I saw this earlier, but I had to think of a response... I think I got one now x3
Before I continue, I do feel I should go against what Vortex wrote about charging more if something is digitally coloured
I've seen some works that were digital while the traditional was much nicer looking. Besides, you also need to pay for material costs when working traditionally. Of course when you draw digitally you have to pay for the electric bills, but arguably some traditional media can be more expensive in the long-run as well, so it kind of 'cancels' each other out. You can also fix certain mistakes digitally which you cannot do traditionally. For each medium there are pro's and con's, I don't think either should be charged more than the other purely on what the medium is.
The reason going against that what was said is moreso to elaborate and to serve as an introduction about what I have noticed about pricing and my personal experience as well as what I've noticed others have said and done.
For some drawing traditional requires more work than digital. For others it's the other way around. It comes down to a few key factors:
- What is your skill? How good* are you at something? This can be measured rather easily by your progress and development of your art skill and quality if you look back on older artwork. This also has to do with the following point:
- How much time do you spend on something? A lot of artists I think 'downgrade' their art quite a lot. Not taking into account that by doing so the market of artists becomes low and a lot less 'valuable'. Of course if you spend a lot of time on something and it looks 'bad', you cannot charge a high amount for it either, so this needs to be weighed out.
- How much would you pay for the artwork you make?
- How well-known are you? This is a sucky question to answer. I think your artwork should speak for itself. Either people like it or not, but as with everything: You need to know people who know people. It's not just the quality of your work that's important. You need to be good at social-networking (you can do this online and offline, you don't need to have social apps and such but might help). Once your following starts to grow, so does your chances of getting a commission. In combination with your skillset growing you can start raising the prices.
In the end you need to balance out and see what works for you. You can start low and slowly raise the prices. If people keep on commissioning you, then they are happy to pay that for the work you deliver. If they stop after you raised the prices it could be they think you raised it too much (do it in smaller steps if you notice this).
It's judging how
your market works and applying changes as necessary
Also be very clear and of course a manner of friendliness to your (potential) customers. If you cannot do a certain thing, mention it from the start. One can always make a compromise, usually as the artist getting a possible 'job', you have to kind of lead the project. Especially if the customer is unsure what they want and how it all works. If the customer knows exactly what they want (not usually my experience
) then that's all good too ;D
A fellow (and very friendly and helpful) artist I stay in touch with made a helpful journal about this too on their deviantArt:
Artists STOP and READ.
It might be rather helpful, of course as stated above you need to also build up your curriculum and create a social circle. The more people you know, the more likely it is someone wants to commission you, and the more likely it is they will tell others about your work and thus give you more work, in turn you can raise the price.
* = Being 'good' depends on various factors, such as: How fast are you able to pick up on something? Do you have a defined style which separates you from others? How much time do you spend on something? Do you learn and grow from your past drawings and does your style develop into something more specific, more 'you'? Does your quality of work improve? Etc. etc.
