PRICING AND SIZE GUIDE.

Commission Guidelines

High quality Reference photos lead to high quality drawings....

• High Quality photos are important.
With any realistic drawings, the biggest factor has to be the quality of the reference photos provided. The more detail and better quality the reference photo is, the more detail I can see and add to your commissioned drawing. With today's technology, even those of us who are not Photography savy, are capable of caputuring a great photo. If a photo is small in size, dark, or doesn't show the features unique to your pet, family member, friend, it is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to attempt to add/replicate those features.

• What do you want to see in your drawing?
Bare in mind exactly what you want your finished drawing to be. If you are after a head neck/shoulders portrait, the photos you need to be sending should be of that part of the anatomy. For example, you would like a head portrait of your dog, if you take photos of the whole of the dog's body, from a distance, the head and important features such as eyes and nose, will be much smaller within the photo, therefore much more difficult to see when I come to draw those features.
Get your body level at head height and point your camera parallel with your subject, this may mean getting down on your knees so that the camera is head/eyeline height of your subject, and the photo will be of the head/neck alone, meaning all the tiniest features will be clearly in focus.
With pets, rustling a treat bag near to your camera can help get their attention focused on you, helping them to look towards the camera. Of course, you may like them looking away from the camera, but should you prefer a full frontal view, the treat bags help.

• Lighting.
Lighting is particularly important too. When taking a photo, it is best to take the image in natural daylight to show the true tones, details and colours. Extremely sunny days can sometimes wash out details due to the glare of the sun on skin or fur, but a little sun does help. If you are taking photos outdoors when the sun is out, make sure that the sun is behind you with your subject facing towards the sun. This can mean "squinty eyes" if it's extremely bright out, so try to allow your subject to sit at an angle where the light fills up the face and parts you would like drawing, but does not make your subject squint.
If indoors, choose a time of day when the room is naturally lit and bright, if possible. Camera flashes will reflect from the back of the eyes creating red/green eye, and causing the pupils to dialte.

• The more the merrier.
​Try to take plenty of images, in doing so, you give yourself a better chance of finding the perfect pose you love, and also give me a better chance at making out details, features, unique to your subject.

• Old photos.
In some cases I am still able to do a good job with old photos. I understand completely that some of these drawings are memorial pieces, which are very special to the people who ask me to do them. I will do my very best to accomodate you, giving my honest opinion on whether the piece is at all possible, and will do my upmost best to be able to take on such pieces. Again, the more the merrier. If your photos are old, and not particularly great quality, find up as many as possible of the subject, sending them all to me so I can go through them to see if we can work something out to suit you.

• Composition.
I can come up with compositions that place more than one subject together in one piece, where there were no reference photos of said subjects together. I can also remove Bridles/Headcollars, Collars ect in pet portraits. If you have any questions, feel free to email me via the contact section.

• Timescales.
Each piece can take me between 2-5 weeks to complete. This all depends on the size and complexity of the drawing. For this reason, it is advised that you give plenty of notice if you have particular dates in mind. Christmas time is awlays extremely busy, and notice needs to be given earlier in the year so I can accomodate your needs.

Contact us for a quotation

We are happy to help you with any information you may need. Send us your ideas and we'll give you more details about our work, or provide pricing for any special inquiry not included in our existing plans.