If you are looking to sell art, you can do that by setting up an art shop here;
Forum/viewforum.php?f=21You can really set it up however you want, there isn't really anything specific you need to include beside the basics, having some example art and prices set out. There are some threads on that board that offer advice on setting up art shops.
You can definitely sell traditional art. To be clear, you can't send them the physical art as it is not allowed to share personal information like your address on CS, but it is totally fine to offer traditional art and they get the image you provide. When it comes to traditional art, I'd suggest trying to see if you can scan in the images, that helps immensely with the quality of the art and how willing people are to buy it. There are even apps you can use to 'scan' art (I've been using camscanner for a while but I'm sure there are others) if you don't have a printer with a scanner available.
If you are interested in doing digital art there are multiple free art programs out there you can use (GIMP, FireAlpaca, etc), and there is always the oekaki as well. There is a spot for art shops on the oekaki if you want to do some commissions on there.
Personally I find it good to include these when setting up a shop:
- A variety of examples, even if you only have one style or type of art you do, having multiple examples (especially of different types of characters/species) is helpful to customers in determining if they want to buy your art.
- Have at least a base price to work off of. I understand not having a good idea of where to value your art, and may be tempted to simply tell people pay what they want or make an offer, but customers are often more comfortable and more likely to order if there is a set price that you determine, rather than asking them to choose. People on CS already tend to underpay as it is, and other may not feel comfortable 'valuing' your art for you by determining their own price. I suggest looking around other art shops for art similar to yours and seeing what their prices art, if they seem to getting a lot of orders or not, etc. Or, simply pick a price you feel comfortable with, or feel what your art it worth, and adjust it depending on the response. For example, if you seem to be getting more orders than you can handle, you may have price set too low, so then increase it. Find a good median that works for you.
- Have clear rules for your shop. If there are specific things you won't draw (for example, humans) than let your customers know that. If your shop is not first come first serve, put that in there. Let them know how you will be running your shop so they know what to expect when they order. Will you send them sketches to be reviewed before sending the finished piece? Is payment accepted right away, or not until you have completed the art? Is there a normal turnaround time from when you accept a commission until you finish the art? Are you willing to make changes to art once you have finished it? etc.
- If you are willing, offer multiple payment options. This is just based on what you are interested in receiving as payment, but offering multiple different options for others to pay with (such as rares or C$) can be helpful in reaching your full consumer base. If you only accept C$, people who want your art may not be able to order because they don't have any C$, and vice versa.
- Look around at other art shops, even if you don't plan on ordering just take a look at how they set up their shop, what they includes, etc, and see if you want to include any of that in yours.
While not necessary, I find it helps to have a clean and precise setup, not too much text or long paragraphs. Try to split everything up neatly. A little basic coding can help as well, even if its just bold text headers for each section, so users can easily find what they are looking for. Such as being able to find the prices at a glance. Personally, I don't care too much if a shop looks 'pretty' I just want it to be easy to read and easy to find what I'm looking for.
It also prefer keeping any large image examples as links rather than full images so users do not have to scroll so much. You can size a few down to put up as full images, so they can be seen at a glance, but try to keep it to a few, I always find it bothersome to have to scroll through 10+ image examples. If you do put up large images, than try putting those at the bottom so they don't have to scroll past them to find prices or other info.
As for etiquette, besides just generally being polite and open I don't know there is any specific 'best' way to do it. Usually art is sent over PM, though you can post finished art on the shop (make sure they know you will be if thats the case, or also PM them). Its good to keep in touch with the customer while you do the art. I like to send sketches and sometimes get further information or details on what they want. Communication is very important. If they aren't clear on what they want, then ask them to clarify. I find its better to talk it over in detail before getting started, that way you don't spend time making something only to find thats not what they wanted. I suggest keeping everything on CS in PMs rather than discord or offsite, and its not a bad idea to save the PMs or put them in a special folder (just speaking as a moderator its much easier for us to help you if something goes wrong and you can just report the PMs for us).
Personally what I do is I open my shop, its not fcfs, I let them know this in the shop rules, and make it clear that I accept orders on the thread itself (some people will PM you when they accept your order, though I think this is less commonplace now). I respond to accepted orders on the thread and let them know a time frame if I can, and that payment should be sent over as a trade ready-to-accept (I wait till I finish the art to actually accept the trade). If I do have any further questions about the character or what exactly they want, I ask there. I usually do a sketch first and send it to the user through PM so they can review and tell me if they want anything changed. If they do, I send a new sketch until they are happy with it. Once they accept the sketch, I will usually finish the art without giving further progress updates (Occasionally I will depending on the situation/size of the art, I mostly do pixel art though so its normally small). Once the art is completed I send it to them through PM. I usually wait until they respond back to make sure they do not want anything changed, assuming all is good I then accept the payment trade (If they don't respond back for some reason within a day or two I just accept the payment then).
I personally recommend when it comes to payment to have them send when you accept the form, but wait to accept the payment until you finish the art. I've seen a lot of situations where the artist accepted the payment right away, but never finished the art, and then there are issues, especially if they already traded the payment. Or the other way around of the customer never sending the payment after the art was finished. I've found my way of doing it is a good median to those.
This turned into a bit of a text wall aha, its actually pretty simple to run an art shop, just takes some getting used to and getting some experience in it. Everyone runs their shop a bit differently, just depends what works for you and what you prefer. You could always try ordering some art first too and see what its like as the customer, might gives you a better idea of what to do as the owner of a shop. And just taking a look at other shops should help too.
//Disclaimer: These are only my opinions and views as a regular member of this site and not as a moderator/staff, unless otherwise stated
