Another year under our belts and lads this was a rough one. It seemed like everyone was struggling big time by the end of it, and while we are fortunate to not be too worse off, it was a challenging year none the less.
The biggest change in our lives is we lost two of our babies this year only months apart. Zero, our oldest dog in age and time with us, passed away in April just shy of his 16th birthday. He had been in decline for nearly half a year after he was struck with idiopathic vestibular disease. He recovered from the initial episode, but never fully. When scans showed that a swelling under his eye was a tumor and that his body was riddled with cancer, we had to do the compassionate thing and let him go. Jack, our second oldest, passed away in August at the age of 11. His death was sudden and unexpected. After having a mild cough for a week that the vet was treating as a self limiting condition, he started not acting right one night (painful in his abdomen.) Scans at the emergency vet showed metastasized cancer in his lungs and a likely unnoticed tumor in his spleen had ruptured causing fluid to build up in his abdomen. He passed away quickly after that.
Losing two of our boys was quite devastating to us that made enduring the rest of the year a lot more difficult, but we do our best to remember how special these two were. Zero was a short legged corgi mix who was a little tank that grew into quite a stoic old man. He gave everyone kisses but me and loved car rides. Jack was the sweetest, softest boy who was best friends with everyone… unless you were a squirrel. Or a cat. A rat. Rabbit. Lizard. Bird. You get the idea.
The year also had quite a few health related challenges, both physical and psychological. Several of friends and family faced and are still facing tremendous medical issues as well. I don’t really like to rank years because life is always a mixed bag, but this year was particularly daunting.
Looking forward to leaving this year behind. Onward!
On to business
I’ll start off by saying THANK YOU to every single client that has entrusted me with their commission! I got to work on roughly 300 pieces this year! It’s such a joy to have both returning customers and new faces. I look forward to earning your business in the next year!
I have a few goals this year in regards to artmaking in general and my business. It’s always been a struggle to find time and energy to make art for yourself when art making is you job and takes up your creative reserves. Physical ailments and having to take care of three dogs (one geriatric that needed continuous specialized care for quite a while) made my workflow pretty inconsistent at times. Finding ways to accommodate these types of life events without worrying too much about lost work will be a priority this year.
That being said, what can you expect from me this year? Here are some tentative plans and proposed changes…
Sketch Style Will Be Changing
Character Sketches have always been a moving target for me. My more complete artwork tends to evolve gradually over time, but sketches tend to take a wild swing every so often. It’s just the nature of the beast. They are some of my more affordable options so I try to make sure what I offer is something that’s more refined than the messy preliminary sketches I make that are largely for my own benefit, but are also not so labor intensive that they are no longer a sketch.
I am looking to return to a more loose drawing style for these and drop a lot of the extraneous stuff I added to to make them more appealing. I’ve not liked how they’ve been turning out lately and they are lot less spontaneous than I would like them to be.
When can you expect to see the new sketches rolled out? I have no ETA yet, but I am hoping soon. I am going to keep experimenting with my new process and will make an announcement. My plan is to continue offering the old sketch style for a short while after rolling out the new stuff to give people a chance to get something if they prefer it. I guess this post can be considered your heads up: if you like the current way I do sketches, be sure to grab one ASAP!
Player 3 Has Entered the Lobby
For a while now I have been very firm about my insistence that my normal commissions only contain up to 2 characters. There are very specific reasons I made this rule. The more characters that are in a composition, the more complex the piece becomes, the harder it is for me to predict the price or time commitment. I like accepting work that can be done in one or two stream sessions (smaller time commitments mean more chances for more people to get something) and that goes up exponentially with the complexity. Multiple characters often means multiple character owners, and in the past coordinating multiple people was absolutely daunting. It’s why it’s an option mostly relegated “Full Illustrations” which I very rarely offer or accept. It’s not something I want to return to, but with careful management of expectations, I think I would be comfortable introducing up-to-three figures for SOME of my commissions (probably full-body only, possibly partial, but I will do more experimentation.)
I have no ETA on when or if I will offer this, but it is under serious consideration. There are some situations where I see it being very useful (transformation sequences, for example) and others where it would be entirely too awkward to implement (headshots).
In Between the Head And the Butt (AKA: A Portrait Option?)
One of the most prominent requests I tend to get is somewhere in the space between headshots and partial-body. Headshots’ are primarily designed to be just the head. They are square and formatted specifically to be used as profile pictures and avatars. Because of this, I am pretty firm on what can be depicted in a headshot: no extra limbs, no body below the collarbone, limited prop options, etc. The next step up would be a partial, which is everything above the hips. It’s the best way to show off un-cropped cranial protrusions (long ears, antlers, etc), and any top-body limbs you like (arms, wings, tails, etc). I felt like this was an ok deal. If a Headshot was too limiting, a partial is what you needed.
But I’ve been toying with the idea of possibly offering something in-between, for when you need a little more than the very specific parameters of a Headshot, but not as much as an entire upper body. At the moment I don’t know what that exactly will be. Chest up? One additional limb in frame? On the other hand, I don’t want to muddy the waters with too many options. My current pricing structure also doesn’t support it, so that will be something to consider: will it be worth significantly altering my pricing scheme (which will increase the price of other things downstream) just for this transitional spot between my commission types? I will be giving this a think for a while and have no ETA on if or when it will be a thing, and I think I’m going to seek more feedback on it.
Additional Options
Another thing I get asked about a lot but have not been consistent about because I just never settled how to handle it are a lot of the small additional requests that sometimes come up. For Personal Commissions I make it clear that what you are getting in one final version of your completed commission (some come with a resized file for web purposes as a courtesy.) Certain things may cost extra, like an extra version that changes the colors. Some are changes that can be requested in place of the default features, such as requesting a transparent PNG instead of the solid color field. Other things are just not offered or I haven’t been consistent in offering. I want to find a way to standardize these kinds of requests without being too overwhelming. Very wishy-washy for now, but in short I am looking into what types of additional versions I want to standardize.
Once again, no ETA, but something I hope to sort out in the first half of the year.
Please note this still will not apply to any edits post-completion of commission. These types of requests must still be made at the time of purchase. And will not apply to any changes that effect the drawing/line art.
Fan Art-ish
Fan art has been a subject I’ve been very apprehensive about. While I don’t outright forbid it in my TOS, I highly prefer to not to be commissioned to do straight-up, undoctored fan art. There’s a host of reasons ranging from legal gray areas to wanting to avoid being expected to replicate an art style vastly different from my own. But I have done it and I want to start to clarify that in my TOS. I will likely continue to accept them on a case by case basis, but emphasize I would prefer some originality integrated into it. I would rather draw your character as Ash Ketchum than just draw Ash Ketchum (I would not draw Ash Ketchum, LOL.) There may be some properties I may flat out refuse to incorporate, either for those aforementioned legal gray areas, or it’s too outside my wheelhouse.
Reference Sheets? Comic Pages? Sketch Pages?
I keep getting asked this and it’s still not something I am going to offer, sorry! I do revisit the possibility every so often, but there are too many factors that don’t make these options appealing, the least of which not being the amount I would have to charge before I would even begin to consider doing these items. Sketch pages are a discontinued item that I still get asked about, but they took a big toll on my body so it is highly unlikely they will be returning.
Give It To Me Straight, Doc. What’s This Gonna Cost Me?
Ah, everyone’s least favorite topic, pricing. Up front, I will say that I am planning on giving myself a cost of living increase probably in April after we do our taxes. It’s just not something I can avoid, and doing smaller increases annually keeps me from needing to do huge increases suddenly, like I’ve had to do in the past. I don’t have exact figures yet, and it may depend greatly on whether or not I am going to introduce a new product like a Portrait option. Either way, I will be sure to give ample warning and the new price list well in advance so you can take advantage of current pricing!
That should be it for now. Thanks again to everyone who has purchased a commission from me! I hope to see more of your characters cross my drawing tablet this year!