Yesterday, my friend and I were hanging out in the mall, and there was SO MUCH DIFFERENT MERCH! Lotr, One Piece, Minecraft, and more! I was so excited, but realized I needed a steady income to buy any of these merch.
I remember I drew this comic last year, and even posted some commissions (there is an option for people to buy, it's hard to explain) on DeviantArt... But no one had ordered any commissions yet :(
Like, that's funny, because when I was drawing requests all the time, a lot pf people wanted me to draw something, but when I started to ask for money for my work...
This post isn't about me asking you to buy commissions, just some thoughts... I'm little sad artist XD X(
I've been seeing a lot of posts lately about art commissions and the ridiculous price expectations that people have towards artists. I thought I might share some personal experience in that matter, if you'd like to take a little journey to the past sixteen years of my life, under the cut....
My family started a business in 1997, a retail store that sold new and used uniforms and work apparel for all levels of income. Most of our clients were working class blue-collar workers. Mechanics could buy five used shirts of good quality for ten bucks, look professional to their clients then completely ruin the shirt at work and not worry about destroying a twenty dollar shirt.
We did many other service things - commercial laundry for restaurants and wedding linens, etc - but to add to our retail section, we offered embroidery and screen printing services.
This is where I came in. I worked in all parts of the business, but I was an artist, and always wanted to work the embroidery section. We outsourced the screen printing to a sister company, but the Embroidery Department was my domain. And I learned a ton about the woes of commissions work in my time there.
One of the things that always stuck with me is my Dad saying, "Customers think we bring their blank shirt back here, wave a magic wand, and walk out five minutes later with a well embroidered shirt." There was so much truth to that statement. Let me explain to you the process of commercial embroidery:
The customer brings their request to an expert, then completely disregards everything the expert says: There is a lot of time spent convincing a customer that whatever design they brought in won't be feasible. This happened almost 90% of the time. We know the capabilities of our design software, and the embroidery machines. Their designs were always too small, too detailed, used fonts that won't embroider well, too muddled with things that wouldn't read from a distance (or close up, sometimes), or wouldn't fit on whatever space they wanted to use. Another major problem being that an embroidery machine (at least ours, there are new ones that can do this but we couldn't afford that) needs to be able to get a hoop on a flat surface, and stay tight. If the object in question can't fit in the machine, it can't be embroidered! End of discussion! The point is, we know what we're doing - that's why you brought it to us, instead of doing it yourself! You brought it to an artist that spent a long time learning the craft, and its obviously not as easy as you imagine it is. Stop assuming that something you don't understand is easy. We make it look easy because we've been doing it ALL THE TIME. Experience costs money, and is taken into account in the pricing.
Digitizing the design: You can't just scan an image into the system and it automatically create a design for you. It goes through the process of digitizing, in which a person (such as myself) creates it in design software. This can be as simple as using the fonts and adjusting it to their specifications, maybe adding a nice line arc underneath (the easy stuff) to hand-placing each and every stitch of whatever crazy-ass design you've come up with. I can do this, but I am SLOW at it, because I don't do it all day. They have businesses that do this (ours was based in India, shout out to my favorite designer Abehd! Miss you buddy!) and they can do in a few hours what could take me two days. Talent costs money, and is taken into consideration during pricing.
Preparing the Machine: Embroidery machines to not run on sunshine and rainbows. Putting aside the electricity and space for these behemoths (we had two single-head machines and a massive 4-headed beast, for those curious), you also need oil to keep all the parts running, an endless supply of industrial needles, boxes and boxes of bobbin thread, spools of 1000-5000m thread in about fifty colors (because they just HAVE to have THAT shade of aqua-teal!), five types of backing for all the different types of materials (including backing that dissolves in water), curved scissors for trimming, tools, etc etc etc. It goes on and on. Materials cost money, and is taken in consideration during pricing.
Embroidering the Piece: Where the supposed magic happens. Depending on the ridiculousness of your design, the actual embroidering might take as little as thirty seconds if you just want a name on a shirt, or as long as three hours for a full back image on a jacket. Someone has to monitor this process, because the slightest problem causes the machine to stop running and beep an annoying warning that you need to fix something. (This is if you're lucky, because sometimes it doesn't catch the mistake, and you ruin whatever you're working on. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!) The length of time is directly proportional to the amount of stitches in the piece. The smallest I remember was around 900 stitches, the largest almost 400,000. Work costs money, and is taken into consideration during pricing.
Time and Labor: Everything above takes a person to actually do it. They have an hourly wage that has to be taken into account. Time and employees cost money, and is taken into consideration during pricing.
Profit: We don't work every day all day to break even. We work to make money! Duh! Seems pretty obvious, right? WRONG! You'd be surprised how many people are quick to point out how much everything else might cost, and think that should be enough. But the business can't improve if we don't make a profit! We can't feed the money back into the business for better machines, better materials, more options, etc. You aren't running a good business if you don't make a profit.
So as you can see, all those costs add up! It's like this for any type of artist, anywhere, no matter their medium. Someone who does traditional drawings need paper, pencils, erasers, space, time, knowledge, talent, and they want to make a profit. Writers need something to write on, ideas to cultivate, time to research, and they want to make a profit. You get the idea.
When I was in art school, my professor said the best way to price your work was to first add up your costs of materials. Then, give yourself an hourly wage to pay yourself per hour of work. Then, take that final number and add ten-twenty percent for profit (more if the market allows for it, or your work is in that high a demand).
For people who think that artists charge too much for their work, I hope this sheds some light into just what you are buying. If their prices are too high for your blood, then you just can't afford them. Spend your money elsewhere. It's true that they might be overpricing, but they'll learn that when no one commissions them. Most of the time, the commissions prices are see are under-priced. I see the quality of some work, and I think, "They could get twenty more dollars for that, easily."
You are not entitled to their work: art is a luxury that has to be paid for like any other luxury. Would you go into a retail store that produced something like that, embroidery or screen printing or anything like that, and harass them on their prices? It happened every once in a while, and guess what? We could care less if you walk out of the store and take your business elsewhere. We will probably talk crap about you as soon as you're gone, laughing about your entitled opinions, then go back to the dozes of other orders we already have waiting.
Artists, be proud of your work, and let your prices reflect it. No one said that being an artist was easy, and you'll deal with a lot of flak from some customers, but don't sell yourself short. Sometimes, you just have to lay it all out.
This was a lot more long-winded than I thought it would be, sorry about that. In conclusion: keep creating, your work is worth it!
