Looking for Advice

[iso-vanillin.livejournal.com]

I have just received an email today from someone known as Thrifty Lizard about designing a lizard character for a video game blog. They want 4 - 8 different head shot sketches of character designs and then a final full color head shot of chosen character. Everything sounds legit to me, but I wanted a little advice before I go ahead and do this. First off:

Does anyone have any kind of history with this person? I haven't heard of them before and I'm just curious if anyone else had.

What would be fair pricing for this kind of commission? Normally I would go about with just the general head shot prices and then the full color head shot price. But being its a character design should I charge more? These are the general prices that I am charging right now: http://vanillin.weebly.com/commission-prices.html

Thanks so much!

~Vanillin

Comments

[sigilgoat.livejournal.com]

Charge 500$ at minimum if it's going to be something they use as their personal whatever. That's full rights, baby.

[fatkraken.livejournal.com]

I would actually disagree here. $500 is not something they would possibly be able to afford for a non commercial blog, so if you try to charge that, you simply won't be commissioned. If it was for a company, I'd agree, but a blog is a bit different to my mind, since they most likely won't be making money off your work.

You could limit the rights; no merchendise etc. without you getting a cut.

[sigilgoat.livejournal.com]

ah that's a good point, I didn't think about limited rights.

SO yeah Maybe 200$ or so if no merch, etc

[growly.livejournal.com]

Also, on the "for profit" or "not for profit" front, keep in mind ad banners are a way of making revenue too! So if they have ad banners and are a fairly popular site, they might be making money off it that way.

[ocelotish]

My thought is this... How much money are they making on the website and how much are they likely to make in the future?

If it's no profit and no profit anytime soon, I'd charge about what you'd charge for the 4-8 icons because that's essentially what you're doing for the project; a modified icon that people can use to represent themselves. (This will obviously be more if they want a full body design, not just a headshot design.) Then I'd include a clause that you'd get a percentage of income from the site in exchange for their right to use it on the site. Obviously, right now that'd be zilcho, but then they're not using it so differently than an lj icon. Make it clear this is limited rights and what rights this does and does not include and that rights can be purchased later.

If they're already making some money (through donations or whatever) I'd ask for a percentage of their profit that year and a smaller percentage after that (I'm assuming they're expecting new visitors to the site because of this mascot). If they want merchandising it'd be a higher percentage of the stuff with your character at all times. This will give smaller ventures flexibility and will give you a bit more from the larger ones.

If it's a company, it'd obviously be a lot higher.

I'd also discuss who owns the design. I'd say right now that you own it (it's not work for hire), but that it is able to be sold to them at a later date.

However, that's just my thought process, someone else here might have a different take on it.

[iso-vanillin.livejournal.com]

Thank you all for your input! I really appreciate the advice!