I've updated the terms and prices on my commission site! https://foxyoreos.netlify.app/#terms (technically I did like a week ago, but now I'm finally announcing it >w<)
I've been saying for a while that I was going to do this, but it took me a while to figure out which changes to make. I'll summarize what's different below, and give a little bit of reasoning.
A few notes for ongoing commissioners/supporters:[/u]
- If you have ongoing commissions with me or commissions in planning, the prices we discussed for those commissions won't change. If they do change, I'll only change them to a lower price. I'm not looking to pull the rug out from under anypony. - The prices of the two "regular" supporter tiers on Subscribestar won't be changing - this effectively means that both of them are now better deals than they used to be (both roughly $10 off normal prices as well as including access to the Subscribestar) <3 - For now there are no changes being made to the normal Supporter tier, but I suspect at some point in the future I will cap the number of subscribers on that tier and make separate tiers for early access and for monthly doodles. If you are on the current Supporter tier, nothing will change for you: you'll still be able to get monthly doodles at the same price. Again, I'm not looking to surprise anypony or pull the rug out from under them.
Price Changes
- Timed stream sketches are now $40 an hour. They can be picked up in 30 min increments, and in most cases going forward I will likely cap them at 2 hours per-session. - "Polished commissions" have been renamed to "off-stream" commissions and they're now $35 an hour. They can be picked up in 1 hour increments. - I'll still include censors on pieces where I'd be including them anyway (at no charge), but now if I don't think I need to do a censor for a piece, you can ask me to include one anyway for $5. - Story pricing is unchanged :3
Minor Term adjustments[/u] All of these were already kind of the policy, but I've made them a bit more explicit
- Consultation sessions for off-stream commissions are no longer required/guaranteed unless I think a piece/idea really needs one. This should make commissioning a lot simpler for most critters. - I added additional clarification that commissions are released publicly except for very rare exceptions (but also clarified that they can be anonymously attributed). A few new rules for attribution (I can decline to link to a site that I don't want to support). If you've talked to me about this before, nothing is changing for you. - For off-stream commissions, unworked hours aren't billed. In other words, if a piece is estimated at 6 hours but I finish it in 5, you'll only be billed for 5 hours.
Subscribestar Regular Tier changes/clarifications If you've checked out the Subscribestar, you'll know that there are (unfortunately currently filled) tiers where you can "subscribe" to commissions for a discount. I'm actually making these a bit more flexible :3
- The "Regular" tiers (both 60 and 90 minutes) will stay the same price. - The commission time from these tiers can be applied to either on-stream or off-stream commissions, whichever you'd prefer. - I'm also allowing the time from these tiers to be combined or "banked" with other commissions or rewards. For example, if you're on a 60 minute tier, you can add that hour to a longer commission, or even wait and combine it with your next month's reward to get a 2 hour commission. This is allowed within reason. If you try to bank your hours for a year, I will stop you and ask you to use the hours before I get a 12 hour commission dropped on me out of nowhere X3 But if you'd like to use that time in a more creative way, you can as long as you clear it with me first.
Why these changes
The only really big change here is to "polished" commissions - they're now completely identical to stream sketches except that they have to be purchased by the hour and that I can work on them off-stream. I still can pull them up during streams as well and do check-ins or sessions on-stream, but I can put them away if I need to, and they don't have to be drawn in a single session.
Since starting commissions, I've found that 3-4 hour off-stream commissions usually actually go great, so I'm much less nervous about opening them up to more critters. I also started to notice that my on-stream commissions were very quickly becoming the primary way that I was commissioned even for polished artwork - I think in part because they were significantly cheaper than off-stream art.
I love doing stream sketches, but for larger amounts of time like 3 hours, it becomes very difficult for me to estimate how much work I'll get done in a single drawing session - and what was meant to be an experimental exploratory commission format for small pieces started to turn into a marathon format with multi-page comics and polished artwork, where both I and the commissioner had to make decisions very quickly on the fly or do significant planning in advance - at that point it doesn't make sense for those pieces to have the extra restrictions that timed sketches have.
This all tends to be a lot more stressful for me and (I think) for commissioners as well who are struggling to make a narrow format work with more ambitious or specific projects. And in addition, being primarily focused on stream sketches means I can't work billable hours unless I'm streaming and the commissioner is available, which is just not sustainable long-term - with that restriction there won't be enough time to take on paid work each week to cover rent.
So my hope is to actually encourage more critters to try out off-stream commissions. For many clients they're now the same price that I was charging before for timed stream commissions, and they'll be a lot more flexible.
And again, I'll still be able to occasionally draw these commissions on stream and do check-ins. This just allows me to keep working on them when the client isn't available to watch <3
Will prices change in the future?
Possibly. Pricing for commissions is going to be a balancing act where I figure out how to make my artwork sustainable long-term without making commissions inaccessible. Right now, artwork and managing everything surrounding it is pretty much the only thing I do outside of IRL chores and responsibilities - but there are multiple ways for me to improve that situation including decreasing the amount of time that I need to invest into scheduling and posting artwork, streamlining the commission process, and so on.
For right now I want to move very slowly and cautiously with price increases - if I can get my art to a point where it is providing a stable living with a reasonable work/life balance, then I don't really care about making more than that. And I think that encouraging more off-stream commissions will help with that a lot. But ultimately I'll be playing it by ear and regularly checking my financials to figure out what I need to charge.
What I promise is that whatever changes I make, I'll do my best not to catch anypony off-guard or to make commissions inaccessible. I'm really excited about the direction that my art has been headed; being able to work on artwork full-time is a dream-come-true, and I'm incredibly grateful for how things have gone so far <3
If you have any questions or suggestions about anything, feel free to comment or message me. I'll also be going over some of my gallery sites and infographics to see what needs to be updated, and I'll be trying to flesh out my commission website to make it a bit more helpful and to make it work better as a gallery <3
