Posts Tagged: page rates

It’s Called Freelancing – Part 2

Posted by & filed under Underdogs.

Missed the first installment of this article series? Read it here.

The majority of independent employers/collaborators who are seeking comic book artists do not know the first thing about making a comic. Some do, but most don’t. They don’t understand that a single page of professional quality art can easily take days to produce, and are sometimes produced by multiple people. A lot of people seem to think that they are doing you a favor by offering to allow you to work on their comic, and as a result they don’t have to pay fair wages. They seem to think that all you have to do is sit down at your drawing table (or screen), snap your fingers, and a masterpiece will materialize before your eyes. To these people I say – DO 5 MINUTES OF BASIC RESEARCH! Producing well-drawn comic art is no easy feat, and those of us who do it for a living have been practicing nearly our entire lives to refine our skills. Artists have to eat and pay bills like everyone else, so we deserve to be paid for our work. Just because it’s a creative field does not mean we work for free. Our skills are a trade just like any other. Would you ask a plumber to spend all day working on your toilet only to offer them $10 once it’s fixed? I seriously hope not.

[Tweet “”…a single page of professional quality art can easily take days to produce.” @MichaelYakutis”]

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It’s Called Freelancing – Part 3

Posted by & filed under Underdogs.

Missed the first installment of this article series? Read it here.

So what exactly are fair rates? This is the million dollar question. It’s very difficult to get a straight answer, and everyone will give you a different one. Here are page rates as determined by the Graphic Artists Guild from a few years back:

  • Writers (plot and script) $75-120
  • Painted art $150- 350
  • Layouts/Breakdowns $35-100
  • Penciled Art $55-200
  • Background art $10-25
  • Ink Art $45-150
  • Lettering $18-35
  • Lettering on overlay $20-35
  • Coloring art $75-150

Those are some pretty wide ranges, but it gives you an idea. Depending on your abilities, some employers may offer more, some may offer less. If you’re new to professional illustrating, these rates may be a little bit lower for the first few years as you gain experience. After looking at these, I feel that my rates are are actually rather low in a lot of cases, but they do fluctuate a lot. I take different variables into account before submitting a quote: the time frame involved, the complexity of the art, what style of coloring is needed (digital vs watercolor), who keeps the original art, what my other commitments are at the time of production, and anything else that may be a factor. Don’t forget that communication can eat up a lot of time, too. Sending emails, making phone calls, creating invoices – these things will eat up your time faster than you can imagine! Sometimes my rates are higher, sometimes they are lower. But I always quote what is fair to me based on the needs of the project. And see, writers should be getting paid a fair wage, too. But that’s a story for another time…

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It’s Called Freelancing – Part 1

Posted by & filed under Underdogs.

[Tweet “What do you charge for your freelance illustration work? The answer – probably not enough! “]

What do you charge for your freelance illustration work? The answer – probably not enough! There seems to be a growing trend in the indie comics community in which freelancers are not getting paid fair rates for their work. It sickens me when I peruse Deviant Art and see countless artists offering their talents for a measly $5 per page. It’s infuriating when I look through job offers on Digital Webbing that offer a whopping $20 per page, yet come with a list of complicated demands. It drives me to the brink of insanity when I spend all day on Craigslist only to uncover ad after ad ending with “I can’t afford to pay you at this time, but you can add the work to your portfolio and we can split the profits (if there are any – which there almost never is).”

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