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[Canned Turkey]

Hello all, I was wondering how one gets going doing pixel art commissions.
I feel I have enough skill and experience to do paid work for people, but I have no idea how to go about doing it.

So, I have some questions for those of you with experience working with people.

How specific should I be when predicting how long an image will take?
Do people even care how long it takes?
How much should I charge?
How do I handle payments?
How do I get the word out?
Do I really need a portfolio?
Do I need a website?
Where should I host my page? tumblr? here?

[knifeySpoonie]

Hello all, I was wondering how one gets going doing pixel art commissions.
I feel I have enough skill and experience to do paid work for people, but I have no idea how to go about doing it.

So, I have some questions for those of you with experience working with people.

How specific should I be when predicting how long an image will take?
Do people even care how long it takes?
How much should I charge?
How do I handle payments?
How do I get the word out?
Do I really need a portfolio?
Do I need a website?
Where should I host my page? tumblr? here?

I won't be able to answer some of these specifically... And this goes from a Hiring people perspective rather than a aiming to be hired..

How specific should I be when predicting how long an image will take?
A ball park figure would be nice, sure sometimes it will take longer but sometimes a will come together quicker.. But it's important for yourself to know so you can charge appropriately. the more accurate you are the more work you can take on without risking lots of overtime or getting a bad image with clients.

Do people even care how long it takes?
Yes most of the time! People have deadlines or might be waiting on something, If you tell me you'll have my stuff delivered on time and your late I'm not going to be to impressed etc..., also it matters massively if pay is linked to hours worked, If you tell me this image will take 8 hours and I'm paying you hourly and it then takes you 12.. the most likely scenario is I've agreed to pay you for 8 so you missed out on 4 hours pay..


How much should I charge?

How long is a piece of string.. It's a market place, charge what you feel is acceptable for yourself, also depending on length of project, quality of client etc.. I mean for a few days work, my day rate is higher than if you hire me for 3 months...

Also you might be paid hourly, daily, or per piece of work. each will be different and you'll need to negotiate with clients.

How do I handle payments?

Have a contract and agree how your to be paid up front. best way to be paid is you send an invoice and they pay you by bank transfer...

How do I get the word out?

Portfolio

Do I really need a portfolio?

Why would I hire someone without ever seeing their work? It's more important than any single other fact.

Do I need a website?

It should be your portfolio!

Where should I host my page? tumblr? here?

Have a look at http://www.squarespace.com/ That's what I'd use for a basic clean portfolio site.

[Canned Turkey]

Thanks for taking the time to reply with all of this!
I'll make sure to set up a real portfolio before starting anything.

[Canned Turkey]

cannedturkey.portfoliobox.me

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

These are all super common questions for people starting out so I thought I'd answer all of them. Here's my experience with fulltime freelance and a few years of part time freelance experience.

• "How specific should I be when predicting how long an image will take?
  
  • Very. Give a client a specific number and stick to it. Tier it if necessary. 'That will be $500 for me to draw one off, but I can offer you a finished version + several initial sketches for us to discuss and agree on in advance at $750 to be sure it suits your vision'
  • Your internal estimates don't need to be this exact (since that's almost impossible) but you should have a 'tolerance' that you're ok with. 'This project will take me between 20-30 hours, so I'll charge for 25 hours because I'm okay with getting 5 hours worth of underpaid.' How you make those value decisions is up to you. Usually I price as low for the project as I'm comfortable getting paid... which sometimes is the top end of my estimate, sometimes is the bottom end of my estimate and I end up putting in a lot of extra work.
• "Do people even care how long it takes?"
  
  • They should, this is the primary factor that determines the value of the work. You hire freelancers because you need to get work done for some form of deadline, be it a real hard deadline for funding or a soft one for your personal goals. The client would just learn to make it themselves if they had infinity time.
• "How much should I charge?"
  
  • Market rate for the kind of work you're doing. Art and other specialist services are priced based on the value of the work, not your cost of living or whatever. If you can hit a professional level of quality, charge professional rates. If not it's a lot harder to figure -- perhaps only take jobs that you can achieve professional results in, or consider some kind of discount structure.
  • Do remember that freelance work is sporadic and you have to pay for the time spent and also future months without work. Take care with your finances and stay safe -- dont get trapped in a long, low rate project if it means you will be out of luck if you don't immediately secure another client afterwards.
• "How do I handle payments?"
  
  • There are many ways to handle payments. Ideally you have your own bank account separate from your personal finances. Paypal works ok and I use it on some jobs.
• "How do I get the word out?"
  
  • Aggressively pursue every opening that you might be able to provide value to. Post your portfolio everywhere. Demonstrate expertise. Be helpful, be generous. Same way you succeed in any social situation.
• "Do I really need a portfolio?"
  
  • Yes, updated as frequently as possible.
  • Perhaps multiple separate portfolios or landing pages if you have a diverse skillset. Generalists are hard sells.
• "Do I need a website?/Where should I host my page?"
  
  • Anywhere. A professional domain you can run email from helps.

Additional notes not touched on by your questions:

• PAY TAXES and charge/budget accordingly
• 
  
  
• Get paid in part up front! If your client is nervous about paying you, you should be nervous about them!

[Canned Turkey]

Wow thanks catguy!
That's a lot of help, i'll write this down and make sure to remember.
One thing though, I'm still a minor and a dependent, so I don't need to do taxes yet, right?

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

One thing though, I'm still a minor and a dependent, so I don't need to do taxes yet, right?

This is kinda hard to research and you'll have to look into it yourself. If you're going to go anywhere near making enough in a year to owe taxes it's better to save the money from the start. Afaik in the US it works like this, but seriously, research it yourself:

There's an income level cap below which you don't have to file taxes. It's pretty low, like 3k or 5k. But if you're only making <1000 a year you almost definitely wont have to worry about it at all.

If your total income of all kinds (day jobs and freelance) exceeds that cap and freelance/self employment income exceeds $400 dollars, you need to pay taxes.

I'm think this is the same for minors but I'm not positive. This may be filed as part of your parents' taxes? I'm not sure.

[horsman]

I am super into Joseph's answers but I have a few things more to add:

• Payments: Canada? Interac e-mail transfer is ideal. US? paypal is no brainer for $700 and under. If its much more than that than find out what your wire transfer fee would be and do that if the value exceeds (fee)/0.029. I use it on anything over $2500.
• Typical artist freelance rates are between $25-$35 for professional work. If you want to work for less write the discount into your quote and invoices so that they know not to count on those rates in the future.
• People don't really care at all where your work is hosted as long as it is easy to look through and only shows good stuff. Breadth is not as important as quality in your portfolio.