Well it basically various. I dont charge anyone but seen some prices like this.

Sketch: $10
Inks: $15
Colors: $20
Extra Char: $1
Backgrounds: $2.50

I don't draw, but have commissioned a couple hundred over the years.

These prices are averages i pay for an 8.5x11" pic or digital image:

Sketches - 5-15$
Inks - 10-25$
Colors - 20-60$
Extra characters 5-20$ depending on size of pic.
Backgrounds - 5-30$ depending on complexity

Again this isnt the only prices i have paid for them, but the average.

65+

It all really depends on how much time I'll be spending on the drawing (how complicated it is)

I gave it some thought, and... considering the high demand and limited time I have: I might try making them auctions. When I get around to it, that is.

It kills me to see awesome artists just going to auction. Generally they only open up very rarely, and one person with way too much money to blow gets the commission... It blows things way out of range, even for someone like me with a mid-range budget. I can't afford hundreds of dollars for a single picture!

When I see artists go to auction, it just makes me want to turn to somewhere else with my business. =/ Just an opinion, but it's there, take it or leave it.

If I was a artist, I probably would be auctioning to gain the most as possible from said auction.

Then it seems like going the auction way is... usually considered controversial because some artists have gotten lots of money for a commission. :/ This is a factor a artist might consider. I do have a feeling that the general price might drop as soon a artist auctions often as well, after the high bidders have gotten their share.

So... what did that have to do with ZombieCat's question?

Really though, from what I've paid/seen it seems to range from $10-60+ going from sketches to color, more or less depending on the complexity of what's involved, background, characters, etc. But you should make sure whatever you charge is worth it to *you*, like making your prices a bit higher to make it worth your time. Money's great and all, but you wouldn't want to stress out over a bunch of pics that aren't even netting you a lot of cash.

In general, I tend to see the following:

Sketches: $5-$15
Inks: $15-$25
Colors (Digital): $40-$65
Extra Characters: $10
Color (Traditional): $100+

I've also seen additional 'fees' for 'adult' work. I think a lot depends on how what you normally draw, how 'in-demand' your art/style is, and how large of a fan base you have. Obviously the larger the fan base, the more people who'll want a commission and the more likely they are to pay a bit more for your time to obtain it.

As far as my own personal experience, I've been charged $10 for digital cleaned sketches (2 characters---waist up only), $12 for a traditional sketch (2 character full body), $12 for a colored traditional badge, $7 for a colored icon, and $25 for a colored 1 character digital picture.

I paid $45 for a commission with digital colouring from Farore Nightclaw. It's by a considerable margin the most I've ever paid. Of course, I don't get colours much, either.

copy pasta from my journal:

Colored Sketch (flats): $10 (ADD $5 FOR SHADING, ADD ANOTHER $5 FOR EVERY EXTRA CHARACTER)

Fully colored/shaded/AND inked well: $50 (ADD $5 FOR EVERY EXTRA CHARACTER)

Fully colored character on 3x5 index card: $10 (includes mailing fees and...gas money to the post office...etc)

Avatars, sigs, icons: $5
(Animated: $15)

Check out my latest in progress:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1283558/

See my commission info. X3

$20 for a pencil sketch by poopular artists at cons
$25 - $30 for inks by poopular artists at cons

Whatever the market will bear. It's a factor of skill level, supply, and demand.

Depends on contents. Some people have very very complicated characters, but in average, 20-30 for one-two characters in black and white, and 60-70 for colors

I try to keep it simple and just go in intervals of $10.
all of these are for 1-2 characters.

sketch $10
inks $20
colors $30

I don't wanna be expensive but at the same time I don't wanna be too cheap either. And I haven't changed this for a while.

Sketches: $15
Inked: $20
Digital: $20
Colored: $30
Extra character: $10+ uncolored $15+ colored

still no price for backgrounds and animations... :X

Well. If I ever did since i'm not one to take peoples money for drawings..even though i'm in a tight situation of money myself. >.> I'd probably charge these because i think so low of myself and my own art skills.

All digital btw

Sketches: $2
Inked: $5
Colored: $10
Extra Characters: $1+
Harder Fetishes: $2+

But with your work. I'd say a lot more would it be worth. You can put out some god quality stuff. So I'd say take the higher priced comments here and average em off to get somethin.

Demand sexual favours in exchange for art. Or explosives. Both are good things.

I know you're trying to be funny, but I gotten art in favor of being support for random artists... which usually take a few hours away from my time.

A third leg works as a support, sure



It's like a tripod

*laughs*

...

I should point out I was talking about \"computer support\" for anyone who was confused what I meant with support. :)

Well I don't imagine you travel all the way to their house, of course you use the computer!

I have kinda given up on the drawing aspect of things, but I was chatrging like a base of $15 then I would either increase or decrease dependingo n how I thought I did. Or I would ask them what they thought it would be worth when it was done.

Right now, I am thinking about $20 plus S/H if I start doing commissions for the clay stuff I am workign on. But hell, I tried giving away free art and no one wanted it, so (shrug) don't take what I say into consideration

You saw my chart, right?

Yep. It was one of the factors that led me to consider my own prices.

$699

That will be enough for ALOT of hitting giatnt enemy crabs' weak points for massive damage.

Man, the (2006?) Sony E3 conference never bores me. :3 I remember seeing it being made fun of in some Nintendo game even...

Seriously though. I should charge insane amounts of money because my time is precious.

A million dollars plz buy one :<

I usually charge between $10-55, $10 being a sketch, $55 being a ref sheet.
Right now I am charging between $5-30 to get more commissions :(

What about 2.56 USD for a fully shaded picture?

(ZC himself should know why it's exactly 2.56 USD...)

I paid $25 for a really nice ink from Stank. Then again, I felt it was justified because of the heavy detailing. Plus the skunky nondigitally colored it for free, which was really nice of him.

Then again, that may have just been him trying to cheer me up because it turned out I was too poor to afford the second pic I wanted to comission from him XD

Sketches: $20
Inked: $25
Digital: $40

And I tack on $5 for certain details iike detailed backgrounds, adult art, etc.

Hm, depends really. For a full inked piece I usually charge $50, for a full digital colored piece (full background and one character) the prices start at around $150 and go up up up from there (+25 per extra character/major picture elements/etc), and for something special, like a sculpture, painting, garment... Ummm... I'm still working on the prices for those.

Which overall seems to be a lot more than your other watchers are charging, but it works for me... sooooo.....

sketch: i suck
inked: i suck
digital: i suck
oral: ask me for price

I think it would help to explain what you think a piece of art -is-, ZC. If you consider art perhaps, mmh... something personal, impartial, and/or a large amount of effort on your part, gather the information on this journal above this post and draw a fair price range. Alternatively, if you think of your art as something to be sold and nothing more, auction it. Auction it faster than you can say "one thousand dollars, going once, going twice--" People are suckers. Auctions in -any- source take advantage of this like nothing else. eBay and MMORPGs are good examples of this.

Normaly around:

Sketch 15€ ~ $20
Cleanup (propper outlines) 20€ ~ $25
Color 25€ ~ $30

My prices are flexible however, if it gets really complex it can go up a lill, plus they vary depending on how many characters and pannels

about ten bucks for a sketch, up to sixty-five bucks for an 8x10 acrylic painting. Most people commission me for marker work, which is twenty-five. However, I think I should raise my prices.

$1
do $1

I'll toss in a bit of a hat here information wise. My partner/mate  Winddragon charges usually about 50 for sketches and 100 for full digital color. It's a flat price and not per-character, within reason (which is a couple characters, generally, depending on detail and such.)

I think alot of artists undervalue themselves as well, based on the time and effort they put into it.. Minimum wage for two days straight at some eight to ten hours a day is $100 or so, and Windy will often take that long to complete a comission, so I'm sure some of the folks who charge less are really selling themselves short.. Having said that, it seems to be a standard within the furry community to undersell art, so to speak.

In any case, I think it varies alot from one to another.. And by 'vary' I mean that it depends as much on the person's talent and skill as their percieved popularity, it seems. :D

$40 for pencil
$50 for inks/color

Maybe more if its really complicated, lots of characters.

I figure if you charge more, you may get fewer commissions but you can spend more time on them. Quality over quantity. And you get the same amount of dough.

Priceless.

I laugh openly at the two posters above me.

The appropriate commission rate places the cost of an inked drawing between $20 and $40, going around $10 less than the inked for sketches, and about $10 more for color. The charge for additional characters varies, but usually isn't very high. Half again the initial price seems appropriate (IE, if you charge $20 for a normal inked drawing, one with two characters would be $30)

The prices for including a background are usually similar to the price for extra characters, though personally I haven't understood that rate. A detailed background seems like a lot to draw.

Do not exceed these rates by more than a few dollars, or you will have become a delusional, self-worshiping douchebag, and I will have no choice but to stop liking you. Of course, if that were the case, you'd have become too full of yourself to care what normal people like me think, unless we wave a hundred bucks in your face. You won't become one of those types, will you?

I laugh when these elitist types try and make it sound like art is the most laborious thing a person can spend their time doing, claim that a single sketch takes days of non-stop work to accomplish, and thus deserves the same payment someone would get to work a full-time office job for. That is BULLSHIT, and I'm not going to believe it because I have KNOWN far more honest artists, who despite being extremely talented, will finish a multiple character, inked drawing in a couple hours at most, and then when I ask them what they decided to charge me, only ask for a twenty. If it takes that person an hour to finish a multiple character inked drawing, why should it take someone less talented weeks or even months just to finish a sketch?

Yes, traditional art is valuable, but is it laborious? It shouldn't be. If an artist doesn't enjoy working in his medium, then there might be something wrong. I spend hours at a time working in MY medium, game level design (via the Source engine Hammer editor, currently) and it's about as laborious to me as playing with a puzzle. I certainly don't consider it work... until I need to convince someone that I'm doing something important and not just fooling around on the computer. Then I call it work.



Sorry for the rant, but I'm sick of certain people in this fandom who decide they're so superior to the rest of us that they can charge half a month's wages for a drawing that should only take a couple hours to finish, but they take a month because they just procrastinated the entire time, while people like me are working our asses off for most of the day, every day, at low-wage, un-respected full-time jobs.

P.S. someone else posted above me in the time it took to make my post. So.. umm.. not counting the poster directly above me.

Well, I'm starting to realize that it's a fine balance ... I want to charge enough to make it worth my while, but not so much that I'll start to come across as a douche, heh. I'd also want to charge relative to how much work goes into a piece. I see some people posting linear pricing scales, like $10 for sketches, $20 for inks, $30 for color ... I don't want to do that, because personally, coloring and shading takes a hell of a long time for me. A detailed sketch might take me an hour or so, inking takes maybe half that, depending on the circumstances, but color and shading can easily take much more time than everything else combined. That Dr. Mellbourne trade picture I uploaded a while back, for instance, probably took around 5 hours or more altogether, of which maybe an hour to an hour and a half of that is sketching and inking.

It's not that I find it particularly laborious, but ... it just TAKES awhile, y'know?

Tell me about it. I mentioned that I do mapping in my earlier post, and... I'm still working on my first map. And I started months ago. Of course, I only actually work on it a couple times a week, but for a good few hours at a time, but it still adds up. In the end, I have fun with it though, so I consider it time well spent even though I'm not getting a darned thing out of it (except of course a lot of valuable game design experience, and a bit of fame in the end if the map turns out good). Then again, my time isn't terribly valuable to begin with..


And I get what you're saying, though. It DOES have to be worth the time, and the art IS valuable. It would be just as much a shame for you to go too cheap and not have it be worth your time as it would be if you charge too much and turn into some sort of elitist.

It's hard to specifically say "this is how much you should charge" but if you have an idea of what you would want to, it would be far easier to tell you if it's too much, too little, or just right. Have any idea yet?

I was thinking maybe ... $15 for sketches, $25 for inks, $40 for colors, +$5 for every additional character? *cringe!!*

That sounds more than fair. In fact, are you really sure you'd want to charge that little for additional characters? Especially at a flat rate, regardless if it's a sketch, ink, or color?

Seems like a percentage would make more sense. like.. +50% of the base cost for each character.

Oh. That's a thought. Working extra characters in IS a hassle. Hmm.

Yeah, right? I mean, you're essentially drawing twice as much. And while it does seem appropriate to give a package deal (I don't want to meet the person who charges +100% per additional character, after all) it just seems strange to say, "Okay, you want me to draw twice as much? Then it will be $35 instead of $30"

It doesn't matter what you charge. Even if you charge $1.75, there's going to be a whole chorus of "I wish i could buy your art, but I don't have any mooooooney!" (translation: I just blew $89 on the special edition GTA4, $30 going to dinner and a movie with some friends, bought the Transformers DVD, and I'm saving up for the convention in a few weeks where I'll find the REAL artists, so I can't afford to pay you enough to even put half a gallon of gas in your car).

I'm frankly nauseated by the people who think that art is first/last/only a hobby, and trying to make it pay for itself is the act of a craven douchebag. Charging $20 for a piece of art that took a couple of hours work is not "honesty." It's "low self-esteem," and it is just like the guy who would walk into your workplace and say "you're paying him THAT much? I'll do his job for HALF as much!" (or in the case of the Phillipinos, about 1/10 as much) There is no bottom to this slope, and no amount that someone will consider "too little" to pay, and the further down you go in the price scale as a seller, the crappier people will treat you.

If someone is at all decent as an artist, that sketch did NOT take "an hour." It took all the practice and study that led up to it. Months. Years. Decades. Yes, I might be able to walk into a server room, track down the core problem and fix it in fifteen minutes, but I'm only able to do that because of the twenty years of experience that came before, and that makes me more valuable than the random guy who just got his A+, who MIGHT able to track down the problem in a day or two, if he got lucky.

Likewise I can do a rather nice sketch in fifteen minutes, but only because I have done THOUSANDs like it over the decades. That fifteen minutes of my acquired skill is much more valuable than the fifteen minutes of somebody who is still struggling with which end of the pencil to use more (hint: if you're using the blunt end more than the pointy end, you need a LOT more practice). Kelly Freas used to put up a sign with his paintings that pretty much said it all: "Don't feel bad — I can't afford me, either."

If you hate your low-wage, un-respected, full-time job, then there is a simple solution: Put in the hours and years of work, training and practice so that your time is more valuable, then charge what you're worth for each and every hour of your time (and maybe the artists you're dissing are taking so long to finish artwork because they're working ten hours a day at a crap job and they're burned out when they get home!). And if you don't think that someone's artwork is worth what they're charging, there's an even simpler solution: Don't buy it. But don't be a dick about it.

ZombieCat, if you want to know what your work is worth, doing several auctions is a great way to find out. Commissions ought to be worth a certain amount more than what you can get at auction, because the images are custom tailored to the buyer, and that is value you are providing which is WORTH SOMETHING.

And if you think this is a rant, you've ought to try asking Harlan Ellison why he charges for writing when he enjoys doing it. Put on your asbestos underwear, first!

The customer isn't financially responsible for whatever training the artist went through. Nor is he responsible for any more resources than what you're actually using for their commission. You spent a lot of money on art classes? Bought a fancy new tablet or whatever? You made that investment for YOURSELF, therefore those investments are NOT a valid excuse to overcharge your customers.

"I'm frankly nauseated by the people who think that art is first/last/only a hobby, and trying to make it pay for itself is the act of a craven douchebag." Actually, trying to make it pay for itself is more the act of a delusional, egocentric moron.

Being talented at an artistic medium does NOT automatically make it a good idea to quit your real job and try to live solely on freelance commission work, and anyone who tries that has no-one but themself to blame when they wind up in the gutter.

You're good at art, and you want to make money off of it? Keep your real job to pay the bills and use reasonably priced commissions to bring in extra money on the side. Or, get an actual job where you will be payed handsomely to use your skills. If most artists were half as good as they THINK they are, getting such a job would be a piece of cake.

Personally, I know a considerable amount about game design. Do you see me trying to start up my own game studio, despite having no financial resources, no official credentials, and no professional experience? No! Because I'M smart enough to continue working a day job, humble as it may be, while I study in my free time to gain more experience and plan towards future education that will be useful in starting an entry-level career into the field. You want to have a career in ANYTHING, you have to start at the bottom. It's rediculous for a person to just come out of nowhere and say, "I declare myself a professional artist, worthy of professional pay! Worship me, you inferior non-artists! Now, give me your entire paycheck, so that I might sit on my ass and watch TV for most of the day, and then maybe if I feel like it I'll start on your commission... in a week from now."

I tend to do art trades but there arnt many people who seem to want to trade drawings for poetry ^^;

Some of the prices I have paid for commissions. ^^

10$ for sketches and grayscale. $20 for inks. $40 to $60 for lineart comic pages.

And $10+ per page for a little black and white comic with some color pages(it's not finished yet so I don't know how many pages it will have) but I have been waiting on it a while so I guess I got a discount or something.

Prices in the fur community on the whole are ridiculously low, and I think it's hurting more than helping artists and the support they're looking for (especially the ones who do it for their main living). I'm planning to raise my prices and already I'm charging a decent amount for being such a mediocre artist.

I would suggest charging based on the demand and the work you put into a piece.

I got commissioned once, but it's a writing commission... totally different, and I'm insanely cheap. :P No sense charging too-too much when you're not trying to make a living off it.

I commission rabid all the time though. He goes something like this:

Sketches: Clean - $20, Adult - $30

Inks: Clean - $30, Adult - $40

Extra characters - $4 each (or something like that)

... He doesn't do backgrounds really, and doesn't do digital colouring or even traditional colouring, so I couldn't really say how much those would be.

But even with those prices, he gets commissions like crazy!