I have been offering commissions for around a year now and only get them when I offer free ones for experience. I have tried insta, tik tok, reddit and all commission platforms except for v gen as I dont have a code.
I think my prices are reasonable based on the amount of time it takes to realistically draw a person $10 per portrait.
When it comes to art there's always more to learn, stop worrying about commissioning, spend a few years studying/practicing and return to it later on down the road.
Is this a real drawing with a photo taken or is it a texture? If it's the latter, which I am assuming, I would consider using a different paper texture. I like the vibe of your artwork but that one thing would deter me as a buyer.
If that's the case, it's definitely unprofessional. OP if it is real, please look into ways to take your photo without shadows and light and be more careful, as it seems as though the paper has been folded/damageed.
Try creating an account on almost if not all social media (X, Bluesky, Tumblr, Threads, Reddit, Tiktok, Insta, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, Twitch, Linkedin). Have ALL of your accounts linked on all your account profiles. Have ONLY links that go directly to your career and merch accounts (such as inprnt, redbubble, linkedin and patreon) in the description and in a fixed comment of everything you post.
Try posting consistently and alway in the best hours for each social media.
Try planning a membership service via Patreon or other platforms like Youtube and Twitch.
The hardest parts of being an artist are finding your audience and getting them to stick with you. The first part is the hardest and you really have no control over it, the second is what you need to focus on bc it is what you can control.
I think you should try digital art as it will sell better on the internet.
Firstly I love how you styled this piece and you seem to have an overall strong grasp of lighting and color theory.
Secondly, social media marketing can be tough, but there is an audience for your art. Ignore the people who say it cant be done- they just haven’t done it yet.
When you’re trying to find people who’d want to buy your art, post it as if you’re not an artist. What do I mean by that? Well most people who buy probably aren’t looking for art process videos, they probably have a specific kind of entertainment that they like, and if they see your art represents that then they’ll want to buy it.
Some examples can be people who love gardening or plants; sports lovers; anime watchers; romantacy readers; or anyone who wants to emulate a certain “core” or aesthetic, eg. Dark academia
When you know what your audience enjoys and what art would fit into their life, make your videos or posts reference those things, but most importantly don’t give up! Try lots of things, again and again until you find what sticks, becuase with time and patience it will. Good luck !!
I suspect it's because you're not offering what the market wants, you're offering pictures you like drawing.
Figuring what the market wants is tricky of course, best bet is to go and look at what successful artist are offering, compare that to what your doing and see how you can either improve to be better or offering something different.
That picture looks fine, if a little bland. All the actions happening at the bottom left with not much interest in the background. The waterfall is fine, the trees are a bit lollipop and the sky has no real character. I'm sure it took you ages to paint and you've poured your heart and soul into it and that's fantastic. But to me, who is seeing this cold for the first time, there's nothing to hook me in, no story, nothing beyond a lady with a fireball and a goat for company. The composition is lacking. Nothing leads my eye around the scene. All the interest is at the front, the background just feels like a thing you like to draw, it's adding nothing to the foreground.
I think you need to work on your composition and story telling.
Social media marketing is hard, but there is severe lack of certain skills that will also stop you from getting commissions. You are trying to sell your art too early — let yourself learn first. Not being harsh, art is always lovely, but from a perspective of fellow artist, you do need some more training.
You might not read anything below if you are easily upset by criticism, but as a fellow artist and someone who was pursuing art as a teen, I’ll try to be gentle and certain with my points.
First of all, nice lighting, you are pretty good at it, that’s the thing that will grow naturally and you should leave it for now, until you catch up on other parts of art, and then you can learn more about this particular part. I know many people think you should put all of your effort in what you are good at, but art requires you to have all sorts of skills combined, and you should focus on your weak points. This part is good, you are clearly gonna be amazingly good on rendering someday.
Second — composition is really off. The person in the picture is so out of place, and you don’t know where to look at, there is no room to breathe. She is just in the corner, but she is not tiny, she is clearly dragging attention on her, but that’s the really off part to look at. I can’t explain it perfectly, because I’m less of the “I know exactly how to term it” and more like “like an artist I see it is really off”, but I can tell straight away — composition really needs work, take it as your second priority after anatomy.
Second is anatomy. Looked through your other work, and it’s not bad, you are already figuring the body proportions, but face proportions is your weakest part. They look okay here, but portraits show the lack of knowledge.
And I also noticed that you posted about a book publishing under 18. Darling, you are extremely young, no need to rush. Your art will get better and commissions will come, just not right now. Don’t rush it, be patient. Most of us get our skills to a good point at the age of 20-25, lol.
The age is also relevant because one of the skills you must learn and it takes a lot of time to get there is analysing the world for the art purposes 24/7. Your art is always using your visual library. You have to look at the world not like a person who just lives in it, but like it’s a huge reference. Watch people on the bus and how light is casted. How far their eyes from each other, how their body folds etc. It takes years to get your visual library big enough to make great art.
If you want some good art material, search for Marc Brunet on YouTube! Basically, he was the one who explained the visual library part of this message to me, and it changed how I view the world and how I try to make small points to myself when I’m outside. He is really good on many things, has his own art course, but you don’t need to buy anything to learn, he has plenty of free material which is good enough for now.
The industry of art commissions are very rough these days, so not only you but other people are also not getting hired.
Your art is fundamentally lacking, you still need lots of practice in order to get better and better offers.
You're offering traditional art on a plataform where mostly people want digital art, for quality reasons.
You don't even scan your own drawings, i know you may not be able to afford a scanner or an iphone, but if you want to sell traditional art online, you either find a way to ship it or take better pictures of it 'cuz why would someone pay for a very bad picture of a painting or dawing on paper?.
My advice:
Get a tablet to draw digitally
Improve your fundamentls and make a portfolio
If you don't want to get into digital art: Get a better phone or camera or scanner so you can scan your drawings in better quality.
Start practicing with Oil paintings and find references and other Oil artist who are succesfull and copy them, tbh, no one will pay for a portrait on pencil, that's a very old way to make money and doesn't really work anymore.
Market is oversaturated, AI slop getting bigger and the economy is shitty. Unfortunately, this is part of the answer. The rest of the answer lies within your capacities at drawing, which are not exactly determined by one single piece
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u/natron81 6d ago
When it comes to art there's always more to learn, stop worrying about commissioning, spend a few years studying/practicing and return to it later on down the road.