Overwhelmed with Art Commissions? Try these 5 Strategies

GET FREELANCE FREEDOM

For many freelance illustrators, juggling commissions and clients can be a burden. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your workload, there’s a strategy to getting the type and amount of commission work you want.

1. TIME ESTIMATES

When you have more clients than you can handle, you might start delivering artwork late. This not only makes the client angry, but it makes you look like a loser who doesn’t have their business together. They probably won’t recommend you to a friend or request to work with you again.

To solve this, tell people a realistic date for when the piece will be completed. Don’t tell them what they want to hear or the earliest you think you could make it happen. Give them a realistic time.

If it’s a large project, give milestone dates: sketch will be done by Friday, paint will be done by Tuesday, and detail by Thursday. Let them give their input at the end of each phase in case changes need to be made.

Giving clients multiple dates also helps them understand how long each process takes for you, the artist, and gives them shorter waiting periods between seeing results. If all they experience is requesting the commission and then seeing the final piece, they’ll feel impatient and might rush you. They’ll also feel uninvolved and any changes they wish to make at the end will be more difficult for you to achieve. Let them be part of the process.

Milestones will also help keep you responsible for your time management so you’re not scrambling to get the whole project done in one day.

Try your hardest to never be late. And as an unbreakable rule, never lie to your clients. Trust is a more valuable asset than any amount of money. If you need more time, tell them.

Giving yourself a realistic time estimate also allows you to give the client a high-quality illustration. Nobody wants a half-ass piece of art they paid money for. Put love and effort into every commission.

2. MORE DEMAND MEANS HIGHER PRICES

If you’re overwhelmed by commission work as a freelancer, chances are you need to raise your prices. You’re obviously in high demand. You want less, but higher paying clients. If you can do one piece a week for $5,000, you’re in great shape. If you’re charging $75 each and doing one every day, not so much.

So raise your prices. If you do it right, you’ll have less work and make more money.

It’s hard to find your middle ground, though. It depends on your materials, time, and other factors. For general pricing guidance, you can peek my post here.

3. STAY IN YOUR STYLE

Accepting commission work that’s outside of your style, your brand, or your chosen medium is the death of your love for art.

When you accept requests for art that you wouldn’t be proud of and want to put in your portfolio, you aren’t staying true to yourself and you’re just doing it for the money. You’re officially a sell out.

If someone asks you to design a traditional style tattoo for them and you usually focus explicitly on frilly, flowy watercolors, TELL THEM NO.

If you’re a nude-lover and illustrate voluptuous devil women all day and somebody requests a modest portrait of their grandpa that you’d just loathe to do, TELL THEM NO.

Never give people the impression that you’ll do whatever they want, because then you’ll never do what YOU want. And living your life on your own terms is the goal, right?

Plus, when it comes to branding, you absolutely need a cohesive style. Galleries, clients, followers, marketers, etc. should know exactly what to expect from you in terms of style when they request work. Otherwise, they’ll have false expectations which you won’t meet, and they may be disappointed. Being all over the place may put money in your pocket in the short term, but it will damage you in the long term. Be consistent.

4. CHOOSE CLIENTS CAREFULLY

As a freelancer, you may spend time wishing somebody, anybody would request work from you. But accepting from everyone gets you overwhelmed, underpaid and it doesn’t move your business forward. You can choose who you will and won’t work with.

Take stock of your current and past clients. What about them did you like and dislike? Take into account:

• Payment (generous, or did they haggle?)
• Subject matter preferences
• Time frame expectations
• Commercial design or personal project?
• Were they pleasant to work with?

Consider these factors and grade them A-F. Then decide how low on the scale you’re willing to work with. If you’re really in high demand, you can choose A+ clients only. If you only need a little more breathing room, work with A, B, and C, cutting only those with “failing” grades.

Of course you’ve got to work with most clients at least once to figure this out, but once you get it down you can anticipate which commissions won’t be worth it based on the initial discussions and turn down the project instead.

5. CLOSE YOUR BOOKS

If you’re successful enough to be turning away art commissions left and right even from A+ ideal clients, then you may want to let everyone know your commissions are temporarily closed. Book your time slots and close up shop until you’re done. Put it in your social media bio, make a post about it, send it out to your email list, and tell your friends.

Book about two or three months in advance, filling time slots if someone cancels. Then close your schedule. This way nobody takes is personally and when you open your books again you’ll have a rush of work from people who’ve been waiting in anticipation.

Tattoo artists, illustrators and freelance worker of all kinds all do this when they become overwhelmed. If you need a break, you can even give yourself a week off for a week or so after each booking block. Relax. Paint something just for yourself. Don’t let art become just another job. Yuck.

COMMISSIONS CAN BE EASY

Freelance work doesn’t have to be a stress point in your artist journey. When managed correctly using these strategies, your creative hustle can run as smoothly as silk. Have any struggles you want to share, or have an issue that was left unaddressed? Let us know in the comments below!