Right now i'm in a bit of limbo in regards to my health (see previous rants) but i'm doing ok enough to sit down and draw. The past few months have been really difficult in terms of doing all the running around i usually have to do to keep things going and... well, i haven't been succeeding with that so well lately. Rather than just dig into my art piles again for more original drawings to put up for sale i thought i would try doing something i've avoided doing for years: artwork commission requests. Sorta like doing signed sketches except these would be for full sized finished drawings - the real deal.

Why have i avoided commission requests? Well, mostly because i have this morbid fear of not meeting the expectations of the person paying for the commission ^^;; I'm not a professional artist and for that reason i have a justifiable fear of not being able to draw on request. I know this might sound strange and it really makes me wonder just how bad my heath has become because i sorta feel like i can kinda maybe actually draw a little more reliably these days. Maybe, with the right guidelines for requests i can do this now. Recently a friend wanted to commission a drawing of Mugi huggling Miho as a present for someone. that drawing was a good test run on the idea and got me thinking about what exactly those guidelines should be.

So, are you interested in commissioning and original drawing from me? If you are, please read on.

First thing, these are really more guidelines than rules, but what they do is give you a sense of what i hope will result in a successful commission you (and I) will be happy with ^^;; I'm not a professional artist, i can't just draw anything on request - I have to be able to get into what i'm drawing to draw it successfully (A pro could sit down and draw whatever is requested). Hopefully, with these general guidelines i'll have no problems producing a drawing both you and i will be happy with.

So, general rules for a request:

• Please restrict it to characters I've created. It doesn't have to be Megatokyo characters, but it should be something i created. I'm not comfortable drawing other people's creations - not really because of the whole copyright thing, but because i really have to know a character well in order to draw him/her properly. That can take time, so i'd rather go with characters i know so i can concentrate on drawing. You CAN request one of my characters cosplaying as other characters - that can actually be kind of fun. If you are interested in having me draw one of your characters or to design a character for you, that is a totally different kind of commission request that we can discuss, but for the time being i'd like to stick to my characters if possible.
• I can't draw real people. I am not good at drawing real people at all (trust me, i really am not) so please, no requests to draw yourself or a friend or a family member - you or said person would be horrified by the results ^^;;;
• Please show respect for the characters. This probably goes without saying, but there some boundaries to what i'll draw. sure, i'm capable of going full eroge if i chose to... but sorta like Ping that's my choice and i'd rather not go there ^^;; In general, i like to respect my characters and how they might feel about what i do with them. Doesn't mean i wont embarrass the hell out of them, but in general there are parts of their lives that belong to them and i like to respect that. I'll draw Snarkybear, Boo and Largo nude, but that's about it. :P

I will be sharing what i draw - both in live drawing sessions on my JustinTV feed and by posting the finished drawing on my Deviant Art site and on my Tumblr page. Hopefully you don't mind this - i like to think this actually improves the value of the piece since everyone gets to see what you own the original for. If you don't wish me to share the drawing and/or the process with everyone, i'll consider it, but please let me know.

Other than that, let me know what you would like. Feel free to be creative with your request - an interesting request can be a lot more engaging than 'please just draw Miho'. Something that really shows a character's personality (or contrasts it) can be interesting. You know my work, you should have a sense of what can do best. :)

as far as pricing goes, i've tried to keep things simple by pricing things based on the number of characters in the drawing, if there is a background, general complexity of the idea, etc. This is a direct reflection of the fact that the more characters i have to draw and the more complicated the drawing, the more time it takes. Here is the basic breakdown (with links to examples)

All drawings will be in pencil on 8.5 x 11 on bright white inkjet paper (archival - its the same paper i've been using for years to draw all my artwork - my style seems to work best on this paper, which is why i use it) I will ship it to you in a protective archival sleeve with a backer board along with all the preliminary sketches leading up to the final one. Please note that the examples are just general examples - in general, the final artwork will be much like this commission i just finished. Here's the price structure:

• base price: one character, simple pose: $250 [example]
• one character, more dynamic/complicated pose/costuming: add $50 per applicable character [eg: dynamic, complex]
• each additional character - add $100 [example]
• for a simple background, add $50 [example]
• for a complex, shaded background, add $100 [example]
• for something that makes it really complicated to draw in some other way - we'll discuss that :)
• color? i CAN do a COPIC colored finished version of your drawing request, but i can't color the original pencil drawing (COPIC's smear pencil lines). What i usually do is print a high res version on matte paper and color that. It's hard to capture the density of pigment you get with COPIC coloring in a scan, but they look good :) Since i don't ink, that's the process i use for creating finished color pieces like this one. If you are interested, let me know.

Now, some of that might seem a little subjective, but hopefully you can understand the difference in time it takes to draw Ping in a her school uniform vs. Erika in her full Steampunk awesomeness. Dynamic poses take longer because it can take quite a few sketches to get the proportions and motion right and as such takes longer to draw than a simpler pose. Simple backgrounds don't take too long to do, but sometimes a really detailed background can sometimes take as much time to draw as the main drawing.

One thing about requests... what i end up drawing will be a reflection of how the character(s) react to what i draw them doing. For example, when i was asked to draw Komugiko hugging Miho it ended up being a reflection of how Mugi would hug Miho and how she would react to such a forceful hug. It's possible that the request was looking for something more girl/girl love maybe but in the end the characters are the ones who reflected what would happen. Keep that in mind - it's hard to make characters act in ways that are not... them.

So, if after all that you are still interested in commissioning some artwork, here's the process.

First thing to do is email me with your request (note - this is NOT my fred@fredart.com email address). Be sure to include "[commission request]" in the subject line. I'll look over your request and email you with any questions or clarifications i might need. Once we are both on the same page and i'll send you a link to a special product page at the Megagear store where you can pay for half of the commission cost up front to reserve your slot. Since each commission will take a number of days to complete, i will limit the number of slots i'll to four or five at a time - I wont ask you to commit to or make partial payment until i am comfortable that i can start your drawing within a week or so. Depending on the number of requests, i'll cue up all your requests on a first come, first serve basis and work my way through the list in order as best i can. If all goes smoothly, everyone gets to watch lots of drawing and you get your requested drawing :)

Since i will be doing the drawings live on Justin.TV, please feel free to provide feedback on what i'm doing. Even if you are not able to watch the live feeds, i will email you with a status updates showing the preliminary drawing at about the halfway point. Once i get your approval and you are tell me to go ahead, i'll move on to finishing the drawing.

After the drawing is done, i'll send you a link to where you can pay the other half of the commission cost and i will send you your drawing.

so... well, it's a little heavy on the text, but now that its out of the way maybe i can turn myself over to drawing stuff :P

PS: Oh, i forgot to mention that the date for my Cardiac Ablation has changed from May 1st to May 14th. It sucks to have to wait a few more weeks, but it's only a few weeks. I'll put the time into drawing more stuff :)

PPS: Oh, Leo, if you are reading this: YES, I WILL DRAW MIKAN AND KOTARU FOR YOU. I consider your request already placed. I'll email you. :P