Artist Advice

[roxyfur.livejournal.com]

This is a question to other artists as well as people who commission artwork.

Time and time again, I receive reference sheets that are difficult to read in some way or another. They're either screencaptures from SecondLife, shaded with unclear swatches, or just plain inconsistent. I tend to spend a lot more time on pieces like these, when I have to spend an unusually long time reading a reference sheet.

The question is, would it be fair of me to implement a "difficult reference sheet" charge to make up for the additional time spent on the piece? Clients, would this deter you from commissioning an artist, if they had that kind of fee?

I know there's fees out there for complicated characters, but this is slightly different. I've had characters that ended up being relatively simple, but still spend forever interpreting the reference sheet before seeing their simplicity.

Thanks to any thoughts regarding this topic!

Comments

[starcharmer.livejournal.com]

I don't think that would be unfair. I've been trying to encourage people with shaded refs to ask their reference artist for an unshaded version. I'm hopeful that it would be as easy as hiding a layer and it would make everything so much more read-able. Painted references are an issue, too. :/

I definitely don't blame you for not wanting to attempt to decipher a ref.