COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN!
Posted 8 months agoHey guys, I am opening some commission slots for Autumn/Winter - non-commercial commissions, first come - first serve.
Humans/humanoids/mythical creatures/anthro. Both mixed media (character drawn with ball point pen + digital background and editing) and digital art (lineart + color + simple shading). See my gallery for examples.
Bust: 100 USD
Waist-up: 140 USD
Knee-up: 170 USD
Fullbody art: 200 USD
I also do detailed backgrounds (both for character illustrations AND separately if you are in need of background art for your project (if the project is commercial we can discuss it too). Price depends on complexity and usually is around 100-150 USD.
For more details (examples, terms of service and etc.) see my personal website: www.erikaxero.art.
Commission inquiry form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1.....SZWnA/viewform
Humans/humanoids/mythical creatures/anthro. Both mixed media (character drawn with ball point pen + digital background and editing) and digital art (lineart + color + simple shading). See my gallery for examples.
Bust: 100 USD
Waist-up: 140 USD
Knee-up: 170 USD
Fullbody art: 200 USD
I also do detailed backgrounds (both for character illustrations AND separately if you are in need of background art for your project (if the project is commercial we can discuss it too). Price depends on complexity and usually is around 100-150 USD.
For more details (examples, terms of service and etc.) see my personal website: www.erikaxero.art.
Commission inquiry form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1.....SZWnA/viewform
A small guide to commissioning artists: how to avoid AI s...
Posted a year agoCommissioning an artist in 2023 may be scary, especially if you are not experienced in working with artists and have a hard time to distinguish artworks from images generated by neural networks. But even now, with the tech evolving and with neural networks generating pics with multiple characters and fan art, there are still quite a few ways to avoid scammers. And yes! The short summary will be at the bottom of this post!
The creator you are going to commission must have an established gallery
This doesn’t mean that you should not commission someone who is new to platform, someone who started drawing in 2022 or later or someone who didn’t upload their work online prior.
Image generators actually forced some of the artists to remove their work from social networks. In addition, image generators can generate thousands of images within hours, which means that the scammers may have quite a lot of works uploaded.
What I mean is that real artists grow. Their skills gets better over time – even if they are already established artists with huge experience. Their artistic approach constantly changes and evolve. It means that if there are hundreds of images in the artist’s gallery but their skill is always the same level and their artistic approach doesn’t change over time – this definitely might be a red flag.
As an artist with a tendency to nuke my galleries on certain platforms (such as DeviantArt, VK and ArtStation), if I get asked to provide my commissioners with examples of my early artworks I will do it with no hesitation.
You need to look through the artist’s gallery and analize their work
Yes, image generators can now generate fan art. But what they can not generate is diversity. There are of course living artists who tend to draw only conventionally attractive white or asian people too, but now when the image generators gain popularity this lack of diversity automatically raise my suspicions. Drawing a crooked nose or dark skin is not hard and living artists who use references rarely fail at it. It’s image generators who fails this task constantly.
While Ai-generated images may appear photorealistic at first sight, the neural network usually misses small details, creates artifacts and makes mistakes if there are too many similar objects or repetative patterns. For example, the infamous MidJourney Party Selfies depicting girls with roughly fifly teeth, extra collarbones and green watercolor spots instead of tattooes.
Image generators have a tendency to either give characters extra fingers, phalanx or nails or hide the hands completely, if the person writing a prompt decide to to so. I do not know whether and how fast will the algorythm learn to generate normal human hands, but for now you should pay attention to these details to spot a generated image. Moreover the image generators also make mistakes while generating interiors and architecture, since the algorythm is not aware of perspective and space and once again fails either at perspective and object size or with repetative objects and patterns.
If you are up to commission an artwork and are in search of an artist who will actually do the job you absolutely must pay attention to small details on their works: the clothing, the jewellry, the tattoos, the anatomy.
This attractive elven girl in the pic is insanely tall, and the shore behind her back, the stones, the grass and the trees are insanely small compared to her? The design of her clothes and jewellry makes no sense? Where does this piece of cloth hang from? Why does her head cast a triangular shadow on her arm? Is it her hair or a piece of clothing?
Remember the golder rule: spotting an Ai-generated image is the same as spotting the evil faerie in a dark folklore tale. Look them in the eyes. Count their teeth. Look at their hands and count their fingers. Check if they have a shadow and if that shadow is of human form.The devil is in the details.
Many details are easy to be spotted when an image is in high resolution.
I do not recommend artists to post their works in high resolution online to avoid feeding the Ai-monster and also to avoid people using your works to produce pirated merch if you draw fan art. Yet in my opinion posting close-ups might become essential - because people who call themselves ai-artists are usually hiding the artifacts under filters and upload their image resized.
So yes: avoid commissioning artists, who never post high resolution faces or overuse filters and blur. Because analizing the characters’ faces is now essential.
There is also another red flag which makes it easy to spot a scammer: dozens of iterations of the same image, which usually happens with people who can’t choose the best image out of the bunch generated with the single prompt.
There are, of course, artists who do series of works, and sometimes these works may have similar ideas and themes, but they hardly ever look this similar to each other: they may differ in angles, poses, character designs and even the artistic approach (lineart, brushes, rendering and etc).
The posting time is also important: drawing an actual artwork requires time and effort - for example, I need at least two weeks to finish an artwork with two or three characters and detailed background. So a bunch of ten similar images that are uploaded at the same time it is definitely a red flag.
To sum it up:
The ai-generated images have a lot of problems with anatomy, details, perspective and other basics human artists have to learn long before they become professionals. All while having glossy semi-realistic render which can only be achieved with years of practice.
I’m not saying that there are no living human artists, who may make mistakes (everyone makes mistakes now and then, even the professionals who works in this industry for DECADES) or who choose not to give much thoughts to backgrounds while focusing on characters and rendering (it is okay too), but the combinations of various red flags listed above is something you definitely have to take in account while deciding whether or not you are going to commission an artwork from this creator.
Red flags you may spot while working with the chosen artist
Image generators are tricky: they can generate multiple iterations of the same image, imitate WIPs and many more.
First of all, the artist should provide you with WIPs on every stage of work, not when the work is already done. We artists, do it for a reason. We need your feedback constantly, even if you grant us artistic freedom to chose the idea, the character pose, the medium and technique. There are always changes to be made, and we need to make them at proper stage: for example, change the pose or angle of your character while working on a sketch is thousand times easier than to do so while rendering the image.
However, the minor changes are usually possible on the later stages (some of artists may require you to pay a small fee of a few bucks, others may not). While the living artists can easily change small details such as the character’s eye color (or other small design changes) not touching the rest of the artwork, image generators simply can not do so not rerendering the whole image.
If an artist does not provide you with WIPs or only provide you with them when the work is done, if an artist refuses to make any changes - these may be interpreted as a red flags.
If an artist agrees to make any change, even the drastic ones, at a late stage, when the piece is almost finished - it is a red flag too.
Ask for a small change every single time you need one. I know that there are artists out there who prefer to only provide their client with the finished image once it is done, but now when image generators gain populatiry his may be misinterpreted as if you are a scammer.
I know that some of the artists are panicking that the only way to prove that you really did the artwork is a timelapse recording but this method is not for everyone. Not everyone has a setup which allow them to record a timelapse for an every single commission (my laptop will simply explode if I try).
Ask your artists which software/setup do they use, ask them whether or not they can provide you with a timelapse video, ask them which brushes do they use. I know that not everyone like sharing info on their pipeline but at this point it is essential to provide your clients with information on the information about your pipeline, tools and software.
For example, if your artist works in Procreate (which is available in Ipad) they have all the timelapses recorded automatically. But please, mind that not everyone have such a privilege.
As a commissioner you can ask an artist for screenshots of their workspace with all the interface visible. If they refuse providing you with that or have a hard time answering the questions about the software they use it might be a red flag.
I would also suggest you not to force your artist to draw everything on stream, especially if these streams are public, because there are already cases when people took screenshots of the work in progress, used the image to image generator to apply the shiny rendering to it and accused the original artists of plagiarism. It is a risk for artists and it is okay to refuse such a request.
You can also ask an artist for .PSD file of the commission, but the artist have a right to refuse sharing it online for copyright-related reasons. The original .PSD file is a best proof of authorship in court for residents of many countries. Artists can still provide you with the resized .psd file with some of the layers merged or with the background/character png with transparent background without putting themselves at risk.
Of course there are artists who draw on the single layer - but without a timelapse recorded this may indeed seem suspicious that the artist does not have a .psd file with layers at all.
Always ask your artist to provide you with high resolution image when the commission is finished and fully paid for. There are artists who works on smaller canvases, but working on the canvas smaller than 1000px wide might be interpreted as a red flag, since it is easy to hide artifacts on a resized image. I myself prefer working on larger canvases, from 6000 pixels wide to 10000 pixels wide (300 DPI) because I had an experience with printing my images out to sell them at conventions. While I do not sell commissioned works as prints I still give my commissioners a right to print the finished images out for non-commercial purposes. Thus, I always make sure that it is possible to make a wall print of a decent size out of the finished product.
Avoid working with platforms which do not support refunds. It must either be a payment system which support sending invoices or an established platform known and used among the art community (patreon, buymeacofee, boosty, Paypal and etc.). Most artists do not do refunds for finished works — which is absolutely a right thing to do - but sometimes an error might occure. I know people who accidentally paid for their commissions twice and the artists still had to do a refund. Yes, you must respect the artists Terms of Service, but ithas nothing to do with unrelyable platforms used to scam people.
To sum this post up:
- Search for an artists with established galleries,which has a believable amount of works and the visible artistic progress/evolution;
- Analyze the artist’s gallery, carefully inspecting their work for anything that might be interpreted as a red flag. Excessive fingers, crooked hands, broken perspective, clothing designs and jewellry that makes no sense, extra collarbones, lack of diversity, excessive teeth, artifacts in the eye area, interior and architecture elements which makes no sense — all while the images being glossy, fully rendered as if the artist have decades of experience;
- Avoid people with too many iterations of the same image in their profile;
- Avoid people with too many images being uploaded at the same time (it is okay to upload a bunch of prevoulosly done artworks when you start running your account, but uploading hundrends of images every week for a long period of time is really suspicious);
- Ask for constant WIPs. Give feedback at a proper time. See the reaction;
- Ask for a small change when the image is almost finished: it is impossible for the image generator to do so without fully rerendering the image, at least for now;
- Ask your artist which software and assets do they use;
- Ask (if it is possible) for a timelapse recording — either if the commissioned work or at least of one of their previous works (if they had an opportunity to record it before);
- Ask your artist for in program screenshots with visible interface and history (if possible);
- Ask your artist to show you the layers of the artwork — at least character/background only layers (mind that the background might be less detailed/wonky at the places which usually are hide but the character’s figure). Ask for a resized .psd with some of the layers merged or a gif animation of each layer being added on top — this is what I usually do;
- Ask for high resolution file of the commissioned image once you paid for it and it is finished. If the artist doesn’t have it and claim to work on the canvas smaller than 1000 px wide and/or claim that they intentionally delete the original file somehow - this may raise suspicions. Of course a person can delete the file accidentally or have their hard drive crushed, but if you have already spotted some red flags while working with this artist it might be a sign of a person trying to scam you too;
- Many of the stuff listed above might be interpreted as a red flag , but I strongly advice you not to judge anyone by one or two points from this post. For example, a person can draw on one layer and mess up the perspective on a drawing entirely! However, if you’ve played a bingo and suddenly won — you have most likely encountered a person who try to fool and scam you;
- Avoid working with suspicious payment methods. If you never heard about a platform before — google it and see whether or not other established artists use it. If not - it might be a scam;
And remember! People may use the images generators for various reasons: for fun, to create references of their characters to later commission reall artists artworks with said character (for example, the art breeder is a useful tool to create arealistic image of the character, even though I find it slightly limiting). Yes, image generators are unethical and trained on copyrighted data, but a person using it may not be aware of this problem. Not every single person who call themselves an “Ai-artist” has malicious plans to scam people or to gain wealth using their funny little tool. Sometimes they do it for fun and do not pretend that it is anything more that a game.
Thank you for reading this far and good luck with your commissions!
The creator you are going to commission must have an established gallery
This doesn’t mean that you should not commission someone who is new to platform, someone who started drawing in 2022 or later or someone who didn’t upload their work online prior.
Image generators actually forced some of the artists to remove their work from social networks. In addition, image generators can generate thousands of images within hours, which means that the scammers may have quite a lot of works uploaded.
What I mean is that real artists grow. Their skills gets better over time – even if they are already established artists with huge experience. Their artistic approach constantly changes and evolve. It means that if there are hundreds of images in the artist’s gallery but their skill is always the same level and their artistic approach doesn’t change over time – this definitely might be a red flag.
As an artist with a tendency to nuke my galleries on certain platforms (such as DeviantArt, VK and ArtStation), if I get asked to provide my commissioners with examples of my early artworks I will do it with no hesitation.
You need to look through the artist’s gallery and analize their work
Yes, image generators can now generate fan art. But what they can not generate is diversity. There are of course living artists who tend to draw only conventionally attractive white or asian people too, but now when the image generators gain popularity this lack of diversity automatically raise my suspicions. Drawing a crooked nose or dark skin is not hard and living artists who use references rarely fail at it. It’s image generators who fails this task constantly.
While Ai-generated images may appear photorealistic at first sight, the neural network usually misses small details, creates artifacts and makes mistakes if there are too many similar objects or repetative patterns. For example, the infamous MidJourney Party Selfies depicting girls with roughly fifly teeth, extra collarbones and green watercolor spots instead of tattooes.
Image generators have a tendency to either give characters extra fingers, phalanx or nails or hide the hands completely, if the person writing a prompt decide to to so. I do not know whether and how fast will the algorythm learn to generate normal human hands, but for now you should pay attention to these details to spot a generated image. Moreover the image generators also make mistakes while generating interiors and architecture, since the algorythm is not aware of perspective and space and once again fails either at perspective and object size or with repetative objects and patterns.
If you are up to commission an artwork and are in search of an artist who will actually do the job you absolutely must pay attention to small details on their works: the clothing, the jewellry, the tattoos, the anatomy.
This attractive elven girl in the pic is insanely tall, and the shore behind her back, the stones, the grass and the trees are insanely small compared to her? The design of her clothes and jewellry makes no sense? Where does this piece of cloth hang from? Why does her head cast a triangular shadow on her arm? Is it her hair or a piece of clothing?
Remember the golder rule: spotting an Ai-generated image is the same as spotting the evil faerie in a dark folklore tale. Look them in the eyes. Count their teeth. Look at their hands and count their fingers. Check if they have a shadow and if that shadow is of human form.The devil is in the details.
Many details are easy to be spotted when an image is in high resolution.
I do not recommend artists to post their works in high resolution online to avoid feeding the Ai-monster and also to avoid people using your works to produce pirated merch if you draw fan art. Yet in my opinion posting close-ups might become essential - because people who call themselves ai-artists are usually hiding the artifacts under filters and upload their image resized.
So yes: avoid commissioning artists, who never post high resolution faces or overuse filters and blur. Because analizing the characters’ faces is now essential.
There is also another red flag which makes it easy to spot a scammer: dozens of iterations of the same image, which usually happens with people who can’t choose the best image out of the bunch generated with the single prompt.
There are, of course, artists who do series of works, and sometimes these works may have similar ideas and themes, but they hardly ever look this similar to each other: they may differ in angles, poses, character designs and even the artistic approach (lineart, brushes, rendering and etc).
The posting time is also important: drawing an actual artwork requires time and effort - for example, I need at least two weeks to finish an artwork with two or three characters and detailed background. So a bunch of ten similar images that are uploaded at the same time it is definitely a red flag.
To sum it up:
The ai-generated images have a lot of problems with anatomy, details, perspective and other basics human artists have to learn long before they become professionals. All while having glossy semi-realistic render which can only be achieved with years of practice.
I’m not saying that there are no living human artists, who may make mistakes (everyone makes mistakes now and then, even the professionals who works in this industry for DECADES) or who choose not to give much thoughts to backgrounds while focusing on characters and rendering (it is okay too), but the combinations of various red flags listed above is something you definitely have to take in account while deciding whether or not you are going to commission an artwork from this creator.
Red flags you may spot while working with the chosen artist
Image generators are tricky: they can generate multiple iterations of the same image, imitate WIPs and many more.
First of all, the artist should provide you with WIPs on every stage of work, not when the work is already done. We artists, do it for a reason. We need your feedback constantly, even if you grant us artistic freedom to chose the idea, the character pose, the medium and technique. There are always changes to be made, and we need to make them at proper stage: for example, change the pose or angle of your character while working on a sketch is thousand times easier than to do so while rendering the image.
However, the minor changes are usually possible on the later stages (some of artists may require you to pay a small fee of a few bucks, others may not). While the living artists can easily change small details such as the character’s eye color (or other small design changes) not touching the rest of the artwork, image generators simply can not do so not rerendering the whole image.
If an artist does not provide you with WIPs or only provide you with them when the work is done, if an artist refuses to make any changes - these may be interpreted as a red flags.
If an artist agrees to make any change, even the drastic ones, at a late stage, when the piece is almost finished - it is a red flag too.
Ask for a small change every single time you need one. I know that there are artists out there who prefer to only provide their client with the finished image once it is done, but now when image generators gain populatiry his may be misinterpreted as if you are a scammer.
I know that some of the artists are panicking that the only way to prove that you really did the artwork is a timelapse recording but this method is not for everyone. Not everyone has a setup which allow them to record a timelapse for an every single commission (my laptop will simply explode if I try).
Ask your artists which software/setup do they use, ask them whether or not they can provide you with a timelapse video, ask them which brushes do they use. I know that not everyone like sharing info on their pipeline but at this point it is essential to provide your clients with information on the information about your pipeline, tools and software.
For example, if your artist works in Procreate (which is available in Ipad) they have all the timelapses recorded automatically. But please, mind that not everyone have such a privilege.
As a commissioner you can ask an artist for screenshots of their workspace with all the interface visible. If they refuse providing you with that or have a hard time answering the questions about the software they use it might be a red flag.
I would also suggest you not to force your artist to draw everything on stream, especially if these streams are public, because there are already cases when people took screenshots of the work in progress, used the image to image generator to apply the shiny rendering to it and accused the original artists of plagiarism. It is a risk for artists and it is okay to refuse such a request.
You can also ask an artist for .PSD file of the commission, but the artist have a right to refuse sharing it online for copyright-related reasons. The original .PSD file is a best proof of authorship in court for residents of many countries. Artists can still provide you with the resized .psd file with some of the layers merged or with the background/character png with transparent background without putting themselves at risk.
Of course there are artists who draw on the single layer - but without a timelapse recorded this may indeed seem suspicious that the artist does not have a .psd file with layers at all.
Always ask your artist to provide you with high resolution image when the commission is finished and fully paid for. There are artists who works on smaller canvases, but working on the canvas smaller than 1000px wide might be interpreted as a red flag, since it is easy to hide artifacts on a resized image. I myself prefer working on larger canvases, from 6000 pixels wide to 10000 pixels wide (300 DPI) because I had an experience with printing my images out to sell them at conventions. While I do not sell commissioned works as prints I still give my commissioners a right to print the finished images out for non-commercial purposes. Thus, I always make sure that it is possible to make a wall print of a decent size out of the finished product.
Avoid working with platforms which do not support refunds. It must either be a payment system which support sending invoices or an established platform known and used among the art community (patreon, buymeacofee, boosty, Paypal and etc.). Most artists do not do refunds for finished works — which is absolutely a right thing to do - but sometimes an error might occure. I know people who accidentally paid for their commissions twice and the artists still had to do a refund. Yes, you must respect the artists Terms of Service, but ithas nothing to do with unrelyable platforms used to scam people.
To sum this post up:
- Search for an artists with established galleries,which has a believable amount of works and the visible artistic progress/evolution;
- Analyze the artist’s gallery, carefully inspecting their work for anything that might be interpreted as a red flag. Excessive fingers, crooked hands, broken perspective, clothing designs and jewellry that makes no sense, extra collarbones, lack of diversity, excessive teeth, artifacts in the eye area, interior and architecture elements which makes no sense — all while the images being glossy, fully rendered as if the artist have decades of experience;
- Avoid people with too many iterations of the same image in their profile;
- Avoid people with too many images being uploaded at the same time (it is okay to upload a bunch of prevoulosly done artworks when you start running your account, but uploading hundrends of images every week for a long period of time is really suspicious);
- Ask for constant WIPs. Give feedback at a proper time. See the reaction;
- Ask for a small change when the image is almost finished: it is impossible for the image generator to do so without fully rerendering the image, at least for now;
- Ask your artist which software and assets do they use;
- Ask (if it is possible) for a timelapse recording — either if the commissioned work or at least of one of their previous works (if they had an opportunity to record it before);
- Ask your artist for in program screenshots with visible interface and history (if possible);
- Ask your artist to show you the layers of the artwork — at least character/background only layers (mind that the background might be less detailed/wonky at the places which usually are hide but the character’s figure). Ask for a resized .psd with some of the layers merged or a gif animation of each layer being added on top — this is what I usually do;
- Ask for high resolution file of the commissioned image once you paid for it and it is finished. If the artist doesn’t have it and claim to work on the canvas smaller than 1000 px wide and/or claim that they intentionally delete the original file somehow - this may raise suspicions. Of course a person can delete the file accidentally or have their hard drive crushed, but if you have already spotted some red flags while working with this artist it might be a sign of a person trying to scam you too;
- Many of the stuff listed above might be interpreted as a red flag , but I strongly advice you not to judge anyone by one or two points from this post. For example, a person can draw on one layer and mess up the perspective on a drawing entirely! However, if you’ve played a bingo and suddenly won — you have most likely encountered a person who try to fool and scam you;
- Avoid working with suspicious payment methods. If you never heard about a platform before — google it and see whether or not other established artists use it. If not - it might be a scam;
And remember! People may use the images generators for various reasons: for fun, to create references of their characters to later commission reall artists artworks with said character (for example, the art breeder is a useful tool to create arealistic image of the character, even though I find it slightly limiting). Yes, image generators are unethical and trained on copyrighted data, but a person using it may not be aware of this problem. Not every single person who call themselves an “Ai-artist” has malicious plans to scam people or to gain wealth using their funny little tool. Sometimes they do it for fun and do not pretend that it is anything more that a game.
Thank you for reading this far and good luck with your commissions!
Tips for working artists: Terms of Service
Posted a year agoDISCLAIMER: I do not have, like, a HUGE online following and can’t be called a popular or viral artist, but I do have some experience and I’ve been working as a freelance artist for more that five years, so I could share a few tips on how to work with clients with my fellow artists. Scroll down for the short summary!
First of all, you always need to have your Terms of Service written down in a document that is accessible for your potential clients. And by terms of service I don’t mean a set of rules like “I don’t draw mecha, anthro and NSFW”. There is much more into it, than you may think when you first start drawing commissions.
You’ll need to understand how copyright law in your country works. There are a bunch of sites where you can actually read some legal documents. I know it might be boring, but TRUST me, you WILL need this knowledge if you choose this career path.
Russia, for example, is plagued with shops selling anime merchandise. The merchandise is usually printed somewhere in the basement of the shop and the shop owners literally rip off other people’s intellectual property. If the artist ask them to remove their IP from the shop the owners usually try to fool them with lies about how the IP works. They will tell you, that you have to register copyright on every single drawing and if you don’t do it anyone can reproduce and sell your artwork. In reality, copyright law in most countries simply doesn’t work this way. Once you create an original work and fix it, take a photograph, write a song or blog entry, paint an artwork, you already are the author and the owner. Yes, there are certain procedures of copyright registration, which is only a step to enhance the protection, but you become an author the very moment you create a piece of art, and no one have a right to take your creation from you. Knowing your rights is essential.
Some of your commissioners may try to scam you too, but most of them might simply not be aware of how copyright law works. I literally had people asking me questions whether or not the character I am commissioned to draw becomes MY intellectual property. I literally had to convince the person (who was legit scared, since the commissioned piece was going to be a first image of his character ever created) otherwise. If you have an idea of the character written down or fixed in any other form such as a collage, a sketch, or a concept art -- the character is yours. Artist may have rights to the image they create, but not the character itself.
Your potential commissioner must acknowledge that their characters, settings and etc. is still theirs, while your artwork is yours, if your contract doesn’t state otherwise. You can sell the property rights on your artwork to your commissioner if you want, but it is unnecessary for non-commercial commissions. And I strongly advice you to distinguish the non-commercial commissions from commercial ones and set the different pricing for them.
Even if you sell ownership of your artwork to your commissioner, you can not sell the authorship. You will always remain an author of your artwork, thus you still have all the author’s rights stated in the legal documents.
Another thing that is absolutely necessary to be stated in your terms of service is information whether (and when) it is possible to get a refund from you. You absolutely have to write it down: no. refunds. for finished. artworks.
You have already invested time and effort to finish an artwork. The job is done and the money is yours. I’ve heard stories of commissioners demanding refund a few months later after the commission was finished and approved by the commissioners, because, quote “I do not want it anymore”. Commissioning an artist doesn’t work this way, artwork is not an item purchased on shein or aliexpress that can be sent back to the seller. It is not a mass production. It is a unique piece of art.
Example: My friend once drew a non-commercial commission for a client who tried to use it commercially later on. She contacted him and reminded of the Terms of Service he agreed with, offering him to pay a fee for commercializing the piece instead of taking him to the court or starting a drama. He declined and suddenly demanded a full refund for that commission via Paypal services. My friend contacted the supports and showed them the entire correspondence with that client. She also stated that the invoice he paid included a link to the Terms and Service he had to agree with if he pays that invoid. The money were returned to her.
However, partial refund can be possible at the certain stage of work. For example, the sketch is done, but something goes horribly wrong. Either the client appeared to be a toxic person, or an artist does not have a required skill to finish the job. I suggest you keep the money for the sketch, but refund the rest of the sum. It might be 50/50 like I suggested to my clients before (when I still could work with Paypal), but it really depends on your choise. I suggest not doing a full refund though for many reasons: not only you make yourself vulnerable, but you also might normalize a practice harmful to other artists this way.
The main reason why full refund when the sketch/line-art are done must not be an option is that some clients may commission other artists with lower prices to finish the job.
This brings us to the next important point: you absolutely need to forbid your clients from altering, coloring or overpainting your creation or commission other artists to do so.
This also protects your artwork from being cropped, changed with Instagram filters or even being edited into a N/S/F/W image.
Speaking of which.
If you create adult content, you absolutely need to state that to request such a commission, your commissioner must at least be 18/21 years old (depending on your country).
And as for the SFW commissions you also have to state that if someone underage commissions an artwork from you it is automatically supposed that they have a parental concern.
There is also a popular way to scam artist via some payment systems, called I-did-not-receive-a-package. Most of the payment systems automatically suppose that you sell goods which have to be physically delivered via postal services. This is why it is important to state (both in the Terms of Service and the payment invoice itself) that what commissioner is about to receive is a digital good.
And the last, but not the least: don’t forget about alterations and changes the commissioner might want to make on the way. Some people do not understand how difficult it may be to make a major change in the artwork when it is almost finished. Always let your commissioners know that all the major changes are only acceptable at early stages: sketch, line-art, basic coloring. Later on, it is only possible to make the minor ones. I prefer to give my commissioner’s this info in private emails along with the WIPs I send, but you can totally state it in your Terms of Service. I do not limit the changes to five or three per commission, but I really do appreciate it when I get all the necessary feedback in time.
To sum this post up, the info essential for your Terms of Service doc is:
- The information on whether or not your commissions are commercial or non-commercial. If they are non-commercial, is there a way to commercialize them? At what cost?
- The information on author’s and commissioner’s rights;
- The information on whether (and when) refunds are possible;
- The prohibition of coloring, cropping, overpainting and other alterations;
- The information on whether or not you provide the commissioner with some physical goods or with digital goods only;
- Don’t forget about your commissioner’s age! If you work with client who is a minor, a parental consern is required. And no n/s/f/w for underage people!
- You may also want to include that you can refuse to work on the commission without explanation in case you encounter a toxic client or feel like it might be some sort of scam.
- I also strongly suggest you work with prepay, either full or 50% of total sum, it usually scares off the scammers. I take my prepay after me and my client agree on a rough doodle of an overall composition.
- I also include the black list of the themes: everyting offensive imaginable (sexism, homophobia, transfobia, racism, for N/S/F/W artists it also might be some certain fetishes and etc). Keep your reputation clean!
- Ban N/F/T and blacklist the commissioners who turn your artworks into them anywayss, don’t be shy <3
These are the things that are absolutely necessary but are so rarely seen in artists’ Terms of Service that it makes me sad. Some of these tips really helped me to avoid scams and misunderstandings. I really hope it helps you all!
First of all, you always need to have your Terms of Service written down in a document that is accessible for your potential clients. And by terms of service I don’t mean a set of rules like “I don’t draw mecha, anthro and NSFW”. There is much more into it, than you may think when you first start drawing commissions.
You’ll need to understand how copyright law in your country works. There are a bunch of sites where you can actually read some legal documents. I know it might be boring, but TRUST me, you WILL need this knowledge if you choose this career path.
Russia, for example, is plagued with shops selling anime merchandise. The merchandise is usually printed somewhere in the basement of the shop and the shop owners literally rip off other people’s intellectual property. If the artist ask them to remove their IP from the shop the owners usually try to fool them with lies about how the IP works. They will tell you, that you have to register copyright on every single drawing and if you don’t do it anyone can reproduce and sell your artwork. In reality, copyright law in most countries simply doesn’t work this way. Once you create an original work and fix it, take a photograph, write a song or blog entry, paint an artwork, you already are the author and the owner. Yes, there are certain procedures of copyright registration, which is only a step to enhance the protection, but you become an author the very moment you create a piece of art, and no one have a right to take your creation from you. Knowing your rights is essential.
Some of your commissioners may try to scam you too, but most of them might simply not be aware of how copyright law works. I literally had people asking me questions whether or not the character I am commissioned to draw becomes MY intellectual property. I literally had to convince the person (who was legit scared, since the commissioned piece was going to be a first image of his character ever created) otherwise. If you have an idea of the character written down or fixed in any other form such as a collage, a sketch, or a concept art -- the character is yours. Artist may have rights to the image they create, but not the character itself.
Your potential commissioner must acknowledge that their characters, settings and etc. is still theirs, while your artwork is yours, if your contract doesn’t state otherwise. You can sell the property rights on your artwork to your commissioner if you want, but it is unnecessary for non-commercial commissions. And I strongly advice you to distinguish the non-commercial commissions from commercial ones and set the different pricing for them.
Even if you sell ownership of your artwork to your commissioner, you can not sell the authorship. You will always remain an author of your artwork, thus you still have all the author’s rights stated in the legal documents.
Another thing that is absolutely necessary to be stated in your terms of service is information whether (and when) it is possible to get a refund from you. You absolutely have to write it down: no. refunds. for finished. artworks.
You have already invested time and effort to finish an artwork. The job is done and the money is yours. I’ve heard stories of commissioners demanding refund a few months later after the commission was finished and approved by the commissioners, because, quote “I do not want it anymore”. Commissioning an artist doesn’t work this way, artwork is not an item purchased on shein or aliexpress that can be sent back to the seller. It is not a mass production. It is a unique piece of art.
Example: My friend once drew a non-commercial commission for a client who tried to use it commercially later on. She contacted him and reminded of the Terms of Service he agreed with, offering him to pay a fee for commercializing the piece instead of taking him to the court or starting a drama. He declined and suddenly demanded a full refund for that commission via Paypal services. My friend contacted the supports and showed them the entire correspondence with that client. She also stated that the invoice he paid included a link to the Terms and Service he had to agree with if he pays that invoid. The money were returned to her.
However, partial refund can be possible at the certain stage of work. For example, the sketch is done, but something goes horribly wrong. Either the client appeared to be a toxic person, or an artist does not have a required skill to finish the job. I suggest you keep the money for the sketch, but refund the rest of the sum. It might be 50/50 like I suggested to my clients before (when I still could work with Paypal), but it really depends on your choise. I suggest not doing a full refund though for many reasons: not only you make yourself vulnerable, but you also might normalize a practice harmful to other artists this way.
The main reason why full refund when the sketch/line-art are done must not be an option is that some clients may commission other artists with lower prices to finish the job.
This brings us to the next important point: you absolutely need to forbid your clients from altering, coloring or overpainting your creation or commission other artists to do so.
This also protects your artwork from being cropped, changed with Instagram filters or even being edited into a N/S/F/W image.
Speaking of which.
If you create adult content, you absolutely need to state that to request such a commission, your commissioner must at least be 18/21 years old (depending on your country).
And as for the SFW commissions you also have to state that if someone underage commissions an artwork from you it is automatically supposed that they have a parental concern.
There is also a popular way to scam artist via some payment systems, called I-did-not-receive-a-package. Most of the payment systems automatically suppose that you sell goods which have to be physically delivered via postal services. This is why it is important to state (both in the Terms of Service and the payment invoice itself) that what commissioner is about to receive is a digital good.
And the last, but not the least: don’t forget about alterations and changes the commissioner might want to make on the way. Some people do not understand how difficult it may be to make a major change in the artwork when it is almost finished. Always let your commissioners know that all the major changes are only acceptable at early stages: sketch, line-art, basic coloring. Later on, it is only possible to make the minor ones. I prefer to give my commissioner’s this info in private emails along with the WIPs I send, but you can totally state it in your Terms of Service. I do not limit the changes to five or three per commission, but I really do appreciate it when I get all the necessary feedback in time.
To sum this post up, the info essential for your Terms of Service doc is:
- The information on whether or not your commissions are commercial or non-commercial. If they are non-commercial, is there a way to commercialize them? At what cost?
- The information on author’s and commissioner’s rights;
- The information on whether (and when) refunds are possible;
- The prohibition of coloring, cropping, overpainting and other alterations;
- The information on whether or not you provide the commissioner with some physical goods or with digital goods only;
- Don’t forget about your commissioner’s age! If you work with client who is a minor, a parental consern is required. And no n/s/f/w for underage people!
- You may also want to include that you can refuse to work on the commission without explanation in case you encounter a toxic client or feel like it might be some sort of scam.
- I also strongly suggest you work with prepay, either full or 50% of total sum, it usually scares off the scammers. I take my prepay after me and my client agree on a rough doodle of an overall composition.
- I also include the black list of the themes: everyting offensive imaginable (sexism, homophobia, transfobia, racism, for N/S/F/W artists it also might be some certain fetishes and etc). Keep your reputation clean!
- Ban N/F/T and blacklist the commissioners who turn your artworks into them anywayss, don’t be shy <3
These are the things that are absolutely necessary but are so rarely seen in artists’ Terms of Service that it makes me sad. Some of these tips really helped me to avoid scams and misunderstandings. I really hope it helps you all!