wat do?

[Kinare]

Hello wise arty people. I would like your opinion on my crap doodles and what you think would be fair to charge. This will be the first time ever that I've done such a thing, but I'm desperate for some cash because my hours got slashed again and thought maybe I could earn a bit by selling crap doodles.

Specifically what I need to know is:

1. Are they worth at least the $5 minimum the Black Market requires?

2. If not, is there a way I can get away with charging less?

I originally wanted to ask for $1 only, but the Black Market of course has a $5 minimum... Now most of you will probably say "just doodle for free and hope you get tips", but I have to be guaranteed at least a little something because finding motivation to doodle is impossible for me the last few years and I don't really have the time to sit there and doodle a bunch of freebies. It's just not worth my time if I can't get a little something out of it, especially since I don't enjoy doodling anymore.

I thought about possible options to get around the minimum and I came up with these: post a thread in the BM charging $5, but say we can discuss cheaper on DA or other mediums; post a thread in the exchange charging only $1. Neither option is ideal and I fear mod wrath may come down upon both threads because they skirt too lines (especially the latter). Might you wise folk have any other ideas?

Oh, and here's my DA full of crap. I do more cute feral junk lately, but I don't mind going back to my roots and doing more things like this or this or maybe even this garbage. Only thing I don't want to do is people, animal/alien/mech-ish crap only. I have a very hard time with human faces and it takes me twice as long to do a human doodle because I spend so much time trying to get the face to look right.

I loathe coloring, so I will not be offering that. I might play around in Photoshop w/ backgrounds or colors if I really feel motivated, but that's highly unlikely. Almost all of that crap is traditional pencil (sometimes I run over it with fine tip pro-artist pens, probably will for what I sell cuz it will look better) and then I scan it and remove all the random ugliness that got through, which makes coloring a lot harder because it takes so much more editing to get colors to work on pencil/pen doodles. I do have a tablet and some of those really simple animal doodles were done on that, but I definitely prefer a pencil.

I was considering offering a "draw me w/e you want as long as it looks badass" category where I just freestyle it, no base for the picture given (so no one has to have their fursona or favorite animal mangled), and they just end up with something random from my brain that looks kinda cool, but still crappy, cuz that's the best I can do.

ty for your time and sorry if you're scarred from those at all.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Kinare

[Chii]

First of all i would highly recommend not doing commissions on here, since there is a minimum price. You may want to start off on deviantArt or furaffinity until youve improved enough for it to be that much. I dont really suggest pricing them at $5 because you may not get many, especially without colouring them. You shouldnt use money as your only inspiration as well. You should make an oc, nothing too complicated, just something you can colour, and practice drawing them a bunch, and colouring them all, because if youre going to take commissions youll need to be able to do that at some point.

Avoiding going on longer, in short i just think you should try cheaper on deviantart, and in the time youre waiting, because itll take a while, just practice. Find some tutorials and go off of those. If you need a supplier i have plenty, so just hmu. :DD

[Kinare]

Thanks for the post. Not at all sure how it works with DA and FA. Is there a place to post that you're open for commissions, other than on your page? Because if I'm just relying on page views to randomly see me... that's not gonna get me anything, that's for sure. I suppose I can look into it at least.

Even if I had the skill to color, I absolutely loathe it, which might be half the reason I suck at it (less trying to do better at something I hate, makes sense). It's so boring and maybe I'm doing something wrong but it's always very difficult to turn the traditional pencil/pen doodles into art that works ok for digital coloring (using pen has made it easier since the lines are darker, but they're still uneven and messy and I have to spend a couple hours just fixing lines, depending on the complexity of the piece). I could traditionally color I guess, but I'd need to go buy the supplies to do so (which I can't afford to do atm) and I'm not really sure what medium would look best. I used to use gel pens a lot when I was a kid (I drew a lot on my arms/hands and those were the best for that), but I'm not sure if gel pen on paper would translate well when scanned.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Kinare

[Chii]

Not exactly, you do have to gain some followers before youll get commissions, which is why i suggest practicing and just generally drawing before you get too far into it, but in the mean time you could try taking some on here, again im not sure about the minimum price but youll probably get some :DD I do think you should look into it some amount.

Yeah, you have to enjoy it to want to, i really enjoy colouring digitally but not at all on paper, its always so uneven and blotchy looking :c Ive never had a very good time trying to turn traditional art into digital, so you may want to try just drawing digitally, you may not enjoy it much now but it gets a lot nicer after a while. The only time it seems like traditional to digital is okay is if you just sketch on paper and line it digitally. Sorry Im going all over the place here, im just kind of throwing random advice around, so its not the best. I do wish you luck though!

[Maug]

We have this sticky that will help you with pricing your art

 

My recommendation is to just keep drawing and practicing.Keep being sociable with others and ask for feedback (like your doing now ) Gain followers by following others and comment on their work. I think working on your anatomy would help increase your art appeal.

[Kinare]

Ooo, missed that sticky somehow. Thanks for that.

Yeah, some of the anatomy is kinda off when I try to do more detailed things, especially with human-like parts involved. I could simply lose details I suppose, but it's so hard for me to simplify something that is detailed in my head. It's basically why the last few years have been nothing but cute feral stuffs cuz I think the anatomy on those at least looks ok. I do enjoy drawing those sometimes, mainly because when I do they're meant as gifts for people special to me and the animal I've picked for them/they picked for themselves has special meaning so it feels nice to do those.

[Maug]

It's not detail that you have trouble with, and has more to do with not understanding how to set a foundation of simple shapes down before you start drawing your lines.. You focus more on the edges instead of breaking things down into simple forms, and because of this, you have trouble drawing things in perspective.  Here's a half assed example I did to demonstrate what I'm taking about.

Notice that I'm using simple forms and shapes such as cylinders and spheres to build the character. I would normally draw this much lighter, but wanted it to be easier for you to see.

Sorry if I'm sounding harsh. It's not my intention. I just want to help point you in the right direction so you don't waste a year struggling with this stuff like I did when I started drawing.

Matt Kore on ctrlpaint.com can explain this concept 10x better then I can.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Maug

[Kinare]

Lolz, not harsh at all. =p

I've seen people do things like that before, but the mess drives me insane. And having to do that with traditional art is a huuuuge pain in the ass... If I ever went to digital only it would be a lot easier to use that method to figure out proper shapes for sure. I should probably give digital another try. Poor tablet just sits there collecting dust...

[Maug]

9 minutes ago, Kinare said:

Lolz, not harsh at all. =p

I've seen people do things like that before, but the mess drives me insane. And having to do that with traditional art is a huuuuge pain in the ass... If I ever went to digital only it would be a lot easier to use that method to figure out proper shapes for sure. I should probably give digital another try. Poor tablet just sits there collecting dust...

You can do it easily with traditional media: use a harder pencil first and then draw on top of it. Breaking down your subject into it's basic shapes is the foundation of art.  Doesn't matter if its realistic or toony. If you take the time to learn to do this, by the end of the year, your art will soar. The foundational videos on ctrlpaint.com wil help you a lot, they've helped me.

[Kinare]

Will keep it in mind and might try it out, but if I remember correctly this was something we were taught in art class as a kid/teen and it was just something I could never make myself do. Long time ago now though, so worth revisiting at the very least.