Its raining outside at the moment, hence the name. But its been really warm and I've been spent a good deal of time sweating (I have no AC at home), arting, and thinking. Although a lot of the work I did I can't post (such as the one commission I'm working on and all the super secret stuff I'm doing for Shifters..)

Speaking on the Shifters front, there is a contest ([link]) going on in the livejournal that you might want to check out. The best suggestions will get an exclusive (and extremely hawt if I do say so myself..) Shifters wallpaper (provided of course you leave some contact info so we can send it to you.)

I'm also curious if anyone out there would like to see a Brymstone Wallpaper. I haven't done one... like ever, but I have recently done some cover art that would be worthy of being finished and polished and turned into wallpaper.. although I dunno if anyone would want to see it. Otherwise, I'm going to stick to Shifters stuff and just brymstone comic pages for now.

As a completely random aside..
Commissions. Been thinking about them lately, in no small part because of people chatting to me about them. Not to me about doing them, but about other artists they've commissioned, payed and that don't keep in contact and don't deliver. The worst of these kind not only take the money and stop talking to the person, but they also CONTINUE to take commissions. They have dozens of commissions outstanding and they STILL KEEP TAKING THEM.

I can understand that people need money, but DUDES, srsly. Do not take more than you can handle, and certainly don't take money upfront if there is even a sketchy chance you will never deliver. Take a deposit of 30-50%, but remember, once money of ANY KIND changes hands, you've got a verbal contract with a person. If you go around stealing people's money and never delivering (or taking a gawd awful amount of time with no communications), you make not only yourself look bad, but other artists as well, because people start to think we're all ripoff artists. If you are going to take commissions, make sure you can do them. Set yourself a limit based on how long it takes you to do a commission from start to finish, and once you reach that limit DON'T TAKE ANY MORE UNTIL YOU FINISH ONE OF THE OTHERS YOU ALREADY HAVE.

I call this the 'slot' system. I use it because I know I take a terrible long time with commissions (because I'm a perfectionist obsessive freak), so I have only three 'slots' at any give time. I will not take anymore until one of those slots becomes free. However, being that my time is seriously limited right now, I've taken that down to one for the moment. I keep in contact with the one guy I'm working with right now ( who seems very happy with what he's seen thus far..) and I expect he will probably be very happy with the end result, even though it will probably have taken like 8 months for me to get it done. I warn people that commission me I have a very long turn around, and I have taken up to 3 YEARS before on a commission. (admittedly, I upsized the commission for free to compensate for my tardy ass. He paid for a black and white sketch, he got a full digital comp.. and I've tried to be less tardy.. but I'm still.. like.. slow.)

Just like any other business, you, as an artist, have to be mindful of your professional practices and how you treat your customers. I find that people aren't unreasonable if you are upfront with them. Most commissioners are pretty cool if you make sure you let them know up front, it could take a while, and when they email you for updates, you send them messages back in a timely fashion. I would say though, if they are messaging you, you should only ever send them back an 'I'm working on it' type email ONCE before you send them something to look at. Think of it as a poke to remind you that yes, if you take a commission, you have a responsibility to get it done. If you start getting a reputation for taking commissions, but never finishing them, its going to get hard for you to get them, as people do talk about experiences they've had with artists.

If you are an artist that takes commissions, and hasn't been delivering, think about that a bit, and maybe get on top of what you owe, eh? I know I am.