Artists&Clients VS Commiss.io

Also, if you want to go the route of commissions, an accessible site to get started is Artists&Clients. It's a platform showcasing artists available for commissions. Source: about 1 year ago

You can commission art of your S/O (I recommend finding an artist on Artists & Clients), and then have it made into custom merch via Etsy and the like. I have a number of custom items of my Ikoma, from a dakimakura and plushies to a very expensive polymer-clay figure. Source: about 1 year ago

You can commission any kind of art you want on Artists & Clients. Source: about 1 year ago

My main avenues of commissions are (1) the Artists & Clients website, and (2) artists I've communicated with through Reddit/Discord who came highly recommended by other members here. My main go-to is A&C because it's very easy and safe to use, and you can either approach artists yourself, or post a job listing and let them come to you. As for prices, so far I don't think I've paid more than $70 for art. (Although... Source: about 1 year ago

Anyway, I recommend Artists & Clients for finding artists to commission. When you get said art, you can go to town having it printed on all kinds of custom items at ArtsCow. Source: about 1 year ago

Be very careful, scammers tend to target newer accounts. Talk to them as much as possible and ask a lot of questions up front. Don't do any work until you've been paid at least partially. You can set up and direct them to a commissio (a platform that is very secure and protects both artists and clients). Source: about 1 year ago

Just to add to this, from the perspective of an artist working on building their own brand/fanbase: I feel like listing myself on some of these sites would be antithetical to my goals. I simply don't want to be another drop in the ocean. I want clients to want a piece from me because they associate quality and a one-of-a-kind style with my brand, so I could charge a premium. Listing myself on commiss.io would do... Source: over 1 year ago

Commiss.io (charges 5% or pay subscription for 0%)-> Was decent as a marketplace and for artists to manage their commissions, but the founding team has kind of fallen apart so there's only one staff member left who seems to be overwhelmed in running the site and goes months without responding to the community or dealing with support requests (including artists not completing work, people can't give refunds without... Source: over 1 year ago

I use commiss.io to show my portfolio. Source: over 1 year ago

Commiss.io though... yeah, that actually looks like direct competition for what I have in mind. The layout I'm envisioning is a little more professional, a lot more searchable, and less like a profile page, but there's enough overlap that I can see this not working out. Source: almost 2 years ago