Archviz pricing

[Salv8or]

Hi all,

Ive just taken on a intoduction project, visualising a livingroom, and I have no idee what to charge for a job like that.
Im hoping that the client will return with other projects.
Is it usual to have a "base" brise for a singel image, and then sell seconds and thirds and so on at a lower rate?

Any hints would be appriciated.

Thnx guys.

Attaching a image of what I will deliver. (no AA, since its a test on lighting and composition)
You may ofcourse give some C&C on the image. Lighting/composition and so on..

[geo_n]

Hi all,

Ive just taken on a intoduction project, visualising a livingroom, and I have no idee what to charge for a job like that.
Im hoping that the client will return with other projects.
Is it usual to have a "base" brise for a singel image, and then sell seconds and thirds and so on at a lower rate?

Any hints would be appriciated.

Thnx guys.

Attaching a image of what I will deliver. (no AA, since its a test on lighting and composition)
You may ofcourse give some C&C on the image. Lighting/composition and so on..

I think around 150-200US. My archiviz renders costs upwards 300US. No need to lower the market. Check my sig for some archiviz works. They are not perfect but I dont charge that high imho.
The other views are negotionable if they are the same scene but different view. I usually give them for free since all I did was rerender a different view. But if there's some additional elements involved to make that view then you should charge extra.

The render needs more light inside, more color saturation.

[bbuxton]

How long did it take you to do?
How much work will it take to get your next job?
What are your business overheads?
What are you prepared to work for?

For $150 to $200 I hope you get the job done in a couple of hours without breaking into a sweat.

For odd jobs like this it helps to quote a day rate. Try and hire a young photographer for a day - take his/her quote and add a bit since 3D is generally more labour intensive than taking photos.

[Salv8or]

Since it is a first job for the client, I´ve done everything from scratch. (modeling, texturing and the whole enchilada) Just to give the client some idea of what time I´ll use. So I have spent about 4 workdays, but much of the time have been searching for funitures and getting the whole interior design to look nice.
The client have alot of fotografers and artists working for him already, and the company sells pictures to realastate agencys and so on. Im guessing that if I could deliver good stuff at a "normal" price, I have a good chanse of getting more work from them.
Posted the finiched render in the Gallery finished:
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109523

[3dworks]

depends a lot about how the prices in sweden for 3d viz are. even as a beginner, i would not charge less than 500 EUR + taxes for a standard living room interior image at print resolution with GI and standard library furniture (means with models from turbosquid or evermotion, etc). this would include modeling, texturing, rendering, post production and image rights. even if you consider a low 30 EUR per h as a general rate for example, this would make around 16 h (3 days of 8 h) of work to finish the image. as most interiors are very different, you will always have to take into account lots of time to find the right assets, testing them, adapting them, etc. also, if you have to do some extra furniture custom modeling this price would go way up as well. don't forget that the client is *never* happy with your first take, so always add a few extra reserves (maybe 20-30%) for all the revisions. but this is still without taking into account any usage rights.

including charges for image usage rights (or at least mentioning them in your working contract/ bid/ bill) is a point which many times is completely forgotten by beginners. but you always have to remember that in most cases your client is using (exploiting) your artwork to make (sometimes a lot of) money for himself. it's like with a professional art or fashion photo, you will never find a photographer selling it for just using his camera for the time of a take...

so at least mention them (like '...including...') in your bill, it's not only more professional to do so, but also legally less ambiguous and it always adds a 'percepted' value over your work as well.

cheers

markus

[Salv8or]

Wow.. 500 EUR+taxes+rights sounds alot, not for the work put in to it, but for what it is.
Its just a "photo" of a room that excists, but I guess is unfurnituread and the property is for sale.. or something like that.. I dont know.
It would be great if it was possible to charge that kind of money, but as its a first job it sound kind of much... But if that is a "standard fee" then I guess I should not go to much under it. I'll try to get in contact with some interior fotografers and see what they charge and go from there.
Thanx for the replyes. I´ll keep hunting and posting the outcome.

[3dworks]

Wow.. 500 EUR+taxes+rights sounds alot, not for the work put in to it, but for what it is.
Its just a "photo" of a room that excists, but I guess is unfurnituread and the property is for sale.. or something like that.. I dont know.
It would be great if it was possible to charge that kind of money, but as its a first job it sound kind of much... But if that is a "standard fee" then I guess I should not go to much under it. I'll try to get in contact with some interior fotografers and see what they charge and go from there.
Thanx for the replyes. I´ll keep hunting and posting the outcome.

well, taking a photo of an existing room is certainly less work...

of course, no really standard fees exist, but take into account that if you start with a low rate you'll probably never will get to a higher level anymore.

it's a well known problem: there are a lot of beginners, students, hobbyists around doing such a work maybe for fun and for a very low price because they don't need to live from that as a main income. some agencies always will look for the next cheap and willing 3d guy doing their work. of course, they will rarely get a high quality standard with that strategy, but it will be OK for many purposes.

the only way to get out of that circle is to offer a professional work/service at a reasonable price, trying bind them as clients. maybe try to offer additional value on top of what the other will do. for example, include a guaranty for a certain number of revisions into the price, or offering them a preview website for their project, etc.

just my 2 cents

markus

[Salv8or]

You make a solid point, but I am alitle afraid that by charging to much the client will dodge my work and go with someone else. (since there are alot of artists and very few job openings)
But ehn again concidering the amount of work involved in the matter, noone else can do it with "less" work, so it probebly comesdown to what amount of time is accepteble to charge for. You say that 500 is a reasenable fee, how much time do you usualy put in to a project similar to this?
(you can see the final here: http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109523)
I have, as said earlyer, made everything from scratch.

[geo_n]

I dont know, this kind of work is not so hard. Its an archiviz still. If you've been doing it for some years you already have a library of models and materials which you can drag and drop. It will take you less than a day if you have good presets already.
Even johny quick, the master of lw archiviz at kray forums doesn't charge that high I've heard. We have the same clients :D.
He's not really a beginner.
If you had to model everything from scratch right down to the coaster for the mug, and had to design some elements yourself then probably you can charge higher.

[Nicolas Jordan]

I would say you should be able to charge at least a minimum of $800 US. Remember if you are doing this for a living you have to make enough money to eat, pay rent/mortgage, bills and your 3d software plus you should have some profit left over to reinvest in your business etc.

[Iain]

People have been trying anything to get work since the downturn (and before) and that has resulted in lowering the market value of what we do. Maybe we charged too much before but I never saw myself becoming rich, even at my busiest.

Any quote I do now seems to get beaten by others working for peanuts (don't be fooled, the $200 mentioned is a reality!) I have dropped my rates so far that it just doesn't work in this country to continue doing it for a living. 3d is now my hobby as I could earn more doing manual labour.

So, my advice is vastly different to what it would have been a year ago when I urged people not to sell themselves short. Nowadays, you have to.

It is a business fact, however, that your first, :santa:introductory offer:santa:, price is almost impossible to raise.

[Salv8or]

Hmm.. Isn that a shame.. We put tremendus amout of time and energy, to make things for other people, that are so close to reality, that in the end we dont get more money for the result then a guy with a camera. Thou we construct, paint, plaster, light the damn thing before we raise and point the camera. And even then we have to wait for the picture before we see it.. and most of the time press the button five or even more times before we get it right.. Perhaps we should all buy a camera and take the lighting knowlage to the realworld and start shoting pictures instead. Dang i got depressed.

[alexos]

Well - despite what Iain says, sorry to hear that by the way, mate - do not sell yourself short. Never. Because if you do and unless you have the kind of ultrafast workflow that allows you to churn out images at the speed of thought, it will almost always backfire.

I know: the amount of fresh-out-of-college kids with too much time on their hands, a pirated copy of Max, Vray, the entire evermotion library and god knows what else has raised exponentially, and pretty much anyone can now afford a workstation-class PC; but if you want to be a professional you have to sell yourself like one. 150 USD is simply not enough for something that'll prolly cost you at least two/three working days and it's the kind of price that'll devalue what you do to the realm of "yeah, well, after all you just need to push a button, don't you, anyone can do that". You have to make it clear to them that no, not anyone could do that and anyway you're not anyone.

My response to ridiculously low offers is always the same: I'd rather do it for free. And I actually did, a couple of times, just to prove a point - sure I've never seen the client again, but really - if you think what I do is worth so little, then please go elsewhere.

ADP.

[alexos]

If you don't lower prices, then in THIS market you will go hungry. So it's up to everyone doing this type of work to set prices where they can get work...
what you call "ridiculously low offers" may be someone elses "hey, that's a pretty good price and I can live easily off of that."


But of course. 150 USD will take you a long way through Mexico, but it'll take you pretty much nowhere round here - which is why I said "do not sell yourself short". The sheer amount of money is relative, but what you need to sustain yourself is an absolute you should maintain, no matter where you live.


But... it was a good and fair price since we could churn these images out very quickly - often several houses a day.
If you can do it quickly, then charge what you feel is a good and fair price.

(I guess I didn't quite make myself clear enough? Because,) again, of course. I was under the impression that this is not Salv8tor's case, though. And besides - you mentioned 400 bucks, which is indeed not much... but it's not $150 either. Ask for 400 and that one project (and there will be one, sooner or later) that cost you an entire week of swearing and sweating will be just a small incident, but to work an entire week for $150 is the kind of thing that'll make you want to forget about the entire business and go look for a job at the Krusty Krab...

ADP.

[Nicolas Jordan]

If some of you guys with those low ball numbers lower your prices much more you will be paying clients for the privilege of doing work for them. :jester:

[Salv8or]

It was never my intention to start some kind of war, and im happy for all the help.
But I strongly agree with alexos. There is a thresshold for how low payment you can work for.. If a job takes only 1 day to deliver, and you charge 100$ you would have to assure that you have the client base to cover work 5 days aweek. I dont know but that just doesnt seem reasonable. At least 20 projects every month??? Cant compute, error and overload. We cant sell out to sheep, we put alot of time in what we do and I guess its our resposibility to make sure that people understand that it realy isnt just to "push a button" to this industry. As I mentioned earlyer, we have to have the knowlage of a photografer, we have to have real good material skills, we have to know lighting and we also have to create the motive that we should take the picture of. I cant see that its a "push a button" consept to that.

Megalodon you seem enthusiastic and happy to work, and so am I, but we still have to put food on the table.
I think the reason that jobs aren't rolling in is becouse there are fewer jobs. As easy as that. When the market turns the jobs will come. It has nothing to do with how low you set your pricetag. If noone wants to buy pineapples, either find some bananas to sell for awhile and return when the market for pineapples blossoms again. That way you can still charge the amount you are supposed to for the pinaples. Gahh... Something like that anyway.. =)
I hope I get my point across. Or someone better at metafores can have a go at it.

[3dworks]

there's another effect with those ridiculously low prices: some client at a certain do not perceive any *value* in 3d work anymore also *because* of the low price. it's a bit like selling good design - and follows one of the simplest marketing principles: imagine if a fashion company like prada or gucci would sell all their stuff at very low price. all those shirts, accessories etc would not be perceived anymore at the same quality level as they are when sold at those very high prices - even if the product is always the same (****).

lowering the prices does not get you guys any more work, and at that point people anyway will look to those cheap outsourcing companies in india, china and elsewhere.

as already outlined, we professional viz people can only compete with better service, competence (for example if you have specific knowledge as an architect, engineer or designer and if you actually know exactly how a plan detail translates into reality), and in the end, the best possible quality, but not with cheap prices.

this is confirmed by a recent survey in a german magazine (digital production 02/10), which showed that customers choosing a 3d viz company for a project are most looking after 1. delivery on time, 2. quality, 3. reliability - in this order. those where followed by 4. references, 5. precision and... 6. price level and consistence. the quality of the web site of the viz company was considered last.

cheers

markus

[Nicolas Jordan]

Now it's down to below $300 - and work is... NOT coming in. :( As many hours as we were working with no vacations or time off, I vastly prefer THAT to working in Retail (for over 18 years) and doing jobs I did NOT want to do. Give me lower pricing and longer hours ANY day as opposed to NOT working in 3D. :thumbsup:

I knew things were bad down there but I didn't realize things were that bad. I will myself lucky.

[Nicolas Jordan]

there's another effect with those ridiculously low prices: some client at a certain do not perceive any *value* in 3d work anymore also *because* of the low price. it's a bit like selling good design - and follows one of the simplest marketing principles: imagine if a fashion company like prada or gucci would sell all their stuff at very low price. all those shirts, accessories etc would not be perceived anymore at the same quality level as they are when sold at those very high prices - even if the product is always the same (****).

lowering the prices does not get you guys any more work, and at that point people anyway will look to those cheap outsourcing companies in india, china and elsewhere.

as already outlined, we professional viz people can only compete with better service, competence (for example if you have specific knowledge as an architect, engineer or designer and if you actually know exactly how a plan detail translates into reality), and in the end, the best possible quality, but not with cheap prices.

this is confirmed by a recent survey in a german magazine (digital production 02/10), which showed that customers choosing a 3d viz company for a project are most looking after 1. delivery on time, 2. quality, 3. reliability - in this order. those where followed by 4. references, 5. precision and... 6. price level and consistence. the quality of the web site of the viz company was considered last.

cheers

markus

:agree: I totally agree with everything you have said. I think constantly lowering prices just digs a deep pricing hole that is very hard to get out of for those who decide to do approach things that way.

[Salv8or]

3dworks:Good to see that there is hope for a struggeling artist, and that hopefully quality will concour hasty work.

I hope the economy will turn soon and bring all industries back on feet.

[adk]

Here's my two cents worth on this ... as I do this for myself (in my non existent spare time) for a few, yet seemingly happy clients that keep coming back again & again, as well as working 9-5 for a much larger place where I'm in the position to help guide some of the 3D work that goes out to externals.

Markus sums it up pretty well ( is way more talented than me :) ) ... as does the survey. When we go external this will pretty much always be the order with which we asses any such places.

1. quality 2. delivery time 3. reliability 4. efficiency, precision, attention to detail ... 6. price. Same as the survey ... the quality of the web site of the viz company is not really taken as an indication of much except a nice portfolio perhaps.

I have dealt with so many externals over the years that I can quite easily say ... nothing trumps quality & this weaves inextricably with 2,3,4.

Best people I have dealt with, understand you & your needs & deliver to within 95-99% of that, 99.9% of the time and 99.9% on time. The rest is a bit of creative back and forth &/or circumstance.

Most important of all, they don't waste your time in the process.

Sure the client has a huge part to play in that as well & I'll be the first one to say that at times we can be & have been a terrible client. (Vague, unclear & extremely washy briefs that come from people that have no idea about what it is that they want yet think themselves experts are usually to blame here).

Historically I have seen these "no idea" folk come & go & I can tell you that a lot of them start with some of the cheapest offering out there to begin with but as years progressed these places quickly fall by the wayside & time again we seek out & fall back on quality providers.
The good ones (same places I recall from 11 years ago) tend to stick around & get better while the lesser ones just slowly melt away or simply disappear.

As a result, I never ever remember what price we paid for what. All I recall is the end product, the effort it took for our team to get there & after years of seeing external 3D Vis come through our doors there is a strong correlation in my brain between low price & crappy product. Not always the case mind you, but often enough for it to almost be ingrained.

Granted we've had some extremely expensive crap coupled with bad experiences as well but they are far & few between.

Focus on delivering the best quality & impeccable service. That will serve you way better than trying to land a client with price alone.

[geo_n]

If it takes the average arch-vizer a day or two (or more) to create an exterior of a house, they set their prices accordingly. If it takes someone else a few hours to accomplish the same thing... why would they NOT lower their pricing to attract a larger client base?

yes its so true. as i've said if you've been doing this work for a long time, it doesn't take more than a day to do one still with all the library and resources you've made. Unless your client has specific items that need to be modelled,created, you can do this in a few hours. A render in kray takes a few minutes with todays pc. So I like doing this kind of work.

[adk]

Sure Megalodon ... if it worked & continues to work for you then you are doing something right. No arguments there.

Locally (and granted we are a bit of a global anomaly perhaps) I just haven't worked with too many places over the years that offer that sort of consistent quality service at consistently low prices. From our point of view, if a place delivers what we want & need, on time & it looks spectacular an extra $200-300-400 per image (across a range of 10-20-30) would hardly raise an eyebrow if the quality and all other things are there. The image sells, not the price we paid for it.

The 6-10 marketing managers that we have here, who work at organising campaigns from beginning to end would all tell you the same thing I'm sure. If the renders are spectacular who cares if it cost us $400-$1000 extra when the campaign budget is 100k+ and the development makes $1.5mil profit. No one sane enough in the development industry would bicker with anybody over an extra $400-$1000 when the results speak for themselves and ultimately visually underpin the whole campaign. But they would on quality & all the other points that matter, period.

Sure, lower prices are great, I shop around like anyone else after all. But the undercutting competition ideology works both ways, it can work nicely for you as well as quietly against you.

Ultimately it's up to the individual to determine what their hard work, toil & experience is worth & what value they place on it. If that gets you food on the table, a roof over your head, lets you save for a rainy day when things turn bad (as they recently have), pay all the bills, keep your partner happy :), and means you're still able to operate in the same space 10 years from now then you're doing ok. Anything substantially less is not really a sustainable practice.

[ivanze]

Megalodon, could you please show a video of those lscripts?? :)

[adk]

I don't know many places that didn't suffer to be honest & here in Aus. we were extremely lucky to escape most of the bad stuff I think, tho I'm no economist so won't speculate as to why. Kudos to you guys for staying operational & afloat.

LW is also the key in my ability to crank out stuff extremely quickly :agree: & while most of it is not rocket science, nor work I'd pin up on my walls, I think a lot of us underestimate how much specific knowledge, experience & practice is actually necessary to get to that level of efficiency & speed.

All I would say is, just don't sell your self too short.

[ivanze]

No problem, I can wait. That sounds very interesting. :)

[Salv8or]

Im guessing it had been a nescessary discussion by the looks of it. The staring point was just to get a mear hint of normal prices, since its the first job I do since -03. I think at the end of the day we can all agree that we have to eat, and as long as we manage to afford that without beeing put in the hospital for being overworked, its quite okej. Just wanted a market "norm" and I think I have some clues. I have sent the mail to the klient and hope I didnt scare him of. If ive set the bar any lower I dont think it would be worth it in the longrun. I dont have all of Ikeas furniture in a library, neither do I have a million archviz stuff to drag/drop from. Im at the starting point and I need to get my foot in. So hopfully this is one way, but I sure cant drop to low becous Im not a huge companywith alot of assets. Im sure all you guys have started at a similar place.

[geo_n]

Well... I can't show much, but here is a brief look at the building of a simple structure using just one Lscript macro and default settings. It shows the various items you can change - and there are quite a bit more using different requestors. Now of course these are primarily for houses built in US style, but they can be used for houses around the world. We have many other Lscripts for windows, doors, garage doors, siding, roof, corner trim, channel trim, and many more. This particular macro pictured provides the basic primitive for the roof, walls, rakes and fascia. Then using these pieces we run other Lscripts to obtain roof pieces (individual shingles - ridge and hip shingles), siding, corner trim, etc. It's really a very fast process and allows us to build houses quickly AND most importantly, inexpensively. :thumbsup:

Cool! Is it nearly as powerful as chief architect?

[ivanze]

Amazing scripts, Megalodon. I wonder what other Lightwave users plugins are there, that are secret and not everybody knows about.

[roger1972]

Hi! I'm from norway, more less the same prices as in sweden if we charge in "kroner"
for a picture like that. I would take 3-4000,- NOK. + taxes... and the same should you do :-)

I have an hour rate on 850,- NOK + taxes (ca..1050) that is an ordinary burau-price in norway in adv. business...

you should calculate your use of time + time for correction... and you got an average price for pictures like that.

"Im guessing that if I could deliver good stuff at a "normal" price, I have a good chanse of getting more work from them."

you start out with a low price, you would have difficulitites with raising the price later. But if you are happy with that just to build your portfolio, do it!

[Salv8or]

Thank you roger, for giving some input on how the market looks at "home". Very valueble.I have not heard more from the "client" in a week thuo. Guess I have said something wrong. =(

[ingo]

Aaah dont worry, i often get jobs i thought i have already lost after a few weeks. Expect the unexpected :beerchug:

[Salv8or]

Thank you for all the good words. You guys realy have made me keep the hope up, and given me alot of valueble information. Recieved a mail from the Client yesterday, saying that he lost a job but will be in touch as soon as something falls in place. "Im convinced that we can come to an agreement."
Feels conforting. All I need to do is find some more clients and start building a solid library.

Thanx again guys.

[Matt]

We have Chief Architect v11 - getting models into LW that look decent is NOT easy and pretty much a pain in the a$s. I gave up on it quite a while back. These plugins run inside LW and everything is smooth, LW quads. To be honest, I'd say they're more powerful than Chief, but then I run these macros in my sleep since I've worked with them for a LONG time. Of course most of them are for exteriors, though we do have a few interior Lscripts. The downside... I still need to use LW5.6 Modeler. Still... a small price to pay. I actually still use an Amiga 2000 for some scripts that were written in Arexx. :)

Wow dude, you really need to upgrade and get LWCAD! :D

[Matt]

The thing I've found with clients who contest prices, is that they don't see the years of experience / talent as a factor when paying up, they see:

a) what did I get

b) how long did it take to do

So for renders they probably think, "you want how much for some JPEGs?". It's the same for logos, especially if it's a clean, simple looking one that you went round the houses to decide on.

They look at it and go "It's just a circle with a line and some text" or some such derogatory statement!

So you need to show value for money by being transparent about your time, and also involve them in the process, that way they get to see how much effort goes into it.

Selling yourself short helps no one in the long term. Pick a reasonable hourly rate you're happy with, estimate accurately the time it will take, quote on that and stick to it.

Remember, only one person can be the cheapest, the rest have to differentiate themselves with quality / experience.

[Emmanuel]

Just my two cents worth: I found sites on the web where premade Max/Vray scenes are beeing offered at 15$ each, lighting setups at 5$, to dissect, use and learn from, so that was quite shocking, too.
The other thing I experienced is that I recebtly did my first archviz interior job, and it took me quite a long time (3, 4 days) but I had to come up with something of my own design (!) plus modelling, texturing, lighting, rendering it all.I still had some discussion with the client about the price, but it went ok afterwards, I charged 76 Euro/hour.I think unless you have to design something (I am a diplomed designer with 15 years experience), things are too cheap to be interesting, its almost like webdesign which goes now for 8 euros/hour here.At that rate, Walmart seems more interesting, at least you dont sit all day and ruin your eyes :)

[roger1972]

Just my two cents worth: I found sites on the web where premade Max/Vray scenes are beeing offered at 15$ each, lighting setups at 5$, to dissect, use and learn from, so that was quite shocking, too.
The other thing I experienced is that I recebtly did my first archviz interior job, and it took me quite a long time (3, 4 days) but I had to come up with something of my own design (!) plus modelling, texturing, lighting, rendering it all.I still had some discussion with the client about the price, but it went ok afterwards, I charged 76 Euro/hour.I think unless you have to design something (I am a diplomed designer with 15 years experience), things are too cheap to be interesting, its almost like webdesign which goes now for 8 euros/hour here.At that rate, Walmart seems more interesting, at least you dont sit all day and ruin your eyes :)

Archviz is a dead end if you're not living in a low-cost country...
europe can't compete with prices from Asia, Latvia.... you have to eat too :-D

[bbuxton]

I prefer to charge the same & accept that for a while there will be less work. With the extra time afforded by less work it is important to use it wisely, chasing leads & new business. At some point the balance swings the other way and I have more work than I can cope with.

Most business is built on trust & the development of a good relationship with the client, the ups and downs in the economy are softened to an extent by this. For most clients ditching me/anyone for a cheaper unknown is too much of a risk & poor business sense especially in the current climate.

[geo_n]

In japan theres a bracket system of quality that is derived from plants. Th highest quality is something like a palm tree. You pay more for this quality. Second is th bamboo. The quality is good but not the best. Last is like a plum. For those clients who dont need the quality but just want to focus more on conveying the idea without breaking the budget this is their choice. Its a good idea to give clients choices. Ofcourse you still try to always do your best but the difference is how much time you alot on a given project. Pay more and more time will be given to finetune the project.

[bbuxton]

That sounds good, but hardly works when business drops to ZERO. When new clients come calling, you have NO CHOICE but to lower your prices JUST to get some money coming in. This is one of those things where "it sounds good on paper" but does not work in real life. Before this recession, we were working 12 to 15 hour days, 7 days a week. I enjoyed it because we were making money hand over fist - and I love working with Lightwave. We hired employees only to have to lay them off because of the recession.


They are not "softened" when the entire sector (single-family-home-market) is hit and NO ONE is building. There is no softening at all. It DIED. We often received calls from other builders who didn't want to pay the higher prices other companies required for archviz. Once they saw our quality and our pricing which was often two to three times less than their current pricing, we got that business. But in this downturn, since no houses were being built, our services have not been required. We've received a few projects here and there, but not enough to even pay for two months worth of bills - and this is June.

This has happened in the UK too. I do hotel concept visuals & the market just dried up. If the work is not there - it is not there, dropping price does not create it. To survive I've had to diversify calling on all the transferable skills I have. This has mostly been photography & panoramas, some 2D graphics etc. Stepping outside my field has actually made my business stronger & dare I say a bit more interesting. For me dropping price significantly would harm my business far more than not having any work, because my clients will expect those prices even when the economy is good. It would take me years to get my fees back to a level comparable to before the crunch.

[bbuxton]

My point was really aimed at charging unsustainable fees. A good number of artists can survive on $90 per hour or so. I think this thread started with the question of what's reasonable to charge & for most $150 for 4 days work is not sustainable even for a short time.

Regarding transferable skills, if you are good at 3d you have lots of transferable skills - from compositing to texturing to photography etc. 3D is the most labour intensive work I have ever done and requires more knowledge and experience than people realize, perhaps even 3d people lol. Megalodon I seriously doubt you will ever need to fall back on retail & I'm confident business will pick up soon.

Brian

[bbuxton]

I can only wish you well and hope that business picks up for you soon.
The property market has been hit hard but there are other areas where 3d holds plenty of value.

Brian

[bbuxton]

I can only wish you well and hope that business picks up for you soon.
The property market has been hit hard but there are other areas where 3d holds plenty of value.

Brian