And if so, how was it received by your readers? It’s something I’ve considered doing for awhile now. I’m mainly concerned that the story I want art for is one I’ve been writing for over a year now. In reading imagination is king, and for my regular readers I’m sure they already have a well established vision of what my characters look like. I’d like to think I’ve described them well at this point. Well enough that if I collaborated with an artist willing to have a dialogue with me in the design process, the results couldn’t deviate too far from what people imagine. Another complicated matter is the usage rights associated with commissioning artwork. It’ll obviously vary from artist to artist but I’ll have to take caution in ensuring i have the ability to actually post what I’ve commissioned. Actually, side note. What are the rules surrounding intellectual property on CHYOA?. Do authors technically own the stories they publish? Has that even come up? Some people might be reading this and thinking it would be unusual to spend potentially hundreds of dollars on a completely free hobby. To be honest, the characters I’ve written about have been rattling around in my head for years before I started writing them down, and I’ve always wanted art of them anyways.
Yes I have! Readers seemed to really enjoy it. I was a bit worried some wouldn’t like the characters they imagined to be made visual but even the few who said they imagined them looking differently seemed to appreciate it. I found the artists on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/HungryArtists/), just a matter of searching until you see artists whose style you like who do what you’re interested in at a price that works. The artists who do NSFW may only do certain genres of course but every one I spoke to was fine with the commissioned work being used as an illustration for an erotic story. Most will ask what it is for anyway, and using it on CHYOA is non-commercial (unless someone here is making thousands of dollars writing and I never noticed ) For the artists I’ve used it’s pretty common to pay half up front once you agree on a piece, and I paid using PayPal. Again, most artists advertising will have their prices and process online. Communication is important and it’s mostly via online nicknames so it helps if the artist has a good rep.
Thanks for the reddit recommendation! I didn’t think of that. i think my first move will be to have some reference sheets made if possible, that way it would make future commissions smoother. I trust most artists that can provide decent portfolios to be professional, but did you have any concerns with anonymity when using paypal? Maybe I'm just a paranoid bastard but I do try to keep my NSFW writings as separate from my personal information as possible.
Reference sheets would be a great idea if you plan to have a consistent appearance and have different artists . Anonymity is a thing for sure - there *is* a way to have PayPal not show your own name by changing it to a company account name or something (I picked a generic account name, I don't recall the specifics but it was free to do) but after a few interactions I realized it probably didn't matter to me. If you want to you can look at your PayPal receipt and see that "H. Jimenez" or "xu.chen" accepted the money, but ultimately it's up to you how much that matters. I don't think anyone who draws lewd art for money online is being terribly nosey on their end, and you won't even know what country the other person lives in. Oh yeah, while I'm here this is the non-lewd cover art I had done for my story. I really liked one artist's style and had them do a lewd piece and a couple of non-lewds. When I found a cheaper artist to do a quick image of a scene later on they asked for references and I was able to use these images, which helped the second artist by not having to ask about hair colour etc. I did ask the first artist about sharing their work with another artist in that way and they said it was of course totally fine and expected.
Oh, one warning, this is not a cheap hobby but damn it's addictive! I found it so fun to have the art made, the process of seeing the drafts and giving feedback was exciting. But if you want full body art made with 2 characters expect to be paying into the hundreds of dollars (US) for most artists. If very simple anime style suits your story and taste you can probably find some cheap options, but I spent several hundred dollars for sure.
@wilparu How has your experience been with image hosting? Since Chyoa stories bring in externally hosted images, that's part of the picture picture, so to speak. (I've been tempted to commission art of Morgan and Fay, the disaster lesbian witches from Lusty Magical Academy)
Prepaid gift cards seem to be quite an anonymous way to pay. With cryptocurrencies, you might avoid the receiver to find out your identity, but it should be possible to trace the money back to a name. (As you have to buy them with other currencies.) Kofi or similar services might be another way. The receiver of the money shouldn't be able to find out your identity. The service provider would know your identity, depending on the payment method. You probably have to pay more to cover the artist's fees. (Trust seems to be more important when you choose a way with higher anonymity.) Well, not the whole story. Authors do have the copyright of their own chapters. (They are also legally responsible for what they publish.)
Real fucker of a double edged sword i guess. With less anonymous methods you have to put trust in them in regards to your personal information. in more anonymous methods you have more trust in regards to paying them and actually having the commission completed.
I just use imgur, it's simple enough and seems robust (in that the links for images I put up a few years ago still work) and you don't need an account.
