Eka's Portal

So this isn't me trying to start a discussion as much as just bring up a point.
I often talk to people who, like me for one reason or another, are more often
than not short on flexible cash. People who WANT to commission artists, but
can't make the ends meet to afford it.
What worse is that there are MANY of these people! And truth be told, people
who want to commission but are not artists themselves... tend to share in what
they want seen or commissioned. Certain characters in certain situations from
certain angles / perspectives.
So... Here's a crazy thought... Split the tab.
If you WANT to commission an artist for a certain picture, know that the price
is beyond your reach but like a good little internet-dweller you respect that the
artists needs to be compensated for their time so that they can LIVE and thus do
not bitch and complain about it. But what CAN you do then? Well. Make a post
much like this one.
"Hi I want THIS from THAT artist. I am willing to offer THESE moneys and wonder
if anyone else shares my vision."
Car-pool for commissions! Because it boosts the chance of YOUR desired work and
art coming to life, the amount of work Artists get so they can make a better living,
as well as making it not just cheaper for YOU, but for a LOT of people.
Hell, for all you know, it might have a Rolling-Rock effect!
Gathering more mossy green than you anticipated, making what started as the wish
for a single image or story a COMIC or SERIES. All for the little money you could not
buy a SMALL commission for. And, a bit of effort and social cooperation.

I bring this up because I just about never see multiple commissioners per upload.
But I often speak with people who WANT to see more, but can't afford it. Never once
thinking to look to the other HUNDREDS of followers that their favorite artists often
have! All those followers that like the same content as YOU =)

There's nothing wrong with splitting the tab, because it means more work and more
pay in total for artists. So they can continue to make the stuff YOU enjoy.

I know it's possible. One of my more recent commission was by two people.

Ive had that idea before but it gathered very very little popularity as people rather wanted to get personal content, altho i have seen a few extremely popular peps get it to work tho

I've seen this done, but mostly in YCH auction pictures where one is the pred and the other is the prey.

Interesting point of discussion.

I'm actually surprised this isn't done more. Especially as the pred-prey duality in vore naturally lends itself to two characters in a visual piece. You could certainly imagine best friends or couples to do this.

I mean, crowdfunding is nothing new. Thats what patreon is for. But from my (very very short) glance at the site and others, there doesn't seem to be a good way to do a small-scale collaborative commission. Or rather, organize small-scale collaborative commissions from a consumer-side commission. Especially in regards to such a niche community.

The YCH and feed the fey seem to be the closest accomplished in a widespread nature, but that's all organized on the producer side, as compared to the consumer side. These have a lot of advantages going for them; The producer puts out a outline of what they want to do, and consumers jam in their character into whatever open slot they want within the confines of the slots provided. The style and final outcome is quite clear, and the consumers don't need to even know the other commissioners, because its all organized through clear limits and on a single-source producer.

Where a consumer side commission would be much more difficult to organize, and "split the tab" for. To be clear, I'm defining a consumer side commission as a individual (or in this case, a group of individuals), asking one producer to create 'art' to their specifications and details.

This is difficult for a number of reasons, that we can break down into organization, directive/direction, and style.

The first obvious challenge is how to even get together a group of commissioners to split a tab. YCH's, patreon, and other crowdfunding methods are easy because its centralized, focused on one point of contact; the producer. This would be more akin to trying to work on a group project in school, wrangling together 3-10 (yikes) individual strangers to agree to participate in such a venture in the first place. Friends and close relationships are obviously not a issue here, because they already have clear lines of communications and are probably already doing these commissions, so I'll be ignoring them for the purposes of this hypothetical.

The next is direction and directive. Who decides on what the image is going to be about, or the specifics of the commission? is their a "leader" who establishes everything at the start and just asks people to help pay for what essentially is his own commission? Is there a poll system? Do they just brainstorm until something formulates between them cohesive enough to commission? And what about OC's? How much do people pay extra to insert their OC's, especially if there is limited slots?

And the last is style. Sometimes individuals range from being very picky, to being extremely open about what they are looking for. If there's a disagreement in the commission style, perhaps the outline isn't to someones taste and want some minor changes done, what do you do? If someone is unhappy and wants to drop out, how do you resolve any financial disputes? If you took money up front, do you refund it? Or do you risk waiting until the end, and risk people not coughing up their fair share?

The only way I really see consumer-collaborative commissions being feasible is to make it as similar to a normal commission or YCH as possible, with a single-central-node communication structure. Establishing a clear leader at the beginning to decide direction, resolve disputes, and ensure everyone is on board. However, then in a way this simply becomes another patreon: A bunch of individuals crowdfunding one individual to commission a certain style of art from producers on their behalf, and to the audiences enjoyment. But this is no longer really splitting the tab, at least in the implied sense of a bunch of individuals sharing a equally discussed and agreed upon product.

Thus the question becomes, is doing a consumer-side collaborative commission even feasible beyond close-relationships? YCH's work because you don't even need to know the other people in the commission really, you just choose your slot and show your character reference. But if the commission is done to consumer specifications, then there's a lot of hurdles to overcome, and generally good reason why this is less common than we'd like to hope.

HereticalTendencies wrote:I mean, crowdfunding is nothing new. Thats what patreon is for. But from my (very very short) glance at the site and others, there doesn't seem to be a good way to do a small-scale collaborative commission. Or rather, organize small-scale collaborative commissions from a consumer-side commission. Especially in regards to such a niche community.

The YCH and feed the fey seem to be the closest accomplished in a widespread nature, but that's all organized on the producer side, as compared to the consumer side. These have a lot of advantages going for them; The producer puts out a outline of what they want to do, and consumers jam in their character into whatever open slot they want within the confines of the slots provided. The style and final outcome is quite clear, and the consumers don't need to even know the other commissioners, because its all organized through clear limits and on a single-source producer.

Where a consumer side commission would be much more difficult to organize, and "split the tab" for. To be clear, I'm defining a consumer side commission as a individual (or in this case, a group of individuals), asking one producer to create 'art' to their specifications and details.

This is difficult for a number of reasons, that we can break down into organization, directive/direction, and style.

The first obvious challenge is how to even get together a group of commissioners to split a tab. YCH's, patreon, and other crowdfunding methods are easy because its centralized, focused on one point of contact; the producer. This would be more akin to trying to work on a group project in school, wrangling together 3-10 (yikes) individual strangers to agree to participate in such a venture in the first place. Friends and close relationships are obviously not a issue here, because they already have clear lines of communications and are probably already doing these commissions, so I'll be ignoring them for the purposes of this hypothetical.

The next is direction and directive. Who decides on what the image is going to be about, or the specifics of the commission? is their a "leader" who establishes everything at the start and just asks people to help pay for what essentially is his own commission? Is there a poll system? Do they just brainstorm until something formulates between them cohesive enough to commission? And what about OC's? How much do people pay extra to insert their OC's, especially if there is limited slots?

And the last is style. Sometimes individuals range from being very picky, to being extremely open about what they are looking for. If there's a disagreement in the commission style, perhaps the outline isn't to someones taste and want some minor changes done, what do you do? If someone is unhappy and wants to drop out, how do you resolve any financial disputes? If you took money up front, do you refund it? Or do you risk waiting until the end, and risk people not coughing up their fair share?

The only way I really see consumer-collaborative commissions being feasible is to make it as similar to a normal commission or YCH as possible, with a single-central-node communication structure. Establishing a clear leader at the beginning to decide direction, resolve disputes, and ensure everyone is on board. However, then in a way this simply becomes another patreon: A bunch of individuals crowdfunding one individual to commission a certain style of art from producers on their behalf, and to the audiences enjoyment. But this is no longer really splitting the tab, at least in the implied sense of a bunch of individuals sharing a equally discussed and agreed upon product.

Thus the question becomes, is doing a consumer-side collaborative commission even feasible beyond close-relationships? YCH's work because you don't even need to know the other people in the commission really, you just choose your slot and show your character reference. But if the commission is done to consumer specifications, then there's a lot of hurdles to overcome, and generally good reason why this is less common than we'd like to hope.

THIS, as an artist its got complicated when working with multiple client on one picture. With a YCH it is fine because the picture is pretty much made just need place the characters.

This may work if there is enough organization and if done with smaller groups of maybe 2-3 people who know each others taste.

Every so often I'll get together with friends of mine and we'll split the cost on commissioning an image of both of our OCs doing something. Like Heretical wrote, I don't think I'd ever really do it with strangers just because it involves a lot of trust and potentially a lot of money, two things you generally don't want to be careless with. Still, it is true that when you do this you can potentially get higher-quality stuff than you would've otherwise at a much more reasonable rate, and everyone gets something cool out of the bargain, so if you do have friends to do it with and the organization to make it simple I'd highly recommend it.

One way I handle it is actually saying to a friend "hey man, I love you original character, if you are looking to have an artist draw him, I'll gladly give $$ towards it" They handle the commission, and I swoop in to help with a little cash. It a decent way to encourage people who might not commission because, at the end of the day, they are getting a huge discount and you get to see their OC finally drawn.