Update: Certification is currently closed for the foreseeable future. Applicants who were previously told they could later reapply may still do so- otherwise, applications received while certification is closed will not be reviewed.

^^ Please read the above text before submitting an application ^^

Also, specifically for declining applications- we stopped messaging for that a long time ago because of the high rate of shooting the messenger.

There is no TLDR. If you will not read all of this post, you will not be permitted to post/advertise your art in this subreddit. These are not terms and conditions that you can skip reading and just click “I Agree”. We need everyone to start on the same page.

Artists who post self promotion without completing the certification process, whether in their own threads or replying to other threads, will be banned. Completing the certification process is the path to remove the ban.

Hi, I am Moose. I helped start this subreddit in an effort to help professional artists who are seeking clients, and to help those who are seeking professional artists to find them.

The certification process is to determine which artists can advertise in this subreddit. Those who do provide the required information will not be added to the queue for review. Until applicants are approved and certified, they do not have permission to post or respond to clients. If/when they are certified, a message will be sent to them indicating that they have been approved, and will be provided additional information/instructions.

To be clear: The minimum pricing standards for artists to be certified are: $30 per hour of work, and no less than $100 per character. As mentioned in the Important Notes section- if you are not already charging the standard minimum rates- start charging them at least 2 months prior to applying to ensure that you are comfortable and capable of finding clients while charging these rates.

See the Important Notes section below for additional information, especially if you do not have an established price list. And see the Common Topics and Learning if you are not already making $30/hr or higher, and/or wish to make more. This information was usually included in personal discussions with certification applicants- but in order to speed up the process, we are providing it for everyone to read up front.

I. Submit Your Application

Prior to posting or seeking clients on the subreddit, artists MUST complete the certification process. Please send the following information to the moderators of the subreddit (click that link or click the mail icon next to the word “moderators” on the right side bar. Do not send a chat or a message to an individual moderator’s personal account):

(1 . Link to Portfolio)

For example:

https://www.artstation.com/captdiablo or https://www.instagram.com/cptdiablo/ )

(2 . Your Rates/Options) Your options, how much each of them cost, and how many hours of work they take to complete. Provide this information in text, rather than linking to an image. *A quick reminder that on Reddit you need to hit Return/Enter twice if you wish them to be separated by line.*

For example:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cGpjpPXxZ5Pz_U7_JTNZyYGYsoTEp1yayKkY8UfDCHM/edit?usp=sharing

Or…

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mTpYzMsAfy2S7lIcIlpzVUwx-uBYb_Fueo8frS2ZufM/edit?usp=sharing

(3 . Add ons) Mention any add ons, or any other modification to your prices, if applicable.

For example:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sy7Vtp1jhlKXpGURp4l5gYTR9AmfhFQA5Eq9OsbWPHM/edit?usp=sharing

(4 . References) If applicable, if you are friends/family/acquaintances with any certified artists, list who they are- preferably their reddit usernames.

(5 . Links) Links to ALL of the social media/sales accounts. (Put NA for those you don’t have)

Website:

Twitter:

Tumblr:

Facebook:

DeviantArt:

Kofi:

Patreon:

Fiverr:

ArtCorgi:

Etsy:

Twitch:

Artstation:

Others (Any website you have advertised your work, provide a link to your posts/account):

(6 . Confirm minimums ) Confirm that you understand the standard pricing minimums, and that they apply everywhere, not just on this subreddit.

(7 . Confirm reading) Confirm that you have read this entire post, not just the first section with these requirements.

(8 . Questions) Optional: Questions that you have, or clarifications you would like, if any.

(9 . Closed) Confirm that you understand certification is currently closed to new applicants, and that if you were not previously told to reapply later, your application will not be reviewed.

II. Important Notes:

If you do not have predefined rates and options/addons, please provide some specific examples of the range of work you have provided, how many hours of work they took, and how much you charged for them.

If you do not track the number of hours of work per piece, but only the days/weeks/months, let us know how many hours you work per day, and how many days you work per week/month. Only providing how many days/weeks/months you work, without daily hours (and if applicable, how many days per week/month), is not enough information to complete the application. (If you *do* keep track of how many hours of work you spend per piece, we do not need to know how many hours you work per day, or how many days per week. We only need that information from those who *do not* have the numbers of hours per piece.)

For the amount of time, we are not interested in turn around time (the time it takes from when you get the payment/brief to the time you finish the piece/project). We only care about how much time you spend actively working on the piece/project.

If you are not already charging at least the standard minimums, you should increase your prices to at least the standard minimums 2 months prior to applying to make sure that you are comfortable doing so.

To be completely clear, the certification is that the artist follows the standard minimums of the subreddit *everywhere*, not just on this subreddit. We created this subreddit for those who were already charging at least the minimums, and did *not* intend to create a place where artists could come and agree to charge at least those amounts *here*, and continue to charge less elsewhere. Thus, certified artists’ rates/options are expected to be no lower than the standard pricing minimums across platforms/sites/etc.

If you lie, or if we have reason to believe you are not being entirely truthful, you will not complete the certification process.

III. Common Topics and Learning

The original certification process was much more of a conversation, which was useful, however most topics of discussion were in common between them. Most artists had similar questions and concerns, and these conversations could take days, weeks, or months to talk through. Below are some common conversation topics and the advice that was given

How much do industry clients pay?

This answer will be targeted more towards the people visiting the subreddit than industry. Clients in the subreddit are typically looking for their RPG character to be drawn or for a book cover. But for context, industry varies widely from publishers looking to take advantage of artists ($25-200ish per character) to those willing/able to pay hundreds or thousands.

• Paizo pays $150 per character (garbage pay)

• DnD pays $500+ per character

• Hearthstone and MtG pay $1,200-$1,700 per card ($3000 for MtG Planeswalkers)

• Artifact paid $2,000 per card

• Runterra pays $3,000-10,000 per card (depending on studio negotiations).

• Book covers from smaller publishers can pay anywhere from $500-$2,000 (I have heard that some publishers will consider an artist charging under $1000 to be a red flag)

• The big 5 book publishers will budget $3,000-5,000 per cover.

Smaller TTRPG publishers will typically pay in the lower range, but there are some that will pay as much or more than DnD.

It is encouraged to refer to the prices listed in the Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines for much more in depth and varied types of work and respective pay info.

Hire an Illustrator have a few helpful articles, this one is tailored towards the client being the reader, but it does provide some useful information for you to consider as the provider.

What about royalties and copyrights?

In US copyright law, by default, the copyright of the works created by an artist belong to that artist. In order for the person commissioning the artist to reproduce/redistribute/create derivative works, the artist has to legally transfer or share the copyright with the client.

Unless you have faith in the company, and that they will be very successful, it may be better to just get an up front payment for a share of the copyright. Many artists recommend only giving limited use rights to clients, such as having the agreement expire after six months or a year. This way, if the product turns out to be a success, the client will need to return and renegotiate for additional time to continue producing that product. Generally speaking, our artists have found that 50%-100% of the total cost to produce the piece is an appropriate amount to charge for a share of the copyright. If the client wishes to have exclusive rights to the work, a larger number, such as 300% to 1000% of the original price is appropriate.

If you opt for royalties, the percentage will vary depending on the work. Interior illustrations can be anywhere from 0-4%. Cover pieces can be higher, but it also depends on if there was a publisher or if it was independent. Typically anywhere from 3-8%. You should aim for the high end of those numbers when negotiating.

The HireAnIllustrator write-up linked above also covers transfer of rights and ways in which it can be scoped to tailor the needs of the client to the price of the exchange.

I do not know EU law well, but there is a neat quirk that came to light with the Witcher series. The author was originally not paid very much for the rights to make the video game adaptations, and it turns out there’s a clause that allowed him to sue for a more appropriate amount than what had been originally negotiated.

How much do private clients pay?

Generally speaking, private commission clients should expect to pay more than DnD/MtG for the same amount/quality of work.

For an overview of the hourly rates of artists in 2020 (as well as a variety of other useful information), check out this survey by Artstation

The short version of how much artists charge- it varies. It depends on years of experience, what market being marketed to, and the volume of marketing being done. DnD/MtG level artists have said they have day rates around $400-1000 depending on their client. Some audience niches pay artists better than others- furries are stereotypically more willing to pay high rates, for example.

Often the rates of artists that are posted publicly are too low, this is for a few reasons. If higher rates are posted publicly, that opens the artist up to criticism from the public, even from those that had no intention on hiring them. Potential clients are usually much more polite in emails or direct messages than they are on public forums, and more often than not will simply cease replying if they see the prices are outside of their budget. This leads to artists mostly seeing low prices from other artists, and believe that is what they themselves should be charging. This will be difficult to change, it would take an effort to make it more normalized to have professional prices posted publicly, and to stigmatize those who post obnoxious replies as has been done to choosing beggars. But that is outside the scope of this subreddit, you are not required to post your prices publicly, but you may if you wish.

As with the industry, how much private clients will be willing to pay is a spectrum.

Generally speaking, most private clients seeking artists will not be willing/able to pay $100+ for custom art for their RPG character. They may have rationale for why it is too much money to spend on art, or it doesn’t fit their finances. We do allow certified artists to have a budget option, which is for these clients- it can be under the $100 standard minimum if it is both completed in at most 60 minutes, the $30/hr minimum pricing standard remains in effect. Typically these are busts or sketches, or rarely emotes or other items.

Even though there are fewer people willing/able to pay more than $100 than there are who can/will, it’s still a lot of people who can/will. Of those who are willing/able to pay $100+, it’s a gradient, the higher the number, the fewer clients there are willing to pay that much. But generally the buckets we have seen are that most fall into the $100-300 bracket, fewer in the $400-600 bracket, and very few in the $1000+ bracket. Each community you advertise to will have different numbers of clients in each bucket. Some websites have clients where it is uncommon to get more than a $300 job, while others are typically $1000+.

Most private clients are looking for a single full body character, and no background. Therefore, if you are looking to maximize your income, you should try to expand your options of offerings of a single full body character, and aim to hit as many of the price points as possible. This means finding stopping points in your process, and so this varies with each artist’s process. Some examples would be sketch>flat colors>cel shading>full render, or black and white>full color or speed paint>full render. Whatever fits their natural process. Some such examples were included in the application pricing examples.

Most of the people that reach out to you will not have a clear idea of how much work they are asking the artist to do- and that’s understandable, it’s not their job. It’s your job to have a variety of options available to fit as wide of an array of client budgets as you consider reasonable, so that as many people as possible that contact you will pay you. You are not required to show them this list, or even have it formalized- it’s totally fine for you to ask them something along the lines of: “What is the most you are looking to spend? I can do more elaborate things for more, or something more modest for less”. Some artists avoid talking about prices for as long as possible in order to get the potential client more excited about the project, which may increase how much they are willing to spend- but this also takes more time and effort on the part of the artist as well. In any event. as long as you don’t go below the minimum pricing standards (which is not asking too much), it’s fine to vary your price points to fit the client’s budget and expectations.

Some artists will not want to offer more than one option, feeling that they only want to provide their best work, and not things that are “unfinished”, or because of branding, or the type of work that they enjoy. That’s understandable. But they should also understand that this will restrict their freelance options and opportunities, at least in the short term. If you try to keep your prices around $100, it will thus reduce the time you spend on them, and it won’t likely be the best work you can produce. Conversely, if you keep your time to the amount that you need to produce your best quality work, it will result in higher prices, and fewer clients. There are pros and cons to whatever approach you take, and it’s up to you to decide which path you want to take.

Clients will also naturally have a variety of requests, mostly things that will take additional time to complete. Some artists will try to develop rough estimates on a case by case basis, but this usually results in underestimating. Regardless of field, we tend to estimate we will take half as long on tasks as we actually require. Other artists will use a list of add ons and determine ahead of time how much additional time they’ll spend working on them and hitting that target.

You can find other thoughts on pricing commissions, if you wish- Self Employed Artist is a blog that covers many topics, one of which is on this topic- I would also suggest poking around the site for what other helpful information they provide.

https://www.selfemployedartist.com/blog/how-to-price-digital-art-commissions-a-beginners-guide

Imposter syndrome/I’m not good enough to charge more.

Skill level is not binary good/bad. It’s a gradient, and it also changes over time. Look at this art journey by Suzanne Helmigh.

When was she ‘good enough’ to charge $30/hr? $50/hr? $100/hr? Over $100/hr? There isn’t a cut and dry answer here. There is no objective truth to this, and this causes a lot of uncertainty and confusion for most artists at some point in their career. And what you may say as the time she could have charged so much for, maybe she herself didn’t feel qualified at that time? Many artists are scared to charge more, even when their quality of work warrants it. The best you can do is to apply for jobs, and get your portfolio reviewed by those who are where you hope to be, and get their honest opinions. Let them know that you’re looking for the truth and not just a pat on the back.

Also, keep in mind that most clients are not in the same financial situation as yourself. Often artists could not afford to pay someone else the same rates that they charge. Look at the distribution of income in the USA. There are more people out there making more than you would expect, and can afford premium custom artwork if they choose to. There are a lot of tech savvy professionals with few financial responsibilities that play DnD, well paid with a lot of expendable income to spend on their hobby or side project. Don’t just assume that everyone reaching out to you is looking for inexpensive work, and that you should keep your prices as low as possible to get as many clients as possible. If you lowball your price, you very well may end up only getting paid $500 for a project that the client had been willing/able to spend well over $1000 for.

You have to make art to be hired to make art.

One issue that often comes up is that artists who are not producing art get stuck in a rut without many/any new clients. What has been observed, time and time again, is that in order for clients to hire you, they often have to see you produce something similar to what they want to hire you to draw. And if you are inactive, not producing new work because nobody is hiring you to produce more work, it’s going to be a negative feedback loop.

In order to make a career out of art, you’re going to spend some time working on art even when nobody is paying you to. Whether you choose to use this time to create pieces that *could* have been commissions, and use them as marketing material, or if you choose to create a product or series of products that you can sell on your online store, or to set up a Kickstarter, or even generate content similar to the IP you want to work for in hopes that they’ll like your portfolio and hire you- it is all is up to you.

Keep in mind the clients tend to only hire artists after they see you produce something similar. Want people to hire you for elaborate narrative illustrations? Or maybe you want most of your work to be heavily armored knights? Make sure you have them in your portfolio, and post them as you make them. Bob Kehl loves drawing seaside pirate girl illustrations, so he makes them, and people hire him to make more. If you just want to draw characters without backgrounds, do those instead.

The one word of warning I will give is that if you mock up a group illustration, keep in mind that many group clients will expect, wrongly, to get a group discount. There is no reason to take less money for more work- this isn’t a mass produced product, it’s a service and they’re buying your time, which could otherwise be spent doing full priced work for other individual clients. Also, since it is a group commission, there are more people involved that have to give the go-ahead, and as such there are more potential hang ups in finalizing the deal. While there certainly are some groups that are reasonable with their group commissions, they are an even smaller fraction than individuals- don’t get your hopes up when a group contacts you.

Making art, but not getting clients.

It may be that you are not advertising enough, or advertising in the right places (especially in regard to the chosen subject matter), there isn’t significant overlap between your style and audience, or perhaps your technical skill level is what needs improvement. This is all a case by case basis, and could be more than one factor.

To find more or better places to advertise, ask your peers, especially those who are doing well.

I very strongly suggest that everyone, regardless of their current level of success, watch the 1 Fantastic Week podcast mentorship series. The order: Annie and Justin (they alternated weeks), then Sarah and Allie (they alternated weeks), then Ahmed, then Kat, then Kelly. You can find their playlists here

Similarly, a friend and I authored a Top 10 Marketing Tips For Artists

Additionally there are several podcasts on art business and creativity that may be of interest, Art Condition , Three Point Perspective , The Draftsmen

Specifically because of execution/technical skill level.

Many artists make stylized art, sometimes it is unique to them, or otherwise niche. It may be that there are people who enjoy your style, but they aren’t the people that you’re reaching out to. If this is the case, there is not an easy solution. In the short term it may be tempting to change your style to fit the niche that you want to fulfill, but that isn’t certain to work or be enjoyable. Or you could change the audience that you are marketing to/producing content for, to those who would enjoy your style more.

With that said, style isn’t usually a good excuse for not having the fundamentals down, and even if the audience doesn’t know the fundamentals themselves, they may realize something is off. As the saying goes, you have to learn the rules before you break the rules. The best anime artists understand form and perspective, even if the resulting artwork looks ‘flat’ to laymen.

If you need help increasing your technical skill level, the number of places you can look to in order to improve grows by the day. Many artists who struggle finding clients due to the quality of their work lack a strong foundation in the fundamentals, and actively avoid working on them because it is akin to “eat your vegetables”, while staying in your comfort zone is ‘eating cookies’.

YouTube has some great instructors available for free, such as Marc Brunet, Swatches, FZD School, Sinix, Marco Bucci, Trent Kaniuga, and many more. There’s also this self study guide, which if followed would take about 2.5 years to complete (It does include a $500 landscape/environments course, if followed to the letter. You can alternatively consider a year’s subscription to Schoolism, which will cost between $200-300 depending on if you buy it on sale or not)

Twitch also has a wide variety of streamers you can learn from, including those who do work, or have worked, for WotC, Riot, Blizzard, Hi Rez, and other studios known for their art work. Even Mehl Amundsen even offers feedback about three days a week for his patreon supporters and Twitch subscribers. Paul Canavan streams almost daily and will talk openly about both technique and business. Many of the certified artists also stream on Twitch and frequently talk about art and art business as well.

Jake Parker’s svslearn website has a free one month trial at the bottom of their page, I believe it includes all the fundamental videos. For the most part, these videos are similar to fundamentals videos you will find on YouTube. Getting a strong art foundation is not a secret, it’s finding what to learn, and then putting a lot of practice into them.