Price check - set of nine G1 customs

[daisyd]

Okay, so first off let me say I never intended to sell these guys, but oh boy, problems.

I made a set of G1 customs based off the TV shows "Ghosts" to enter the custom contest at UK Ponycon. Now, I love Ghosts, and I love ponies, and it was never my intention to sell them, as I already cleared a shelf in my cabinet to home them.

They won *eep* seems they were quite popular.

When I was packing them up to take home, I was approached by someone asking if I would sell them. I told her that I did kinda want to keep them myself, and so we came up with a solution - I would make another set for her (bearing in mind it took me about a year, on and off to make the current set).

But.

About a week ago, I had a bleed in one of my eyes, which has affected my vision quite brutally. Still waiting to be seen at an eye clinic, despite my optician making an urgent referral across  but that's another story. Basically though, I can't see well enough to even make a start on another custom set, and I have no idea how long it will take to get the eye sorted out.

So I've decided that I might be better off selling the current set, and making another set for myself, should my eye permit. But I have no idea how much I ought to charge for them. Bearing in mind that I honestly never intended to sell them, therefore some bits here and there aren't quite 100% perfect. They are all pretty well glued into their clothes  my dressmaking skills being basic.

Anyway, pictures. Any kind of price assistance is welcome. TY.

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[BlackCurtains]

OMG they're great! I love Ghosts! Congrats on the win

The best way to try and price something is to calculate how much time you spent on it. Do you have an idea of how long it took you to finish one? If you sat down and made it all in one go, how long do you think it'd be? There is a lot of detail so I'm sure it took you a while. You want to pay yourself minimum wage for every hour you think you spent. Once you have that figured out, time it by how many customs there are, if any particular one took you the longest, add a couple hours onto the total.

Then, you need to charge for supplies. That can be hard because you can't charge for a whole bottle of paint if you already had it. But like the clothes, did you need to buy specific fabric just for this project? Then that counts.

Finally, you need to think about what's a reasonable price to sell. If you're charging $15 for 8 hours times 9 that's over a thousand dollars. Would it be fair to you to charge that much? Yes. But chances are you won't be able to sell at that price unless you are willing to wait for the right person to come.

The fact you might have "skimped" on them because you were planning on keeping them really shouldn't come into it. Don't short yourself.

I'd say... $350-400 or equivalent at least. That's about $45-50 a piece, which to me is totally fair. So I say start at like $450 and see what they say, then start to come down. Do not take less than $300 though, unless you are desperate to sell. Make sure to mention that the total price is for NINE customs at 50 each. Breaking it down to them might make the difference.

I'm sorry about your eye! I had the same thing happen actually. Mine cleared up without surgery but I still have a lot of black floaters in that eye. Every morning I do back and forth exercises to move them out of my center vision. Good luck with your appointment! Hopefully it's nothing serious.

[daisyd]

Thank you 

Trouble is, it's going to be the hardest thing to calculate the actual time taken. The shortest time was five days for one (the first one done) but the others took quite a lot longer, researching certain costumes and hairstyles, and how to turn them from human to pony (actually very tricky!). Most of the materials I already had hanging about (I can be somewhat of a hoarder) and only had to buy one length of ribbon and two pieces of material.

The buyer already knows how many ponies are in the set, so I won't have any problems there.

Luckily she requested some time to get some money together, so I don't have to be right in there with a price, but I ought to let her know soon about my plan B possibly not being the actual plan after all.

[BlackCurtains]

Yeah, it's tough calculating how much time you spend unless you set a literal timer (which a lot of artists do).

If you think 50 a piece is too low, that's fair. I probably wouldn't go higher than 65 though, but that's me.