Sell Original Character (OC) Commissions From Your Bio

Character artists get paid for original character (OC) commissions by pricing a defined deliverable — a headshot, half-body, or full reference sheet — as a custom request, collecting references and usage details upfront, and requiring payment before starting work. Pricing the deliverable upfront replaces open-ended DM negotiation with a fixed scope, price, and turnaround. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.

No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. Brillay — Pricing

Original character work is not the same as drawing a character that already exists. With an OC, the client may be asking you to choose the palette, silhouette, outfit, markings, and mood, not only render a finished design. Demand for custom character art is documented outside general art-commission surveys: in Furscience's Summer 2020 survey of 559 furries, 66.0% had paid for a digital art commission, and the lifetime median spend on digital art commissions was $250.00 per person (Furscience Summer 2020 survey). This page is about setting the scope, price, intake, usage terms, and delivery details before you send people from your bio to a paid commission order.

What counts as an original character (OC) commission?

An original character (OC) commission is artwork of a character the client owns or is still developing, rather than a character from an existing franchise. The client may bring a finished written profile and reference sheet, or only a species, a personality note, and a mood board. That gap changes both the job and the price.

A client with a complete reference sheet is mostly asking you to illustrate. A client with only a personality description is asking you to help design. That takes more decisions, and it should not be priced like a simple redraw. Before quoting, decide which situation you are in. If the character does not exist visually yet, say that in the offer so the client knows they are buying design work, not just a picture.

Character-art buyers spend on digital work at a measurable rate: Furscience found that convention-attending respondents spent a mean of $175.11 and a median of $40.00 on digital art commissions in the previous 12 months, against a mean of $113.46 for physical art commissions (Furscience, "Spending in the Furry Fandom").

Should an OC commission be a paid question or a custom request order?

An OC commission belongs in Custom Work, not Paid Questions. Paid Questions let a follower pay upfront to ask one private question, and you send one written reply on your own time — no live call or scheduling. They do not take reference files from the client, and they do not return finished art files. Custom Work fits the commission itself because the client can send references when they order and you can deliver the finished work later.

With Custom Work on Brillay, clients can attach up to five reference files when they order. When the work is ready, you send one finished delivery: a note plus files and/or links. Delivered files can be up to 500 MB each, and Brillay keeps delivered files available for 90 days. The delivery time you set can be anywhere from 1 hour to 5 days (Brillay — How It Works).

Use Paid Questions for something narrower, like a quick written answer about whether you are taking new OC slots this month. Put the actual commission in Custom Work so the order, references, price, and delivery all stay together.

How much should you charge for an OC commission?

Price an OC commission by the size of the deliverable and by how much of the character you are being asked to invent. A colored headshot, a half-body piece, and a multi-view reference sheet are different offers. Design labor — choosing palette, outfit, silhouette, markings, and overall direction — belongs on top of render time.

Two verifiable figures are worth checking before an artist picks numbers for an OC price list. Furscience's Summer 2020 survey of 559 furries recorded a median largest single digital-art commission purchase of $80.00 and a mean of $134.59. Illustrator and character designer Anoosha Syed publishes the underlying floor math on her own pricing page: a $60,000 target income divided by 231 working days and then by 8 hours produces a $259.74 day rate and a $32.50 hourly rate (Anoosha Syed, "How to Price Your Art"). Syed names $65 per hour or $250 per day as example working rates on that same page, and $3,000 as an example flat project fee in her contract guide.

The table below is opinion-based editorial illustration, not data. No public dataset located during Brillay's September 2026 source review breaks OC commission prices out by headshot, half-body, full-body, and reference sheet. Treat these ranges as a rough tier shape to replace with your own time, rate, demand, and usage terms.

*The four ranges above are editorial examples, not survey results, not benchmarks, and not a guarantee of what any specific artist can charge or earn; real pricing depends on style, demand, region, and licence. To derive your own figure instead, multiply the hours a tier actually takes you by an hourly rate calculated with Anoosha Syed's published method of target annual income divided by 231 working days and then by 8 hours. For a fuller breakdown by complexity and change policy, see how much to charge for a character design commission.

Fixed per-project pricing is usually easier for a clean commission listing than quoting every hour inside DMs. It also matches how many working illustrators describe their pricing: of the 342 illustrators who described their pricing method in Creative Boom's July 2026 survey, 174 said they charge a project fee, 41 a day rate, and 31 price primarily on licensing and usage (Creative Boom, "Illustrator pricing in 2026," published 15 July 2026). The same Creative Boom survey of 403 illustrators put the median UK day rate at £350, with the middle half of respondents between £280 and £450, based on the 90 UK-based respondents who supplied a usable figure.

Trade-body fee data exists, but it is gated and agency-weighted, which is one reason no open OC price table can be sourced: the Association of Illustrators' 2024 Pricing Survey draws on data collected by Kudos Market Research across 25 UK illustration agencies, is released to AOI members only, and states that its published ranges were produced by applying a 10% variation to average results.

Charge more when the client wants you to create design elements rather than draw something already defined. That work takes taste, judgment, and time, and it should not disappear inside a standard personal-use illustration price.

What should you collect before starting an OC commission?

Collect the brief before you open the file. At minimum, ask for reference images, a written personality or story note, hard constraints that cannot change, and the client's intended use for the finished piece. Thin intake is what tends to create unpaid cleanup later, and intended use is often the detail that changes the price.

At minimum, ask for:

• References: existing art of the character if any exists, plus mood-board images for anything undesigned.
• Written notes: personality, role, or story context that should inform expression or pose.
• Hard constraints: required colors, markings, or design elements that cannot change.
• Use case: personal reference, social media avatar, print, or something requiring broader usage rights.

The Association of Illustrators tells commissioners that an illustrator needs four specific details before quoting — territory, duration, usage, and client — because the fee is set by how the image will be used rather than by the hours it takes (Association of Illustrators, "How to licence Illustration").

On Brillay, put those questions in the Custom Work order form so the client gives you the brief before you start. The client pays upfront, and you deliver the finished commission later. You can decline a request that isn't a fit. Clear scope cannot prevent every card dispute, so keep the agreed deliverable, usage rights, exclusions, and submitted references together with the order.

How do you handle changes on an OC commission?

The Custom Work setup states what the client gets, what you need from them and what is not included. Say what the client receives, what file type or crop they get, what is excluded, and what would need a new order. If you normally include a sketch check or paid edits elsewhere, say so in the listing — a client can still raise a correction with you afterward through the order's own support conversation on Brillay; there is no built-in revision counter, so what counts as an included fix is whatever your listing says.

One published contract structure — one included change round at the sketch stage, with any later change billed at an hourly rate — comes from illustrator and character designer Anoosha Syed, who gives it as model wording. Sketch-stage fixes are cheap to make; repainting finished rendering is not.

Syed publishes that clause verbatim in her artist-contract guide:

Client is entitled to one round of revisions after the sketch stage. Additional revisions will be billed at $100 per hour. — Anoosha Syed, "Creating an Artist Contract"

The Association of Illustrators treats the number of amends as one of three named levers an illustrator can adjust to fit a client's budget, alongside limiting the licence and reducing the number of illustrations. Post-render changes such as recoloring a finished piece or changing a pose after shading cost real time and should either be excluded from the base price or billed separately.

State the boundary plainly in the Custom Work description — for example, one finished character headshot; pose changes and recoloring after delivery are not included. A published scope turns a later disagreement into a matter of reading the offer, not renegotiating the whole commission mid-project.

What if a client wants commercial rights to your OC design?

Price commercial or extended usage separately from the base commission. A personal-use OC price usually covers an avatar, a personal reference, or a print for the client. Merchandise, stream branding, a game asset, resale, or a storefront character is a different licence and should be agreed in writing before the work starts.

The Association of Illustrators, the UK trade body for illustration, states the underlying principle for commissioners directly:

When you pay for (commission) illustration work, you buy a licence and not the work itself. It means you pay for what you need without buying it outright. — Association of Illustrators, "How to licence Illustration"

Character licensing carries a documented premium over general art licensing: the Graphic Artists Guild puts standard art-licensing royalties at 3-10% of sales and notes that brand and character licensing can run as high as 15% (Graphic Artists Guild, "License It"). Licensing is also the biggest recurring theme after time itself in what illustrators wish clients understood about pricing: just over a fifth of the 320-plus written responses in Creative Boom's July 2026 survey of 403 illustrators mentioned licensing, usage, or copyright.

A design for a client's shop, stream package, or game has more downstream value than a personal reference piece. The commission price should reflect that use instead of copying your personal-use rate.

How do you turn can you draw my OC DMs into paid orders?

When the same request keeps showing up in DMs, send people to one priced order page instead of quoting from scratch every time. Brillay works from your TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube bio: followers open your page, choose the OC commission offer, add the brief and references, and pay upfront as guests. One bio link that carries every offer: followers pay you as guests by card, at prices you set, whatever format the request takes.

The offer lives on your Brillay page, and you answer the DM with that link. Set up the Custom Work offer once — price, scope, delivery time, and intake questions — so the next request gets a clear order page instead of another loose quote. For a broader comparison of tools built specifically for redirecting DM asks to a paid page, see tools to turn DM requests into a paid link.

What else can character artists sell besides commissions?

One Brillay link can hold Custom Work alongside Paid Questions, Goals, Tips, and Brand Collaboration Inquiries. Each paid offer is one-time, not a membership, so a supporter can pay once for a tip, a goal contribution, a question, or an order without starting a new monthly commitment.

• Paid Questions: a quick private written answer, such as are you open for OCs this month? or a one-line style question.
• Goals: money toward a named goal, such as a new tablet or a display upgrade, shown with a progress bar rather than shipped rewards.
• Tips: a no-strings way for someone who enjoys your free posts to support you without commissioning anything.
• Brand Collaboration Inquiries: a separate intake form for game studios or brands that want to discuss a paid character-design partnership, kept apart from single-client commission requests.

Diversifying beyond one per-piece rate matters because artist income is thin on average: craft and fine artists earned a median annual wage of $55,290 as of May 2025.

When is Brillay not the right fit for an OC commission?

It works best when you already have people asking for your work, the order can be scoped clearly, and the delivery time fits inside five days. It is not a marketplace that brings you buyers, and it is not built for long contract projects with a partial payment now and a separate balance invoice later.

Brillay fits an artist who already gets can you draw my OC messages, even from a small audience, and wants one place for price, brief, reference files, and delivery. If you need marketplace discovery, a two-month timeline, or a separate partial-payment-and-balance schedule, a marketplace listing or plain invoice is the better tool. You can still run a Brillay link next to a marketplace shop if both serve different kinds of requests.

How do you get an OC commission offer live?

Start with one clearly scoped tier, like a headshot or half-body commission, before adding a full reference-sheet package. Define the deliverable, price, delivery time, no-change boundary, usage terms, and intake questions, then publish that offer in Custom Work on your Brillay page.

Buyers are already used to paying artists directly for custom work: DeviantArt reported that its creators sold more than $23 million in artwork on the platform in 2025, purchased by more than 260,000 buyers. A priced link removes the extra step of negotiating each request from scratch.

Custom Work is available to artists with nothing to apply for, no marketplace approval, and no follower minimum. Once the offer is live, share the same link you would otherwise use to quote commissions in DMs.

Frequently asked questions

Should I open an OC commission as Paid Questions or Custom Work?

Use Custom Work. Custom Work lets the client send references, answer your intake questions, and receive one finished delivery from you.

How much should I charge for design work versus straightforward illustration?

Charge more when you are creating the character's design — palette, outfit, silhouette, markings, and overall direction — because that is extra creative work beyond rendering. A client bringing a complete reference sheet is closer to a standard illustration commission and can be priced more like one.

Do I need to offer unlimited changes?

No. Custom Work is one finished delivery. Spell out the pose, crop, background, file type, usage, and exclusions before the client orders so the fixed price covers one defined commission.

How do I take payment for OC commissions on Brillay?

Creators can be paid in 41 supported countries after connecting their bank through Stripe. Brillay sets no follower minimum for creators. Card-processing fees apply separately: Stripe lists typical US domestic online-card processing at 2.9% + $0.30 per successful charge (Stripe — Pricing).

Create your free Brillay page and turn the next can you draw my OC DM into a priced Custom Work order.