DA's Commissions Shop

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So this is a thing! www.deviantart.com/commissions…  

So.  Your friendly neighborhood Auntie Toerning is going to step in for a second here.  Firstly, I think it's very groovy and awesome that DA is establishing their own marketplace.  It's a scary world out there of work for hire and it's totally awesome that DA artists now have this stepping stool to practice professional habits in the same way that we practice artistic skills!

A
BIG
FAT
HOWEVER

I would like to take a moment to discuss the rates here.  I was just exploring quickly, and saw on the navigation on the left "price," and, like every other human on the planet, clicked on the most expensive first, thinking to myself "wow, good for DA to promote work that costs $1,000!" and wanting to see what that work would be.

Well.  Boy was I wrong.  In fact the prices are organized by Points.  Remember when you were a kid, and the dog peed on the Monopoly box, and so you drew dollar signs on a bunch of scraps of paper and used that for the money?  Points bear more resemblance to those scraps than to actual currency.

Quick conversion here: 1-29 points category?  (prices are organized in ascending categories.)  One Honest American Dollar is about 80 points.  Meaning the entire 1-29 points category is work for under a single dollar.  UNDER A SINGLE DOLLAR.  On the other end of the scale (not really,) the highest category is 1,000+ points.  1,000 points is, pardon my math, about $12.50.  This is not the maximum an artist can charge, no not at all, but it IS the HIGHEST CATEGORY, meaning it's setting a precedent and boundaries that no one's going to want to exceed.

Let me reiterate.  The most DA is suggesting you pay for a commission is $12.50.

If this system works for you, if it gives you joy and you are producing work and getting paid and being happy, there is NOTHING wrong with that, I mean that completely honestly.  If it works, that is fantastic.  I just needed to state for the record, for the sake of my conscience, that I think DA has a responsibility to its artists to set an example.  This is going to be the first encounter with art as a commodity for a lot of artists, and it is going to give them ideas about how this works and teach them habits and every other thing.  And I think that the example being set is, frankly, shameful.

I'm not going to go into a lecture about pricing your art.  I just wanted to have a "let's be real" moment.  My inner goddess of indignant vitriol is satisfied. 

Be safe; be happy; get money; get paid.
© 2013 - 2024 toerning
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