I don't do full-on commissions, except head or bust sketches at conventions. The main reason is that I have a problem guaging QC and how much work I should put into each piece. When I do covers I know that it's just a part of a whole, and that Sonia's going to do half the work in order to produce a finished piece. Commissions need to stand on their own.

The first thing is that I don't know how much to charge. When I do a piece I'm always wondering if it's worth the money to the collector and if I didn't overcharge, and sometimes I wonder if I possibly undercharged, and should have therefore just spent my time doing a cover or pages for Marvel or whomever.

The second is that I don't know what the collector is expecting, in terms of how big a figure they want, how detailed, whether or not it should be shaded or whatever. With a bust or head sketch I can more accurately estimate what would make a person happy for the amount they paid me, because it isn't a really big range. Most people seem to leave satisfied.

So I find that I don't really like doing commissions, but I don't mind doing free pieces for friends or family if they're going to like whatever I give them, provided they're willing to wait. This piece for example was done for a friend whose sketchbook I've held onto since NYCC a few months ago, and have only now gotten around to finishing because he needs his sketchbook back for Heroescon. This way I can do whatever I want, and pretty much in whatever style I want, which is really liberating after working off scripts most of the time. I hope he likes it, but if he doesn't, whatever, it was free

I wanted to do a good job on the piece because it's of characters whom I REALLY like from one of my favorite books, depicting one of my favorite moments (the only thing the friend asked for was a sketch of Allan Quartermain, and that there be a little bit of red in the sketch somewhere.) Trust me, when it comes to these extracurricular stuff, most of us would rather do a piece of something we really want to draw for free than to do a piece we'd hate for money. Because in that case, we'd probably just rather do our day job work

At the same time, I didn't feel the need to make everything perfect, which kind of greases the wheels a bit, when you don't have to overthink every line. That can also make things more easy, loose, and creative (how I like my women, yay) and completely allows the thing you "work" on to be something that you're having a lot of fun on, like drawing as a kid, where you're mainly only worrying about pleasing yourself (how I like to spend my Friday nights, boo.)