Commission Tips

7 min read

Deviation Actions

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914four's avatar
Well said. There are a couple of points I'd like to make, however. Many of the artists on this website are amateurs who have not completed their education, or may not even have any professional training. I've commissioned several pieces on :devart:, bought others, including an original painting (you can see examples in my "other artists" gallery. The cover of my novel set me back in excess of $1000, including the original art piece and the graphic artist who did the layout. It was worth it, the artwork is stunning. For this fee, I was granted unlimited rights to use the image in anything relating to the book, with no expiry. There are several images inside the book, for which I only have the rights to the initial release. I paid much less for these, because I don't own the rights (although the artist was nice enough to allow me to post the images on my website to help promote the book.  At the current rate of sales, assuming the book continues at the same rate and not counting any taxes I will have to pay on the revenue of the book, it will only take another nine years and seven months to pay for the cover art. Of course, that doesn't include the 2000+ hours of writing. Thankfully, as with many, many authors on Amazon, writing is a hobby and not how I feed my family. 
It's not a simple problem, the laws of supply and demand dictate that certain things can demand more than others. As a professional (my real job), I have earned what most would consider a very good salary for the last several years. Yet, one month about seven years ago, I had to work over 320 hours (two months work!) in a single, four week month to deliver a project because we were short staffed. I figured out, based on my yearly salary (no one gets overtime in my field) including bonus that year, that my salary that month was about seven dollars an hour, including the two 36-hour continuous sessions in the office. I'm not saying this makes it better, I'm just trying to show you that it is a problem not exclusive to the art community.