grimvestige

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date night with eboshi

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Magpie 🩸

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Wyatt sprites!

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I finally got around to painting Mizu 🌊

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Reposting my ye olde Woowoo Lost in the Sauce and Buttcheeks Vash TM art

These prints barely sold at my events, if you want a pair let me know! OTL

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This week I wanted to delve into the differences between good and bad art critique, and a bit of what to do about receiving critique that may or may not be helpful!

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More old Vashwood art! This time 98s 🥰

I'm thinking of putting my nsfw art on here but I'm unsure about it

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Day 6 - Forbidden

Vampire AU! One of my favs.

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Art by Aleksandra Makarova

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Jord, for @respawnedart 💚

one of the few times I took the leap to draw water, I just couldn't resist putting this gorgeous druid in a bog, something about him just screamed "put me into a dubious body of water" to me

This was drawn for a Draw the OC above event in the Secret Satan discord, which, as always, was an absolute delight to take part in! playing with the atmosphere in this was fun, man I love greens,,

+speedpaint!

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I've had this headcanon rattling around in my head for a while

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SOLID SNAKE

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I love her your honour

[Do not use/repost]

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Zephyrini, air genasi wizard, for @eerivee - This time in halfbody format! This one was a lot of work with all the swirl action going on (and the hair's lineart was also quite a lot), but I really wanted to give this character a proper rendition, and the Draw the OC Above we had on our server was the perfect opportunity for it!!

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🩸🗡️

This is Iron Fang. Once and obedient guardian, his oath to protect a nobleman, only to receive constant lashes if he didn't comply to his corrupt bidding. Parts of their body replaced, little by little, to make them more lethal. More obedient. More a beast than a human.And like a beast, they tore the hand that fed them off, and now roams the realm seeking to protect those who have yet to grow their fangs.

Yippee! I can finally show you the paladin i did for Book of Devotion by @sleepywyrm_ed. Some leftovers are available right now so if you didn't grab your copy through the kickstarter now's your chance! 🩸

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⋆｡°✩

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I come in peace! I don’t wanna try to convince you to take commissions! But I am curious about why you’re so strongly against them, did you have a bad experience working on one? Anyway, love your stuff, your tarot designs go so hard

Thanks for the love!! The reason isn't a bad experience or some such, it's 19 years of being a professional artist and knowing the field!

TLDR: I'm a traditional pen and ink illustrator, so it's not financially viable or creatively fulfilling.

I'm always down to talk art business, so here's a brief breakdown wall of text:

On the financial side, commission designs are almost always done at a net loss/break even for the artist, and I'm no exception. They're alright for starting out, or if you're looking to incorporate them into your marketing (IE: doing a poster design for a band to gain exposure), but typically they're roughly half the cash-per-hour for any established artist VS making an original design, and creating a print run of it.

Example: while tons of folks would look at someone charging $1k USD for a commission and think that it would be crazy cash, once you break down the math, it's pretty bad. An average design for me takes on average 30-40 hours, and that's because I don't have to communicate with anyone else. I'm just drawin' my idea. Assuming this is a dream client who has the mind-meld with me, wire transfers the $1k straight into my bank account the second it's done, that's roughly $25/hr. Once again - this looks *great*, that's around $50k/yr from drawing custom stuff! But that's not how it works. First of all, most folks would lose their *minds* at paying $1k for a commission - over the years I graphed it out, and back when I was a less-established artist, most folks would start with a budget of $100, have their limits pushed at $300, and outright refuse $500. You have to sift through all of those folks in order to get that reasonable commission. That includes folks who aren't willing to commit to a commission, don't want to say no to the price, but will still take up your time. Roughly, for me at least, 10 hours a week of it. You'll also have to run collections on roughly 20% of your customers - they may pay the deposit, but you'll have to chase them for the final payment. Even if you take the payment *in advance* you'll end up having to chase them down/get ghosted. So, realistically: you end up taking the $500, for *at least* 50 hours of work. On average, it clocked in closer to 65-70. $7.14 an hour. That's less than a third living wage and less than minimum wage. You cannot grow an art practice while actively starving. It's easier to make a design, sell it/license it/etc. to make more cash without losing your mind.

That said - After 2020, I reached a point in my career that when I take on custom work, it's typically from a larger brand with a larger scope and larger budget, ranging anywhere from $5k-$30k. That said - these businesses are typically ones that understand the industry and are far less of a headache to work with than individuals, and will give several months worth of work at a time at a living wage.

On the creative side, I enjoy making my own designs and work as opposed to other folks. I have a ton of drawings and projects I'd rather work on and share with folks of my own that are infinitely more fun than the 200th identical commission request (a biblically accurate angel that also is the grim reaper that is also Baldur's Gate 3 thirstraps/Dark Souls fan art/primarchs because Y'ALL AIN'T CREATIVE BUT MY ASTARION X SANGUINIUS SHIP CAME FIRST.) Also, most of the fun of my career is knowing as many folks as possible get to enjoy my art junk. I'd rather go through a few extra hoops and have thousands of folks see my stuff vs something only one other person gets to see.

If you made it this far, congrats, here is my favorite image I have saved in my camera roll: