I will be honest, seeing this sketch he did, on some level bums me out. I understand about topps being sticky with the rules of how , what, why etc. when it comes to sketch's...AND I UNDERSTAND that artists are only getting paid 1.50 in some cases per sketch card...BUT, if you notice, on the CUSTOM commission sketch's all artists are doing and ebaying, they are all amazing works of art...and whats harsh, is that a lot of time, the artists who are doing these amazing works for themselves, are the artists who (to be brutally honest) you are praying NOT TO pull when you plunk down 70 dollars (or more) for a box.
They get the point that better is what people want, because they are doing the best jobs of their lives for the commission sales. Thats great! i TOTALLY support that. You DO NEED to look out for number one. BUT, by that same token, it almost shows a type of disrespect to the fans who put the hard earned money into the product, to pull a sketch that took literally 20 secs to complete, and almost as long to sign their name to it. Then , to top it off, most of the artists who did this incredibly simple, churned out (honestly) horrid sketch's, signed them in INK in many cases...because they didn't want em getting erased (which on a side note,to me seems selfish and admitting of guilt , that you know no one wants to see most of those sketch's, so you make it so they cant become someones DREAM commission card down the road). You can tell thats a deliberate act, because in the past they never signed em in ink (hence some amazing worthwhile Star wars sketch's, lol).
I guess what this gets down to, is have a little respect for the fans. If you know the artwork your producing, isn't very good and you are capable of producing WAY better material...then...DONT. Don't take 1000 sketch orders. if you can only do say 500 that look good and worth having, then just do that. I'm not saying each one has to be an actual work of art (god forbid), but guys, don't turn out any more of these sketch's that took longer to SIGN then to draw. AND, if you cant find it in yourself to do that, then please don't sign em in ink to make sure no one ELSE ever does something worthwhile on the sketch card (BTW, ink can be removed very easily without damaging a card. Its a moot point to try and stop that practice by ink signing).
p.s. Every artist got paid different amounts per sketch. I would have to imagine quality was a MAJOR deciding factor in that...probably hurts you in the long run anyway PAY wise to take the 1000 sketch orders, when you see what most artists come out with after 1000 Sketch's (with the possible exception of Hodges, who's work was kinda interesting even at that high printrun).
Oh well, lets get our hate on.
