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Saw a digital artist charge $500 for a commission and I felt sick

I was scrolling through Instagram yesterday and saw a painter asking $500 for a full character portrait. She had 200 followers and the work looked like sketchy beginner stuff. Am I the only one who thinks some of these prices are way out of line with the skill level?
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elizabeth220
Dude my first commission was $20 and I felt like I was robbing the person blind, and my stuff looked like a toddler with a crayon had a dream about anime. $500 for sketchy beginner work is wild, that's like me asking for a Michelin star salary for my burnt scrambled eggs and calling it deconstructed. But hey maybe she's got that secret sauce I'm missing, or her followers are just really good at math and think 200 x $2.50 each adds up somehow.
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viola_butler
viola_butler2d agoRising Star
Read an article a while back about how some artists use pricing as a way to fake legitimacy, like if you charge high people think you're a pro. 500 bucks for beginner work is probably just a hustle to look premium or whatever. Saw someone on Twitter say they charged 300 for a piece and they were still learning anatomy, just hoping nobody would notice. It's a bold strategy but definitely makes me side-eye those prices hard.
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