Purchasing Koi Illustration(s)

I'm buying illustrations of koi fish for my gf's birthday coming up. The deadline is this saturday, so you must be able to finish before that time.

I am looking specifically for traditional coloured pencils, but if your skills impress me I'll be more than happy with your medium of choice.

I'd like the fish in the shape of the golden mean. The focus of the piece should be the fish, it should be golden if coloured (grayscale is fine though), and the tails and fins should be longer like this type of flying fish. Feel free to add a little creative freedom and make it more fantasy like (or not if you don't wanna XD). A background is not required, but if you want to add one I'd prefer it swimming downstream. Please post a link to your portfolio and a price quote for this piece.

This could be fun. I'd be interested but I prefer to work digitally now a days. my portfolio

And price I always base on who I'm doing it for, how much they can afford type deal.

Please don't take offense, but I really prefer to work with people who price their own work. What I can afford is not a concern because if I don't have enough cash on hand for an artist that I want to hire, then I will save up for it and commission them later. I find that people who keep a firm pricing for their art are generally more professional, efficient, and produce work that I'm happy with about 85% of the time. When I've work with people who don't have a firm pricing there's a much higher chance that they will never complete the artwork, produce much less quality work, have poor communication, misinterpret my needs, and in general I'm just much less satisfied with the final product. I have a bad experience with those artists about 60% of the time.

Now I know that you're not any of these things, but I've bought a lot of artwork over the years and I've established certain rules of thumb that I don't break. Working with artists who give quotes is one of these; it just makes my life easier. I respect that some artists prefer not to post their quotes publicly, in which case you're welcome to note me. If you have troubles pricing your own work I wrote an article on pricing a couple years back that may help. Some of the information is a bit dated, but the principles are generally the same. If you're having troubles giving me a quote because you don't know enough details concerning the piece feel free to ask for more information. I always try to make my jobs worth the artist's time and if more information helps you give a more accurate quote then it is better for everyone.

Please don't be discouraged. I know a lot of the students here don't have much experience with freelancing and I'm posting this for their benefit as well. My comments are not a reflection on you. I hope you understand why I prefer to work this way.

I get where you are coming from. I've just had so many people tell me they can't afford what I charge so then I end up doing no commissions at all. So I stopped giving out prices and just worked with my clients. *shrugs*