How much is too much?
Posted By Inflate123 on March 21, 2010
Sorry, not talking about cup sizes, but prices of commissions.
I came to this thread on BodyInflation.org a little late — it had already flamed out and been locked. But in my opinion, it’s worth reading, for a few reasons.
I think inflation artists, by and large, have it rough. They are making something from nothing, and they are making it for a specialized, nitpicky community — and that is valuable, certainly worth paying someone to create. Unfortunately the internet culture suggests that because pieces of art can be easily copied and shared, then nothing is worth anything. So when an artist says “here’s my commission rate, does that seem of interest to you,” it’s easy to have an innocent question turn into a beatdown. (Fukereru Shogun is right — there was no need for such hostility.)
Now, “is it worth $50″ depends on something subjective, like “do I like OzKangaroo‘s style enough.” The posters in that thread hit on that in a rather rude way, but clearly, some folks didn’t think his work would be worth that price. Personally I like that guy’s style and I’d love to see what he did in a female human inflation context. So…is it worth $50?
For me…no, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the work. I’ve never paid that much for an inflation commission because it’s over my personal threshhold of spending money and this hobby– but it does not mean that his work is not WORTH $50 (though some would say a product is worth whatever the market deems it worth). And it’s worth noting that he’s in Australia, so the AU $50 is US $45…but nobody stopped to consider that one in the thread. I like Alien Desperardo‘s style too and asked him about commissions, but due to international exchange rates (he’s in the UK and I’m in the US, and the exchange rate is strongly in his favor), I realized I could not afford his asking price. I did not mean to lead him on, but I simply couldn’t justify that much cash, even if he was drawing exactly what I wanted to see. It had nothing to do with the quality of his work or my desire to commission him. I just couldn’t afford what he deserved.
Someone noted that a videogame costs around that same $50, and that investment would bring them more entertainment value for their money. Someone else suggested it was a poor analogy and called them hypocrites, but I think it’s a very smart point to consider: When your audience has a limited budget, what will they spend it on? It doesn’t mean you’re a lousy artist who is charging too much for your skill; it means they have other things competing for their luxury entertainment dollar and, regardless of your skill and effort, they might want something else more, and they can’t buy both for budget reasons. The person with the $50 is not thinking “Which artist can I support with this money?” but “What can I buy in all the world with this?” The artist, of course, may be seeing it the other way around.
The takeaways, as I see them? The community needs to be MUCH more polite when new people enter the conversation, and the artists need to consider their prices in relation to everything else on the entertainment market. A rejection of the artist’s price is not necessarily a rejection of the artist.
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