Commission (Patreon): Mind-Thrust Debuff! (Patreon)

Synopsis/Description:

Poor @Alaizia12's gnome thought she had enough resistance to tank the assault on her mind. Not this time!... or ever again!  Early access, timelapse available to Patrons!

Process Timelapse! 

The Rant:

So. A commission.

I've been thinking about taking on commissions again for a while. I stopped for a few reasons, but primarily:

• feedback between stages took too long, and the wait was too stressful as other work piled on.
• the workflow wasn't very efficient between stages, particularly inking and coloring.
• It didn't feel like there was an even value of work. Comms either felt like I was working too hard or not hard enough.
• Not enough regular demand to allocate time to it

That being said, I have been asked a few times over the year if I take commissions and/or to let people know when they open up again. Never enough demand to make it worth my while to open them up, but something changed all that.

The iPad.

You might have noticed that in the November and December dropboxes, I started making a lot more art. The iPad is responsible for that because it's a lot easier to jump in, do a doodle, export the resultant timelapse, and move on to the next piece, provided I don't overthink it. It really is that awesome.

However, I didn't want to open commissions willy-nilly, because I didn't want to fall into the same rut that caused me to close them. So, I decided to do a test commission with an aquaintance on Twitter. Someone I knew well enough to be able to easily do what they wanted, but not someone so close I'd feel burned if it didn't work out (which is why I didn't approach you. Yes, you). If it worked out, I'd open them publicly. If it didn't, I'd only open them to close friends (who've been bugging me for ages to open them). No point in keeping them closed entirely when I wanted to do them, and people I liked wanted me to do them.

And so, when Alaizia asked, I said, sure, why not?

We set up a series of installments for payment (Thank god for the invoice system on the payment system I use), and I worked in steps. First lineart (my thumbnails are too messy to serve that function), then lighting (shadows, highlights, specular highlights) and finally color. Alaizia would get each next step when payment was received, so that I wouldn't be working for free.

And it went really, really well! There were a few initial snags, and a stretch where I was waiting on the final payment, but all in all everything went as requested.

I also managed to squeeze in some new coloring techniquest that I'm super proud of as well. The main difference is that, going forward, I'll  probably be drawing in Procreate, rather than IbisPaint X. I think Procreate simply has a larger versatility than IbisPaint in the long run, even if I prefer the feel and layout of IbisPaint.

Also, to keep this elephant out of the room:

I won't be opening animation commissions. The comparison rates that most clients expect for illustration are already lower than what I'd need to justify doing an animation, even for simple loops. Plus, I'd have to shift to an hourly rate, rather than a flat rate for the amount of work I'd be doing, and most people aren't comfortably sitting on that kind of money. Then again, I could open them and make them prohibitively expensive. i.e. If you're willing to pay that much, it's probably worth my while.

I also won't be creating any commission tiers here either. At least, not yet. While its been better for suggestions, I'm still not at a point where I am completing them reliably, and even if I were, it would eat too much of my time for other projects to offer them. I suppose, if I do, I'll probably be downgrading the amount of work I do for suggestions (either down to just lineart, or down to monochrome lighting), if only to justify the difference.

We'll see, but look forward to an updated commission chart coming soon!

What do you think? Let me know in the comments! Your feedback lets me know how I'm doing! Thank you for your continued support and patronage, and I'll catcha over yonder!

-Saunter!

The Pitch:

The Patreon exclusive version of this post was released early! Get a sneak peak at next week with a $3+ Tweak to become a Patreon Geek!

-Saunter!