me that they accidentally sent too much money through and asked me to reimburse them only to have the check bounce and me to have lost a significant amount of money. Never ever ever send money back to someone commissioning you, especially if they’re already kind of shady. (if the sum actually does appear in your bank account fully confirmed and you get verification that it is actually there you could potentially send money back, but it would be better to talk to someone at the bank first to be safe.) 
4. Especially on Instagram beware of accounts that will have a profile picture that is usually just some man, and the account only has three pictures on it. Typically you’ll get messages from these types of accounts saying something along the lines of that they love your art style and they’re wanting a piece drawn of their grandchild or son or something along those lines and then once again they will also open with telling you how much they will pay you out of the gate, ($400 is an amount I see used often) which will be an absurd amount of money. 
5. Never ever ever give anyone your bank information over the Internet. If they’re not willing to pay via PayPal, Venmo, Cash app or any of those other money trading apps, that’s sketchy Af. I’ve had people use the excuse that they’re using their business account and therefore can’t use those apps. This is a lie, same with telling you that they can’t send the payment because the money won’t transfer because it’s too large an amount this is also a common lie, most money transferring apps have a relatively generous cap off so unless you’re selling commissions for thousands and thousands of dollars they shouldn’t be having an issue. Same thing also goes for mail delivery checks.
6. Don’t undersell yourself, but if you don’t feel comfortable selling your art for a steeper price because of your experience level, then at the very least set a reasonable price and have a limit to how many slots do you have available for commissions because otherwise people are gonna take advantage of the low price and you’re gonna be swamped with like 10 commissions at the same time where you making not even two dollars an hour.
7. Lastly, just trust your instincts if something seems fishy just play it safe because from my own personal experience, usually your gut instinct is correct. If something seems too good to be true, it is. All of this information comes from my own experiences with scammers and being taken advantage of as a young artist so if you do end up falling for a scam like that, don’t be embarrassed because you’re not the only one. If something goes wrong, you can always go to your bank and discuss it with the people there and they should help you, and I’m sure there are a bunch of other older artists in the community who would be willing to help you if you were having some doubts about a situation.
