Rey has become one of my favorite characters … she could kick the ass of Katniss. And BB 8 … is a mechanical cat XDXD I talked to it as if it was my cat.
Let’s get something straight. 1. I DO NOT do commission work for exposure 2. I DO NOT do commission work for people for followers as payment, my work should always speak for itself and people can CHOOSE to follow me if they enjoy it. 3. If I make free work, it’s my personal work or presents I decide to make for friends or people I’m a fan of because I WANT TO AND THAT’S IT.
If you aren’t willing to pay for work people are doing for YOU, I don’t want your business. It says a lot about you as a person. I understand wanting a “deal” but there’s a difference between fair prices and outright cheating someone out of their LIVING.
Sorry I’m so mad everyone. :( I didn’t think I was being THAT rude in my message.
EDIT: kinomatika brought up a good point. Minimum wage in most states averages between 7-8 dollars for ONE HOUR of work (most of the time before tax) and this project he was describing in his original message (not pictured) was at least 12+ hours for me. Assuming it took me exactly 12 hours, I would be working for EIGHTY THREE CENTS. ($0.83) PER HOUR. JFC
So hey here’s something I never thought I’d had to talk about every again, but here we are, so let’s talk about this because it’s important and I want y’all to understand how important it is, not only for established artists and industry professionals, but for new, young artists who are just getting on their feet and trying to figure out how to go about making a name/living for themselves through what they love to do.
First off, if you’re a commissioner, do not ever try to haggle with an artist. If you can’t afford their work, don’t buy it. When you go to Best Buy, do you try to haggle down the cost of a TV? When you go grocery shopping, do you try to haggle down the cost of that pound of ham you’re buying for the deli? No, you probably don’t. The same concept applies here. If you want to buy something from someone and they tell you that it costs a specific amount of money, don’t get mad at them because you can’t afford it. You’re paying for a fucking luxury service. Being able to buy custom art or being able to hire a private artist for a project you have in mind is a luxury and if you can’t afford it then you need to move the fuck on and not blame the artist for your not being able to afford their work. Like, I’d love to be able to have a closet fucking FULL of haute couture clothing custom tailored to my body, but I know full fucking well that Dolce & Gabbana is not going to do that for me for 50$, so I don’t have a closet full of haute couture clothing and I don’t blame Dolce & Gabbana for it.
Second off - when an artist does work for free or for friends, that’s their fucking prerogative. If someone does something out of the goodness of their heart for someone else that they like, or if they want to do it as a gesture of affection, or they want to show appreciation to their followers, they are doing that because they want to. You know what most artists don’t just randomly *~*~feel like drawing~*~*? Your commission. Because chances are your artist of choice has absolutely no desire whatsoever to draw what you want them to draw for free. So don’t you dare ever presume that because an artist likes to draw for themselves now and then (because hey guess what, we aren’t fucking machines! How about that.) that you are at all entitled to their effort and skill for free or for an extremely discounted price because you want it. Get real, you clod.
The most irritating thing is to hear or read “Well, you did x thing for x person for free, so why not me?”
Chances are is because you have no personal connection to us. You’re a client. You are a customer. While your business is appreciated, we have no emotional attachment to you. You’re not our friend. We have zero obligation to you outside of a financial one, and when you treat us like you did us some major favour by offering us fucking peanuts for what is a hundred or thousand dollar job, you can honestly get bent because we have no time for that.
The above message in black (in the images) is nothing more than an insult coming from a whiny crybaby who doesn’t value all of the years of hard work, passion, dedication and struggle that an artist of any medium goes through to hone their craft and price it at a reasonable, liveable rate.
Listen dude, I’m sorry that you can’t afford more than ten bucks for a commission - it sucks for me and you, but what sucks even more is when you try to guilt trip an artist into feeling bad that they aren’t going to accept your ten dollars for what is a job that would cost around, if I calculated correctly, a hundred dollars, which, IMHO, is still RIDICULOUSLY underpriced for OP’s skill level and professionalism.
SO YKNOW, maybe have a little consideration before you treat an artist like their skill and hard work isn’t worth a pack of fucking gum.
as someone whose art skills peaked around primary school, I will always be in awe at most art. so I borrow a lot of stuff - always with the artist’s permission and credit - for backgrounds and ebook covers. sometimes if I can’t find the exact right thing for what i’m looking for, I’ll ask someone if they can do something new, either free or at a price.
my point is - always haggle. it’s not about ‘not affording’ as the previous poster said. and it’s not about what the art is worth - to me, art is always going to be beyond me, so I will always pay if needed.
it’s about getting the best deal. and I don’t know if this is an non-European thing or not, but why can’t we haggle. isn’t that what trade and economy is built on. but in some countries when you try to haggle over owt, they’ll give you a look as if you’ve asked them to donate it to ISIS.
I say I’d be prepared to pay this much. You say you want that much. We meet somewhere in the middle, and neither is satisfied. No offence to the OP, but only a fool or a very inexperienced tradesman would start the offer with their actual asking price.
Right except no, it’s not about getting “the best deal.”
I’m not sure why this is such a hard concept for people to grasp, but I am seeing it talked about and discussed over and over and over again. When an artist sets a rate for you, you can pay that rate, or you can choose not to, or you can choose to seek out a different artist who will be able to provide that service for you at a level that you are able to afford. If you attempt to haggle with an artist for something you want done, you’re extremely ignorant of how being an entrepreneur and independent artist works.
We need to make a living wage. And it’s not just a living wage that we need - there are other things that go into being an independent artist. A great deal of us are mentally ill or disabled and so we require regular medical treatment, specific therapy, medications, etc, and guess what? That costs money that goes above and beyond what your average “living wage” is. And that’s not all, folks!
One of the funniest things that always pops into my head is this notion of people only being deserving of “just enough”. Do I make “just enough” to live? yeah, I absolutely do. But like, barely covering your ass and ending the month with a zero balance in your account isn’t happy living. It’s not conducive for a positive mental state. Sure, you can survive that way, but it isn’t pleasant. It’s just surviving.
We’re allowed to charge a rate that allows us to live comfortably. When people pay that rate, that’s good business. When people haggle, that’s not god business, that’s the potential client being disrespectful and cheap. As I’ve said before, if you aren’t prepared to pay for what an artist is asking you to pay, then move on. Don’t haggle with them. Don’t be disrespectful. When potential clients attempt to haggle with me, I ignore them and move on and cease to communicate with them because if you aren’t going to pay my rate, I’m not going to give you my time. Once I give you a quote, you can agree to it and we can proceed, or you can disagree and I can move on to the next person who actually will pay me what I am owed.
Anyway, I think that this is a very important piece of information to follow and consider heavily for young artists. DO NOT ACCEPT HAGGLING. Ask for what you are worth. If someone cannot afford it, move on, there will be others. Don’t beg for scraps. You’re worth more than that.
Meet Arya the Corgi, a canine cosplayer in Los Angeles who was so excited about the premier of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens that she dressed up as an X-wing fighter pilot. Wedge Antilles would be so proud.
Cut the chatter, Red 2. And please give Arya a biscuit.
thejaqofspades: I listened to your interview on Word Balloon and thought it was great. I have a question. Why do you recommend writing a 4 issue story for beginners. Is this just the general standard length that publishers want to release TPB or graphic novel size books in? Is there something additional to it as well?
Apologies for taking a while to answer this, it was definitely a “wait until you’re at the computer” question, versus a “bash out an answer on the phone” one.
Most comic book series don’t make money. A first comic with an unknown name on it (eg yours) is almost certain not to make money straight out of the gate. Might get optioned, but won’t wash its face on print sales. (Good old comics: you can’t make a living at it, but you can get rich.)
So what I was saying was, if you want to be published by Image / Dark Horse / Oni / IDW / Boom, you should pitch your first book in a way it is most likely to get accepted by them: a four-issue, self-contained mini with a conclusive ending. (Anything shorter is considered too short to collect in trade; anything longer, too risky for a n00b team). I have seen B and C list writers get their pitches knocked down recently because the publisher was getting cold feet about 6-8 issue minis. (Another ugly secret: getting in isn’t the problem. Staying in? Hoc opus, hic labour est.) Oh, and don’t expect an advance.
Sure, in your heart of hearts you may want this 4 issue mini-series to be a wild success and opened up to an ongoing. Statistically, there is almost no chance of this. That’s okay. Don’t be precious. You’ll have lots of other ideas, if you’re a pro. You better. (Hoc opus…)
We also need to talk about what a “beginner” is. Anyone can write a story. Hate to tell you, scout, but it’s not that hard. Considerably fewer can produce a comic and act like a professional. Fewer than that can cope with making a whole new comic issue every goddamn month for six to nine months while still not picking fights on twitter. A lot of what publishers are looking at when they consider you is: what have you done on your own? how do you present yourself online? how much buzz is around you?
How do you create buzz? Well, you make stuff. Nobody’s going to help you make your first stuff – the black secret of the creative arts is that nobody helps you in a meaningful way (in the way you dream about) until you don’t need it any more. So you apply to anthologies (I really like Iron Circus Comics, but there are great things going on everywhere) and start off with eight-pagers. Then you may do a single issue thing, or Kickstart a little 48 page book. (Don’t end it on a cliffhanger. Just don’t.)
But crucially, by the time you start approaching actual publishers to do your first big indie (Dark Horse, Image, Oni, IDW, Boom, etc) book, you’ve proven your ability to produce all aspects of a book yourself, and not be a jerk online, above and beyond the basic hurdle of writing compelling and original stories with a unique voice.
(The original voice is so important. Please have an original voice. It’s fine to have influences, but be yourself. It also means you get very zen about your position in the industry. Nobody writes like me. So I never feel like I have competition, except myself.)
Are you ready? How can you tell? I always say to go to a convention and look at all the books being sold by your desired publisher. Your work has to be solidly, unequivocably as good or better than the majority of what they are producing right now. And by “your”, I mean everything about the comic you are showing them.
I’m going to tell you the most difficult lesson I ever learned in filmmaking: nobody cares how hard you tried. You took $1000 and some favours and made a video that looks like $12k, for an artist who normally makes $15k videos? Nobody cares about the $11k of production value that you wove out of thin air. Not even your mom. Everyone will look at your video then look at the $15k videos and say, “yours is pretty cool, but it looks a little cheap”. Same thing with your comic. Close only counts with hand grenades.
There have been plenty of truly wonderful long-form comics published as first books: Finder, A Distant Soil, Cerberus are a few. Bone. But they were all self published for many, many years before they were picked up by an indie publisher. That’s a completely respectable way to go, if your heart’s just not in the publisher-hustle game. There are lots of ways in… I haven’t even really gotten in to webcomics, or Kickstarter. Doing your book as a webcomic then taking it to publishers (like DWJ’s Space-Mullet.com) is another completely legit way to do it.
Comics is a much, much broader church than it often seems, especially as the industry news sites focus only on the monthly “pamphlet” publishers. There is a place for everyone, no matter how they want to make their story, or what its topic is. So don’t be disheartened if pitching monthly comics, or a 4-issue mini, seems utterly against everything you want to accomplish.
But nobody’s going to do the work for you. (And it’s a fuckton of work.) Like anything else, if you want it hard enough, you’ll make the space in your life for it. It is also a choice – and a weirdly attractive one, to some – to be a person of ever-unrealised potential, a forever could have been with a romantic, wounded air of being wronged by the industry. I’m not at home to that.
(I did a couple podcasts in November where I delved into a lot of the inside baseball of making comics. thejaqofspades heard me on Word Balloon, but there’s also the Image Comics podcast too.)
TBT to the Star Wars painting I did of Luke seeing himself in Vader’s mask on Dagobah, since I’m on my way to see Force Awakens right now! Goodbye, do not search for my body.
By now, you’ve probably seen the cast of the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot in 100 different behind-the-scenes images, but what you’re looking at now is the first “official” image of them.
From left to right, meet Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) and Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones).
The cast also includes Chris Hemsworth, Neil Casey, Andy Garcia, Cecily Strong, Michael K. Williams, Matt Walsh and Charles Dance, plus cameos from original stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver.
Directed by Paul Feig (The Heat, Bridesmaids) from a script he co-wrote with Katie Dippold (The Heat, Parks and Recreation), the film is scheduled for release on July 15, 2016 via Columbia Pictures.
Good Character Design Through Posture and Silhouette 101.
Will get you through long flights, noisy hotel rooms, and nights with a loud newborn. Highest cost/benefit ratio ever. $5
3. Palomino Blackwing Pencils
My favorite pencil — great for sketching, perfect for making notes in books. Sometimes I like to just sharpen them and sit around and sniff ‘em. Get a whole box and add a sharpener while you’re at it. $30 for both.
4. Aqua Notes
I know, I know: they seem totally goofy, but I get a lot of ideas in the shower, and nine out of ten of them are bad, but that one that is good, well, it’s worth having something you can write it down on. $10
5. Pocket notebooks
I love Field Notes, but these are small enough that they fit in my shirt and jeans pockets, and they take a beating. I carry one of these everywhere. $10
6. A Daily Planner
Really, any page-a-day planner will do, but this is the notebook I’ve used to keep a daily logbook for the past seven years. My logbooks are invaluable to me—easier to keep than a diary and way more helpful. $16
7. Kitchen Timer
Might seem like a stretch, but I think this is one of the most underrated creative tools. Give it to someone and tell them to find 15 minutes a day to do the thing that they love. $10.
8. A great book
You can’t go wrong with books. Some books I’ve read in recent years that I think would help a wide range of people:
First you steal, then you share. (Hey, sorry, but they fit perfectly in a stocking!) $14 for both of them. (You could always throw in Newspaper Blackout, for an extra $10.)
Happy holidays, y’all! Hope you get everything you want.
Hi, I'm Tim Lai! I'm a cartoonist living in Ontario, Canada. I like drawing cute and colourful things. This blog is a hub where you can find all of my Tumblr, DeviantArt, Flickr, Blogspot, and other posts in one place.
About My Work
I write and draw Lemon Inc., a comic about a seven-year-old who wants to be a business tycoon when he grows up. Until then, he runs a lemonade stand. You can read it at www.lemon-inc.com.
I have done some professional web and graphic design work, including designing the website for the webcomic, Just Joel. I'm also a member of the webcomic collective, Ink Bomb Comics.
December 19, 2015 23:43
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