Commission- positives and negatives

I thought this commission would really benefit me, but now Ive completed it I'm not so sure. 

A Leeds based dj who Ive met a few times asked if i would like to design something for his new line of t-shirts. He told me from the start that there wouldn't be much money involved, but that the exposure would be really good for me. He knows so many people in the music industry and djs all over the world so I thought it would be good.

However, I wasn't prepared to work on it for as long as I ended up doing so. 

He wanted a girl smoking on a t-shirt, and the smoke to spell out beyond paradise. That was all I was given to work with. He offered me £40 for this. 

I intended to spend 5 hours on the design given the price of the job, however, the client wanted so many things changing that it turned out to be a few days of working on it until it was right. 

I now realise why illustrators should charge by the day.

Things I had to change-

He wanted a hand. This isn't just a simple thing to change, it meant I had to redraw the whole thing. He also asked for the eyes to be open, but after trying that 20 times I gave up. If I was being paid for the stress I would have done it, but I thought the image worked well in the first place. 

I also had to get someone to do the type for me, as I knew it would be much better. Which reduces my cut straight away. I should have negotiated the price with him but I felt I couldn't after I had agreed. 

I finally got it right and he was happy. But then he wanted me to try out a load of different colours, which was more time. I kept thinking that the exposure would be worth all of this effort, as the money certainly wasn't.

Unfortunately not. He didn't know what colour to choose, so he put it up for a vote on facebook (before checking with me), and the only mention I got was a tag to my facebook in one of the comments. I don't want people to see my facebook. That gives me absolutely no creative exposure. I asked if next time he posted he could tag my instagram, he said yes and then didn't.  

This is the design he went for in the end. He is doing a run of 25 and selling them for £15 each, thats £375 (not including price of print)

This is why I don't want to work free lance, or for people I know at least. People act like they're doing you a favour but all they're really doing is getting you to work for next to nothing and reaping the benefits.

The only benefit of doing this work has been this realisation. It's also been a good eye opener of what a real commission might be like. At least Ive learnt what to do and what not to do.

I even made an invoice and invoiced someone for the first time ever, which was good experience. I won't think about this negatively anymore, I just need to learn from this and move on.