Making money with your hobby? / Off-Topic / Tuxemon Forums

Making money with your hobby?

By tamashihoshi 7 Sep 2017 16:28

Champion · 259 comments

Hey guys,

a while ago, I've made a little bit of money by pixel art... to be more precise, I've created an emoji for a twitch streamer. It felt a little weird, since I'm doing pixel art as a hobby, but for a whole while, I wanted to get some "spare change" for my art. I've thought about trying it with fiverr or something like that... but I don't know how to start. One of my problems is: How much worth is my art?

You see, I'm being pretty harsh on myself when it comes to the pictures I make. So I feel like "noone gonna pay me for this stuff, there are too many flaws and look too crappy", yet I kinda accidentally made money. It felt really weird. Especially when I did some google research on how much I should get for art. It's pretty hard for me to find a proper value. I don't want to offer pictures "under my real value", but when I get into a situation, I feel like scamming ^^'

I could write much more, but I probably should get to the point: Do you have any experiences in making money with your hobby? And how did you manage to let your hobby stay your hobby and not feel like work?

By Sanglorian 11 Sep 2017 08:33

Champion · 544 comments

Hey tamashi!

I've never really made money for my hobby, but I think the questions you're asking yourself are things all artists end up considering at one point or another.

I would certainly never worry about asking too much - the customer can always say no if they're not prepared to pay that much. Asking too little is more difficult, because all artists might benefit if they all refuse to be paid beneath their value.

One tip I heard for hobbyists, which sounded convincing, is to never work for a discount ("mate's rates" is what we call it in Australia - giving a discount to a friend). As soon as someone's paid any amount of money for something, they'll expect professional quality. Either work for free, in which case you can put it off or decide not to do it at all if something comes up, or work for full price and deliver a full service.

By tamashihoshi 11 Sep 2017 18:47

Champion · 259 comments

Sanglorian wrote
Hey tamashi!

Hi Lori

I've never really made money for my hobby, but I think the questions you're asking yourself are things all artists end up considering at one point or another.

Yup, seems pretty cliche hahaha

I would certainly never worry about asking too much - the customer can always say no if they're not prepared to pay that much. Asking too little is more difficult, because all artists might benefit if they all refuse to be paid beneath their value.

I guess that's right... probably I should try some values to find out what's good. I did some research and it felt a little strange.

One tip I heard for hobbyists, which sounded convincing, is to never work for a discount ("mate's rates" is what we call it in Australia - giving a discount to a friend). As soon as someone's paid any amount of money for something, they'll expect professional quality. Either work for free, in which case you can put it off or decide not to do it at all if something comes up, or work for full price and deliver a full service.

That's funny because that's exactly what I was thinking a while ago. A friend got me that commision I mentioned above. After I was done (kinda) he got a twitch affiliate and I could make him an offer. But he didn't ask me directly and we have this awkward combination of "friends", "got no money" and "hey you got your first commision by me"
So I was thinking "I would like to create an emoji but I don't want to ask THAT much money from him... But I should. Hm." so I didn't make an emoji so far.

I'm no professional and I'd like to keep it a hobby - at the same time I think I have some skills when it comes to pixel-art. Not the best for sure - but above average? I don't know @A@

Probably gonna stay free and do art just for fun.
I'm getting better and better at what I'm doing - at some point I'll try to make a few bucks again, but with a different approach I guess