#wtf are copics so expensive

[sisigull]

Me when I finally use my copics 🤯

Copics and colour pencils (both of which I don’t really use)

[inkypawprintsstudio]

So you want to sell your art...

Alright, so I’ve been noticing this with the furry community, hell, any art commissioning/selling community, that people demand lower and lower and lower prices on work. Take my advice with a grain of salt, I’m also learning on pricing my stuff as well, but this is getting ridiculous and frustrating for both customers and artists.   Artists: Biggest thing I can tell you, DON’T UNDERSELL YOURSELF! Set your prices and terms of service and stick with it! Don’t go down to a buyer’s price just because they say your stuff is too expensive, and someone else sells it cheaper. Heck, I’ve seen situations where someone wants person B to copy/work like person A’s work and they wouldn’t commission A’s work because they’re too expensive, but they are happy with B’s prices. Don’t fall for these traps! * also guys, do remember, just because someone charges A LOT for a work, it’s not just for supply and demand, but more so the time and hours put into it. AS WELL as the hours of training they’ve had, such as art school, or heck, even the many books they’ve bought or hours of YouTube they’ve watched. ** Heck, even if you’re new to the art selling community and want to get your name out and not look like an overpriced pig (even though you’re not), everyone loves this one word… SALE! Occasionally, post on your website, or in chats/pages where you’re advertising that you have a sale on certain item(s), such as adopts, or postcards, or badges, the list goes on and on! Don’t do whole site sales, because that gets boring, and change it up ever once in awhile and rotate sales. Buyers: a bit of the same and opposite advice goes to you! Artists, especially those who make art their profession, have to pay bills! Please understand that our work is set at the price for a reason. We need to eat, feed our pets, and pay for electricity, heck, even all the art supplies, programs, and delivery costs which it takes to do these works and get them to you! Anyways, talking prices for Artists. Fair warning, this is by hour pricing. I’ll do another post about flat prices on another day. -----------------------------------------------

Best way I can explain this, as a groundwork anyways, here is the groundwork Do the work you’re going to work on and time it. Say object Z takes 8 hours to make, and cost you $40 in supplies, or substitute a small percentage of the program you’re are using price. (ohmygods, I can’t believe I’m using algebra outside of math class! WTF?!) - H is for hours - When I talk about minimum wage, use your area’s minimum wage. While Oklahoma, where I live, minimum wage is only $7.25, ick, while California is $10.50 an hour(as of April 2017). Cost of living and prices of product vary from place to place, so work with - F is fraction of program or reusable material like Copics (round to nearest dollar :D customers love you for that)      - if using multimedia, like custom printing T-shirts, use both - M is for material, pretty basic - E is for Extra costs, such as extra characters, complex design, complex background, etc. Base it on what you think the extra time will be, sometimes again, time it by hour(?), I do about $2 per limb/tail extra, $10 for complex background, etc. *** N - another one I tend to put in is another charge for NSFW, just to keep my bases covered if anyone raises question on the work for whatever reason. Usually a percentage of the drawing rounded to the nearest dollar. Same as E.

[H hours x (P=at least minimum wage)] = A %(F) and/Or $(M) E ***N + ----------------------------------------------------- (TOTAL COSTS) So to give a just general idea of what I’ll be charging. (4h x $7.25)= $29 PS($30 a month) and Poser Pro($300ish for owned).... 3.5 = 1.05 + 10.50  =  $12 Complex background/$10 Male genitalia $2 + ----------------------------------- $53 See! Not so bad! Also, want to understand how long and how tedious it is for artists to make this work? Watch streams or visit them at cons and watch how they work. Even if it looks like they just draw lines and throw on color, they have to nit pick and fiddle with the lines and color and make it perfect! Well to them anyways. So in conclusion, be nice to artists. They need to eat and have electricity as well to get their work done! As for the opposite side, artists, if you ever feel pressured about your prices, don’t give, if you feel uncomfortable (I’ll go into this as well on a later post) or bullied over prices, you can happily say no. Anyways, please leave comments and questions below! Or PM me if you’re too shy to ask stuff in public. I’ll try my best to help! Thanks for dropping by! Inky Paw/Zoe