Commission Guide
This page serves as a guide for those who doesn't know or aren't sure on how to ask for a commission to an artist. It is also for artists who might be in a difficult situation regarding taking commissions. Each artists has their preferences, and they might have a completely different process from mine. However, I do believe this guide could, at least, help people who never commissionned someone else or might not be sure on what to share, and how.
If you're not sure if the artist you want to commission needs more, less or different kinds of informations, don't hesitate to ask them, they'll be happy to list everything they need. As the artist, don't be afraid to ask for more informations or clarifications.
This guide also includes other formalities like asking for changes, vocabulary, and more situations you might meet as the buyer and as the artist.
Commission: Service, customized art work made by an artist (not an AI) for someone else, in echange of money.
Reference: Support used as examples and directions, for a character design for example.
Reference Sheet: Visual support in which a character, animal, background and/or prop is drawn clearly and has its local colors (colors before it interacts with its enviroment and rendering).
(Commission) Status: if the artist can accept commissions or not currently.
Sketch: Messy, uncomplete drawing, used as a guide before line art, coloring, shading and rendering.
Line Art: Lines traced over the sketch, both for its own aesthetic and as boundaries between colors and parts of the drawings (between clothes and skin for example).
Coloring: Flat surfaces of colors.
Shading: Added colors over the flat surfaces to represent and stylise forms, shadows and light sports.
Rendering: Last step in complete drawings, in which the artist adds their watermark, filters and fixes.
Urgent/Emergecy commission: Commissions accepted quickly to aquire money as soon as possible. Some artist uses them in case of emergecies such as : Bills, medical care, catastrophies, immediate fixing, employement issues, urgent moving-outs, and more.
YCH: Stands for Your Character Here, a type of commission with an already defined pose and mood.
Sale: A temporary lower price for an artist's commissions.
⇒ Before you contact the artist you want to commission, try to seek their current commission status. It could be on their social media name, bio, on their website or carrd (virtual visit cards). If it's closed, it means they're not taking commission for now, either because they're not avialable, lack time or just don't want to. Don't try to pry in their personal life to know why they don't take commissions, it's intrusive and you're not entitled to that. If it's open, it means they can take commissions right now.
⇒ Check out their terms of services and prices. It's important that you read the whole page(s), since each artists has their rules. While some rules are shared among most artists like "do not sell my commission", some are much more unique. If those terms don't fit your requirements, don't try to argue over them and move on...or you can try, but be ready to get no answers nor exeptions from the artist. Same for their prices : respect them, even if they seem too high. Commission art is a privilege, you don't need them.
⇒ Check out their portfolio or their recent art work. Perhaps the drawing that made you fall in love with their art and motivated you to commission them isn't the kind of work they'd be willing to create now. Some might accept to mimic their older art style, but they also might not be able to.
⇒ Have a clear idea of what you want : character, pose, mood, background, reference, specifics, character interactions, props, etc. It's fine to not have everything set in stone before commissionning, but having a clear idea first will greatly ease the whole process.
⇒ Have a clear commission status. You have to share publicly that you can take commissions, we can't guess on our own. You can write it in your bio, your username/handle, in a carrd, website, in a post, etc. However, remember to update it if needed (especially if you have to close or open them again).
⇒ Regarding urgent commission : it's fine to ask for them, but be warned that you might not increase the number of commissions you usually have, especially if you have a smaller community. Keep urgent commissions for actual emmergercies, not to feed your current hyperfixation or get a new game.
⇒ Keep your DMs open, clients need an accessible mean to contact you without restriction. You can create an alternative account and/or email for taking in commissions exclusively.
⇒ If you get anxious about dealing with clients and communication, keep in mind that in huge majority, everything goes pretty smoothly. People are way more tolerant on mistakes and misunderstandings than you think. But if you can't deal with those types of interactions at all...then keep your commissions closed, because keeping them open sends the message that you can communicate with clients.
⇒ No need to be fancy, just say Hi and ask them if their commissions are (still) open. Sometimes, artists forgets to update their status. If it's yes, you can keep going, if it's no, respect it and move on.
⇒ Be clear about what you want. Don't stop at "I want a drawing of this character". Is it a half body or the whole body ? A sketch or a fully rendered drawing ? What about the pose and background ? Chibi or not ? Basically, introduce what you want first, this is not the time to elaborate on your oc's background and will drown the needed informations.
⇒ Send references. If the design already exist, just send the reference sheet and additional informations. If it doesn't, it's prefered to send multiple references, especially if your current ones doesn't represent what you want well.
⇒ Keep in mind that you might forget details that artists takes into account for the final piece and vise versa. You may not care about the character's eyeshape, but they may. You may care about the character's eyebrows' thickness, but the artist may not. If you need something to be stylized in a specific way, tell it after sending the reference.
⇒ An artist refusing your commissions doesn't always mean that they or you are problematic.
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⇒ It's better to answer clients quickly. You don't have to answer them within the same day, but under a week is the best.
⇒ Regarding urgent commission : it's fine to ask for them, but be warned that you might not increase the number of commissions you usually have, especially if you have a smaller community. Keep urgent commissions for actual emmergercies, not to feed your current hyperfixation or get a new game.
⇒ Keep your DMs open, clients need an accessible mean to contact you without restriction. You can create an alternative account and/or email for taking in commissions exclusively.
⇒ If you get anxious about dealing with clients and communication, keep in mind that in huge majority, everything goes pretty smoothly. People are way more tolerant on mistakes and misunderstandings than you think. But if you can't deal with those types of interactions at all...then keep your commissions closed, because keeping them open sends the message that you can communicate with clients.
⇒ Image reference will always be prefered over text reference. As drawing artists, we work better with visual cues than written ones. Some of us struggle with disabilities (like dyslexia) that impairs our ability to process written instructions, some of us has aphantasia which makes it very difficult to visualise written informations in our heads. Regardless, it's still better to have visual references over written ones.
⇒ Unless your reference has everything needed (like an already complete design), please specify which part of the image should be used as a reference, and which should be ignored. For example, if you send a picture of Luffy from One Piece as a reference for your OC, do not leave it as it and specify "I want the same haircut as Luffy but make it green" or "I want my oc to have the same body shape as Luffy".
⇒ Color names are way too broad to be used as it. "Dark Blue" can mean this or this. Either leave the artist to choose which specific color it means and correct them later, or better, give them hex codes or a screen shot of the actual color. Photos and 3D models might be a problem for picking up colors too due to the shading.
⇒ Regarding using AI image generation for reference : many artists will refuse to use them, since those images were created unethically and they might judge you for an "AI artist". Some might allow you to use already generated images to steal from pinterest, but not all of them will. Ask them first and be clear on your intentions.
⇒ If you use drawings as design reference, make sure they're not shaded (or refer yourself to the third arrow) and has a relatively neutral pose. Be warned that some poses will hide important parts of your character design.
⇒ All of this applies to background and props too.
