Monday, February 16, 2009

An Important Message about Hiring Illustrators

This post is temporarily in storage. It is cross-posted in my Livejournal under a friend's lock.

5 comments:

  1. I feel your pain. It's the main reason I stopped taking illustration commissions. I'm sick to fucking death of being taken advantage of, and people making me feel like sit for pricing like I do. They need to consider the fact that we arent doing ONE piece of work but a SERIES! reality is they SHOULD be paying THOUSANDS more than they do.

    I wish Artists would finally start getting our dues... :|

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  2. Bravo. Well said. I'm guilty of underpricing, myself, but... I do aim to correct that once I'm at all capable of doing so.

    I once had a fellow student at my school- an art school, mind you; make an upbeat sarcastic comment as to my pricing. 'Five dollars for a sketch?' Yes, you nitwit, five gorram dollars! That's two hours of work, if I want it to look like anything decent.

    The whole attitude seems very hypocritical. These are the same people try to compliment artwork by means of saying 'That's a really good piece because I can't draw at all! LOL', but then expect us to work for nothing because some people happen to do art just as a hobby.

    I seem to be taking a cynical note, though, so perhaps I best stop while I'm ahead...

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  3. Jayleen: It really is unfortunate. They don't seem to understand that we can't just doodle out their masterpiece in an hour and then take $20 for it. Especially if it's going to be published.

    Sasha: The next time that person tries to belittle you about charging $5 for a sketch, politely inform them that $5 for a two hour sketch amounts to $2.50 an hour, which is well below minimum wage, and ask if they think working for $2.50 an hour is fair.

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  4. Hard lessons for everyone. I had really hoped that this would be a good experience for you. At least it has become a learning experience, if a rather sour one. I just hope you get paid, and in a timely fashion... keep me posted.

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  5. Rick:

    I know it's hard to swallow, but it seems that sometimes it's best if the hard lessons happen first, that way you're prepared early. I don't regret taking the job, but I do wish I'd approached it a bit differently (such as insisting the contract be followed when it came to the number of revisions).

    There's another lesson to be learned, too, but not on my end. I'll email you to explain a few things.

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