How to Commission a Custom Pet Portrait (and Why the Bad Ones Are Better)

A custom pet portrait is the single most commissioned thing in online art, and most of them strain to look like a photograph. Which is odd, because you already own photographs. Thousands of them. Your phone is drowning in them.

What follows is a practical guide to ordering one, and a case for deliberately ordering a worse one.

The Case for the Bad Version

A photorealistic portrait of your dog competes directly with your camera roll, and your camera roll wins on accuracy every time. It has more shots, better light, and no deadline.

A drawn one does what a photo can't: it makes choices. It exaggerates the ear that sticks out. It nails the exact expression your dog wears just before it becomes a problem. It records what your dog is like rather than what it looks like, and anyone who has owned an animal knows those are two different things.

The wonkiness is doing the work. A slightly wrong drawing of your cat is recognisably your cat in a way the technically perfect one somehow isn't, because the wrongness is where the personality slipped in.

Also, dogs are funny, and no medium on earth has conveyed that better than a slightly bad drawing.

What It Costs

Artists set their own prices on Getadoodle, so there is no fixed rate. For orientation, across the wider commission market small digital pieces commonly start around $20-50 and climb with size, detail, and the artist's standing. Price tracks how long the work takes more than anything else.

Broad market context:

• Simple, small, digital: often around $20-50
• More detailed digital work: $50-150
• Traditional media, physical, framed: $150 upwards, often well upwards
• Multiple pets, backgrounds, full scenes: add per element

Price mostly tracks time, not talent. A fast, loose drawing from a very good artist can cost less than a slow, careful one from a beginner. You are buying hours, not genius.

How Long It Takes

Usually a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on the artist's queue. On Getadoodle, artists have up to 7 days.

Order at least two weeks before you need it if it is a gift, and say it is a gift when you order. Artists plan around deadlines and most would far rather know than find out.

What Photo to Send

This is where commissions usually go sideways, and it is entirely fixable.

• Eye level, not from above. Most pet photos are shot looking down, which flattens the face into a pancake. Get on the floor. Dignity is temporary.
• Good light, ideally daylight. No flash. Flash erases precisely the detail that makes an animal look like itself.
• Send three or four, not one. A front view, a profile, and one of them doing the thing they do.
• Include something for scale if the shape matters. Very long dogs and very round cats are easy to get wrong.
• Say what makes them them. "One ear flops," "she always looks slightly disappointed," "he is much fatter than that photo suggests." This is the most useful thing you can send and almost nobody sends it.

What to Ask For

Be specific about the subject and loose about the execution. You are paying for someone's eye. Art-direct every line and you get a worse drawing and an unhappier artist.

Worth stating up front: whether you want a background or plain, whether the pet has died (artists handle this with care and would rather know), whether it is a surprise gift, and what you will do with it. A phone wallpaper and a framed A3 print need different files.

What the Artist Keeps

On Getadoodle the artist keeps 75% of what you pay. Worth knowing wherever you commission: platform cuts vary wildly, and a low headline price with a fat cut can pay the artist less than a higher one. Read the cut, not just the sticker.

Then Print It

A digital file rotting in a folder isn't really the gift. Print it, frame it, put it somewhere a human will see it.

Print on the heaviest paper your printer takes, or use a print shop for anything larger than A4. Use a frame bigger than the image and let the mount do the work. A generous border makes almost anything look intentional. framed doodles post

Frequently Asked Questions