question for my fellow artists

[xSuperMario64x]

lets just say that youre working on an art piece. if it's of a character, it's full-body, fully colored (and shaded if you do that), background, all the little details, you name it. basically a full-on commission that someone might use as their avatar/signature/etc.

how long does it take you to complete a project like this? how many hours and/or days do you spend?

I've been thinking about opening an art shop accepting RLC but even when I'm not busy it can easily take me 10-15 hours (or up to a week) to work on a piece like this. I've seen some people just crank out some beautifully crafted art and I h2g don't know how they do it. OTL
I would just hate to do this and make people upset bc I take so long to do something that may potentially take someone else half the time/effort.




edit: lol wow someone bumped this old thread.
I'd like to note that back in late 2021 I was struggling a lot with confidence and self esteem, so my original wording might seem a little pessimistic. because honestly, it doesn't really matter how long it takes you to finish an art piece, it's the end result that matters most!

that being said, I would still like to see how long others take when they draw. I personally love to take my time so for a full commission it can end up taking as little as 6-8 hours or as much as 2 weeks!

 

[spawnpoint]

i havent done something like that in a looong time since i only do traditional sketches now that take me about 30-45 minutes, but when i would do full pieces digitally, depending on how much effort i put in and how committed i was it would take 3+ hours
sometimes it would take longer, like a day maybe, if i took a lot of breaks, but when i was super into it i could do it in one or two sittings

 

[_Rainy_]

My last piece took me 17 hours and I’m still not happy with it. Sometimes I feel more inspired and do things a bit more quickly and sometimes it takes me much longer if I lose interest in it, which usually happens when I take a long break from it.

Spoiler: My most recent piece

 

[dragonair]

I'm still a newer artist and I also do things a super dumb and inefficient way usually so it takes me 2-3 days to fully finish something. I don't do lineart so a lot of that time is cleaning up my sketch.

 

[nyx~]

It takes me 6+ hours usually if I'm putting a lot of effort into something, and it usually takes me days to finish since I don't usually have time to just sit down and finish it all at once. I tend to redo stuff over and over again which definitely adds to the time it takes me. I never do detailed backgrounds though so I have no idea how much that would add onto my time.

 

[moo_nieu]

i take a long time to finish any pieces, usually at least a few days. i just havent found my flow yet and how i want to draw plus i can sometimes be too strict about my lineart, so it takes a while to get anything done (im working on getting out of this though and drawing more freely)

if you want to open a shop then go for it, you can always just accept one or two commissions at a time and let people know they will be finished in 1-2 weeks (or however much time you expect)

 

[Flicky]

Something like that? In total, about 8-10 hours, which includes the full shading.
It doesn't help that my drawing hand is very shaky, so line correction has to be on a high setting always which lags the program (and in turn often leads to me having to redraw lines several times before they resemble something similar to the original sketch).

I flat out don't draw backgrounds unless I really have to, as I don't feel comfortable with my skills on those at all. If I do draw a background then it's usually just a pattern, rather than a scene setting.

 

[Aquilla]

It takes me a minimum of 10 hours if it’s a full body drawing. Usually even longer. I am quite slow as I only started some time this year. Usually I work on the piece every day or every other day until it’s done - and it can easily take a week or two because I have a really busy schedule.

 

[dragonair]

My last piece took me 17 hours and I’m still not happy with it. Sometimes I feel more inspired and do things a bit more quickly and sometimes it takes me much longer if I lose interest in it, which usually happens when I take a long break from it.

Spoiler: My most recent piece

View attachment 417321

In love with the way you color your lineart and the stockings, it adds such a cool variety of texture and color!!

 

[Oldcatlady]

It would definitely take me upwards of 15h for a piece like that, separated probably between weeks-months of time ^^; I’m very slow at drawing even when I am inspired… I definitely understand how you feel about the amount of time it takes & feeling bad for the customers, but I think most people are very patient about it as long as you communicate and make it clear about the timeline they should expect.

 

[Zerous]

Hmm I'm very slow, so a full on piece can take me anywhere between 10-50 hours normally, there's quite a range. But depending on how busy I am irl, and my motivation to draw, I can finish it anywhere between a week to a couple months, although if I was doing the piece for someone other than myself, I'd work on it more.
But as already said, as long as you communicate from the start on how long it might take, and if needing more time, give updates, people should be fine with waiting I think.

 

[Alienfish]

I don't really do that kind of stuff as I mostly draw silly comics for Neopets' NT stuff but yeah definitely weeks since I do have a real life and can be quite a perfectionist.

 

[Mistreil]

It takes me anywhere from 4 hours to 12+ hours, depending on how many times I decide to restart revisions I decide to make and the amount of details in the outfit/background/etc. That's all spread by the free time I have, though, so it can range from 2 days to 2 weeks for me to finish something.

Turnaround times of less than a week for art are really fast for full pieces! Remember that people have different circumstances and amounts of free time for art: someone who does art full time can push stuff out faster than say someone who has a full time job and does art in their spare time. As long as you're clear about communicating the expected time (and make sure you give yourself some leeway, since life happens), most commissioners are fine. It helps to communicate progress/your queue too, so people are able to check where their art stands. If it's just on a single forum, something like this:

1. Commissioner A [colouring in progress]
2. Commissioner B [awaiting WIP approval]
3. Commissioner C [starting after A + B are finished]

If you're taking commissions across multiple places (e.g. twitter + forums or something), then a trello board works well instead. Setting/communicating estimated delivery dates works too (e.g. "Commissioner A [ETA December 10th]; Commissioner B [ETA December 17th]" and whatnot).

Try to be clear and realistic about timing expectations in your art shop: anyone who commissions you is expected to agree with those terms. For example, saying "Each piece takes me 1-2 weeks to complete, so please be patient! If you want status updates, feel free to PM me" or something like that will go a long way.

 

[Foreverfox]

It usually takes me 2-3 days for a single piece. I like the advice that @Mistreil gave, and for my shop, I can say it's true. I've just been open in communication with everyone, and people are always fine with it.

 

[Corrie]

As a customer, I'd rather the artist take their time than rush and feel crappy. As lots of people have already said, communication is key. Since you know you might take some time, be sure to state that in your thread and everything should be fine! Life happens as well, and is more important, so imo people should be understanding if things pop up.

 

[tomatospooks666]

i haven't managed to get any commissions yet so i'm not sure how that would change things, but generally my art usually takes from around 2-3 hours per piece.

i'd say not to worry too much. different people take a different amount of time to complete art and anyone who complains can take a hike.

 

[Hunter_Gr33n]

For me, about 1 to 5 weeks, depending on the size of the image, whether or not I'm busy, &c.

 

[Croconaw]

I’m not as experienced as other artists obviously, but it takes me about a few hours. My problem is that I want to do it all in one sitting and I don’t take breaks, so it’s hard to put aside a few hours dedicated to drawing a picture — something I don’t do much at all in the first place. The only time I feel like drawing is when I do art trades with my favorite person. Otherwise, I’m not an artistic person. I’ll also draw for site events, but that’s about it. I allow other people to draw for me. For example, both pictures of my character (basically me), in my signature and my profile respectively, were drawn by an artist on Fiverr. I had the commission done there.

Edit: Wow, I didn’t realize how old this thread actually was. I looked at the post above and only saw there was a two month gap, lol. My bad.

 

[-Raven-]

My hoatzin took me about 2 hours and my Warnado took me about 30 hours. It depends on how insistent I am on texturing. Granted I didn’t finish the hoatzin completely but it’s finished enough (The tree got it worst if anything).

Impressionism is a lot easier and usually taking things from “mostly polished” to “fully rendered” is the longest and worst commitment. Having the exact amount of shading or detail you want on a part that just has an absolute mess of linework sucks so much. Paint over- mess up level of detail or tone- do your damndest to paint over that and bring those to a satisfying yet polished point.

Still never finished the background on Warnado lol.

When I took commissions / when I do give away art it was usually done within 2 weeks. I think at least that is normal but it isn’t sustainable for me to deal with my self-pressure.

Meanwhile on my thread I have unfinished stuff that took me anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours depending on how I wanted to experiment.

 

[duckshuffler]

usually around 2-3 hours for me. my style is pretty cartoony and easy to draw, but at the same time i'm still a beginner so doing big projects like that would take a nice bit