GM's Tip of the Week

This one can apply to players too; not sure if I’ve mentioned it specifically before, but it bears repeating.

Cultivating a Pocket Artist.

On the face of it, this is easy; you make friends with someone who is artistically inclined, and they draw or paint things for you.

This is an illusion. If you really want to keep an artist – any creative, realistically – happy and producing, you have to complement their work, throw money or high-quality art supplies their way regularly, and generally make it clear that you do not take their hard work for granted.
Now, some people think that art is just ‘talent’. Don’t fall into that trap (it’s a trap!). Art requires years of practice to do well, like any other skill. Don’t take this necessary time and training for granted! Someone who is willing to draw monsters, player characters, paint miniatures and terrain, and even draw maps for you is taking their valuable time to do so. They deserve compensation for that time, and that compensation should be commiserate with the time they have taken to improve their skills. Or, in other words, don’t hand them a cheap sketchbook and expect that to do the trick.

My starting rate for painting a medium size miniature is $20, plus cost of the figure (unless the person wanting it painted has purchased it themselves), and goes up depending on how long it takes, whether the figure is based, how much fancy is desired and whether it needs to be modified. That’s for a human-sized figure.
I know artists who’s commission rates start at $120 and go up.

If any of this comes as a shock, I recommend considering the needs of the artist; not all of them have a second job. Commission work is, for some, all they do, and they need to pay the same overheads as everyone else. This may or may not be more expensive than what you consider to be standard, it all depends on where they live and what their situation is.