What do you all think about people selling characters?
If they're selling a character that they didn't draw the art for or didn't commission and pay for the art so that it's legally theirs, then selling the character is in bad taste.
If they drew the character or paid for it to be drawn, it's seems like a pretty normal thing to me. It's essentially the same thing as writing a book and selling it to someone else for them to publish; or writing a song and selling it someone else to sing. There's minor differences in that with characters they were obviously used before; but they're all very similar.
With a book; you buy that unpublished book from someone and it's yours to do whatever you want with, and depending on the details of the sale, usually the person who buys it is allowed to edit and change whatever they'd like but it depends.
With a song it works the same way, a song writer pens a song, sells it to a singer and it's theirs to rewrite or add something to most of the time and record, use on their album.
With characters, the character art is sold and usually you can also get the characters name and information if you want it, or you can name the character yourself and recreate their entire backstory.
I think it's a good alternative to commissioning. Some people would rather look at a gallery of already drawn characters and pick one to buy and make their own as opposed to going through the process of telling the artist what they want drawn; and sometimes people don't know they wanted that character until they see it and it's being sold for them to buy and they just need to have it.
It's a pretty common practice and some handfuls of people sell characters on RPR, espeically if they think they will never use that character art ever again and don't want it to sit in the dust, but they drew the art and don't want to give away their work for free.
TL;DR: I think it's lovely.
If they drew the character or paid for it to be drawn, it's seems like a pretty normal thing to me. It's essentially the same thing as writing a book and selling it to someone else for them to publish; or writing a song and selling it someone else to sing. There's minor differences in that with characters they were obviously used before; but they're all very similar.
With a book; you buy that unpublished book from someone and it's yours to do whatever you want with, and depending on the details of the sale, usually the person who buys it is allowed to edit and change whatever they'd like but it depends.
With a song it works the same way, a song writer pens a song, sells it to a singer and it's theirs to rewrite or add something to most of the time and record, use on their album.
With characters, the character art is sold and usually you can also get the characters name and information if you want it, or you can name the character yourself and recreate their entire backstory.
I think it's a good alternative to commissioning. Some people would rather look at a gallery of already drawn characters and pick one to buy and make their own as opposed to going through the process of telling the artist what they want drawn; and sometimes people don't know they wanted that character until they see it and it's being sold for them to buy and they just need to have it.
It's a pretty common practice and some handfuls of people sell characters on RPR, espeically if they think they will never use that character art ever again and don't want it to sit in the dust, but they drew the art and don't want to give away their work for free.
TL;DR: I think it's lovely.
It certainly depends on how you go about it:
Character you've not drawn / created / was not made for you: Unacceptable, full stop. Making money off of someone else's hard work / creative outlets is never okay, especially without permission.
Character you've not drawn, but payed to be created / drawn with the sole intent of re-selling: This is something damnationfromafar mention; Essentially commissioning an artist or someone to create a character that you then sell. This one is sort of a debate in itself. If you pay an artist to draw a character and then give it off (say, like a raffle or something) that's pretty fine; Usually the artist likes to be alerted of this, but that's kind of a case by case basis. However, if you sell the character to make a profit? That's seen as rude; If, for example, you pay an artist to draw a character and they get $50, but then you sell that adoptable for $75, it's probably going to be frowned upon because, in essence, you skimped an artist out of $25 bucks that could've seriously helped them out.
*Disclaimer: The above point is half opinion, speaking as an artist myself. I'd be really annoyed that someone payed me only to go around and make bookoos (spell check? lol) of extra money off of my hard work. It's not something I can take serious action against, but it would hurt.
Creating a character with a dollmaker and selling it: This one is also a debate in itself. Some dollmakers have... terms, for lack of a better word, that say "Don't sell the dolls you create with this dollmaker" whether for money or art or anything, while others just don't say anything; Some people create characters with dollmakers and proceed to sell the designs. Again though, this one is kind of iffy and debatable. Make sure the dollmaker itself / creator of said dollmaker allows for selling of these things, and if they do allow it, you'll probably be okay, but don't necessarily expect a lot of business for it. People can use dollmakers on their own, so this one's kind of iffy.
Creating a character with a base: I know on Deviantart, there are "Free to use / Pay to use" bases that either come with a bunch of different options for hair, eyes, etc. or can be drawn on. Sometimes these bases say "Don't re-sell creations" or "Sure, go ahead and sell whatever you make!" Make sure it's the latter, and then go hog wild if it is.
Creating a character for personal use, buying art of said character, and then letting character go: In this example, you've created a character for yourself, let's say you've had it for a year, and bought 3 commissions of them within that time from various artists. After this year, you decide you no longer want / have use for / etc. this character and decide to sell them, extra art and all! This is generally seen as acceptable. People tend to charge more for characters with more art and less for characters with less art.
IE: A character with 7 art pieces goes for... let's say $60, while a character with 20 pieces of art would go for quite a deal more money, due mostly to the amount of content that comes with it.
Creating a character yourself (art and/or concept and/or other) and selling it: Go crazy my friend. Have fun and sell as many as you want.
I think this is all the possible options, at least all the ones I've seen. Hope this isn't confusing, and if you need clarification on anything let me know and I'll try to explain stuff better...
Hope this helps
Character you've not drawn / created / was not made for you: Unacceptable, full stop. Making money off of someone else's hard work / creative outlets is never okay, especially without permission.
Character you've not drawn, but payed to be created / drawn with the sole intent of re-selling: This is something damnationfromafar mention; Essentially commissioning an artist or someone to create a character that you then sell. This one is sort of a debate in itself. If you pay an artist to draw a character and then give it off (say, like a raffle or something) that's pretty fine; Usually the artist likes to be alerted of this, but that's kind of a case by case basis. However, if you sell the character to make a profit? That's seen as rude; If, for example, you pay an artist to draw a character and they get $50, but then you sell that adoptable for $75, it's probably going to be frowned upon because, in essence, you skimped an artist out of $25 bucks that could've seriously helped them out.
*Disclaimer: The above point is half opinion, speaking as an artist myself. I'd be really annoyed that someone payed me only to go around and make bookoos (spell check? lol) of extra money off of my hard work. It's not something I can take serious action against, but it would hurt.
Creating a character with a dollmaker and selling it: This one is also a debate in itself. Some dollmakers have... terms, for lack of a better word, that say "Don't sell the dolls you create with this dollmaker" whether for money or art or anything, while others just don't say anything; Some people create characters with dollmakers and proceed to sell the designs. Again though, this one is kind of iffy and debatable. Make sure the dollmaker itself / creator of said dollmaker allows for selling of these things, and if they do allow it, you'll probably be okay, but don't necessarily expect a lot of business for it. People can use dollmakers on their own, so this one's kind of iffy.
Creating a character with a base: I know on Deviantart, there are "Free to use / Pay to use" bases that either come with a bunch of different options for hair, eyes, etc. or can be drawn on. Sometimes these bases say "Don't re-sell creations" or "Sure, go ahead and sell whatever you make!" Make sure it's the latter, and then go hog wild if it is.
Creating a character for personal use, buying art of said character, and then letting character go: In this example, you've created a character for yourself, let's say you've had it for a year, and bought 3 commissions of them within that time from various artists. After this year, you decide you no longer want / have use for / etc. this character and decide to sell them, extra art and all! This is generally seen as acceptable. People tend to charge more for characters with more art and less for characters with less art.
IE: A character with 7 art pieces goes for... let's say $60, while a character with 20 pieces of art would go for quite a deal more money, due mostly to the amount of content that comes with it.
Creating a character yourself (art and/or concept and/or other) and selling it: Go crazy my friend. Have fun and sell as many as you want.
I think this is all the possible options, at least all the ones I've seen. Hope this isn't confusing, and if you need clarification on anything let me know and I'll try to explain stuff better...
Hope this helps
DarkCrow wrote:
Character you've not drawn, but payed to be created / drawn with the sole intent of re-selling: This is something damnationfromafar mention; Essentially commissioning an artist or someone to create a character that you then sell. This one is sort of a debate in itself. If you pay an artist to draw a character and then give it off (say, like a raffle or something) that's pretty fine; Usually the artist likes to be alerted of this, but that's kind of a case by case basis. However, if you sell the character to make a profit? That's seen as rude; If, for example, you pay an artist to draw a character and they get $50, but then you sell that adoptable for $75, it's probably going to be frowned upon because, in essence, you skimped an artist out of $25 bucks that could've seriously helped them out.
*Disclaimer: The above point is half opinion, speaking as an artist myself. I'd be really annoyed that someone payed me only to go around and make bookoos (spell check? lol) of extra money off of my hard work. It's not something I can take serious action against, but it would hurt.
Yeah, I don't think paying to get a character drawn and then selling it right away for more is okay.
Most people who sell character art that they didn't draw but paid for are selling 2+ pieces of art (all the art that's ever been made for that character) and usually for a fraction of the cost. Having paid 200$ all together over the years for all those pictures but only selling them all together for $30.
People rarely just sell one character drawing. It's almost always a handful of them by different artists.
damnationfromafar wrote:
DarkCrow wrote:
Character you've not drawn, but payed to be created / drawn with the sole intent of re-selling: This is something damnationfromafar mention; Essentially commissioning an artist or someone to create a character that you then sell. This one is sort of a debate in itself. If you pay an artist to draw a character and then give it off (say, like a raffle or something) that's pretty fine; Usually the artist likes to be alerted of this, but that's kind of a case by case basis. However, if you sell the character to make a profit? That's seen as rude; If, for example, you pay an artist to draw a character and they get $50, but then you sell that adoptable for $75, it's probably going to be frowned upon because, in essence, you skimped an artist out of $25 bucks that could've seriously helped them out.
*Disclaimer: The above point is half opinion, speaking as an artist myself. I'd be really annoyed that someone payed me only to go around and make bookoos (spell check? lol) of extra money off of my hard work. It's not something I can take serious action against, but it would hurt.
Yeah, I don't think paying to get a character drawn and then selling it right away for more is okay.
Most people who sell character art that they didn't draw but paid for are selling 2+ pieces of art (all the art that's ever been made for that character) and usually for a fraction of the cost. Having paid 200$ all together over the years for all those pictures but only selling them all together for $30.
People rarely just sell one character drawing. It's almost always a handful of them by different artists.
This is a fair point and honestly it just flew over my head when writing my post for some dumb reason; I need to stop waking up so early and actually, y'know, wake up lol, get my head on straight.
Yeah, in that case, most / all artists don't seem to mind / care. So long as credit is given or whatever (ie: the person who recieves the art knows the artist and can / will link back to them where applicable) then re-selling art in this way is acceptable 99.999% of the time
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