/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

Drawing porn commissions has been my main source of income for 5 years now. I recently became the honest tax guy, got an accountant and started to pay taxes for this shit properly. I feel like an adult now.

OP's image seems ridiculous but that's how a lot of artists operate. You would not believe how many of my clients deal with a shitty work ethic like that everyday. It got so bad that some clients are baffled that I don't want to take money upfront, involve them in the creative process and only take a couple of days to finish images. It's ridiculous how easy it is to get returning clients if you just try a little bit.

Word of mouth seems to be very important. Porn commissioner community is pretty tight like that. If you do good work, you will get recommended to others and soon you will be knee deep in work.

Things that clients really appreciate:

1. Explain to them how your process works. I always give my new clients (and returning ones too, why not) a step by step explaination of what we'll be doing, when to pay me etc..

2. I make a couple of rough sketches for the client to choose from. You should do roughs to figure out the image anyway, so why not let the client decide what he wants. There is a risk they will pick the worst one, but hey, it's their image. Also this pretty much eliminates the possibility of the client dropping the commission halfway through because the pic is not what he wanted.

3. Before I ask for money I draw the detailed sketch. It is a risk to do this much work before getting any money, but I've done around 150 commissions and a client bailing at this stage happened to me maybe once. Maybe because I give them options before this stage?

4. Be clear about pricing and don't change it after you started working on their picture. It feels like you are holding the commission hostage and nobody likes it.