By News Bot, on March 19th, 2010 in Art of Business | 
Klok week view
When doing work on commission or for later resale it is import to know how much time you have in the project. Knowing how much time you spend working on different aspects of your work will allow to better price your work. Klok is an advance time tracking program that uses the Adobe Air platform. You can set up a project in Klok for each commission you have, allowing you to keep tabs of your time for each separately. Klok also allows you to set up sub projects under each project, which is great for commissions that require multiple phases. For example if you a client commissions you to re-sculpt portions of a model and paint, you can set up sub projects for, re-sculpting/repositioning work, prepping, and finish work.
To keep your time in Klok you can add blocks of time after you have completed working for the day or you can use Klok’s built-in time that works like stop watch so you can start and stop time as you are working.
If you have another method of keeping track of time let us know in the comments.
By chance, on December 28th, 2009 in Art of Business | Everyone who is in the model horse hobby has to deal with shipping at one point or another. Whether you are a collector, artist, or dealer it is nearly impossible to do all of your business locally. So we have put together of 5 shipping tools that you might not have heard of that will simplify your shipping process.
Continue reading Five shipping tools to make your life easier
By News Bot, on October 16th, 2009 in Art of Business | 
Don't let frustration get the best of you.
Smashing Magazine has posted a very good article that breaks down clients into eight different types giving keys and statements to identify each type of client. The article goes onto suggest how to better handle each of them.
The different types listed in the article includes:
- The Passive-Aggressive
- The Family Friend
- The Under-Valuer
- The Nit-Picker
- The Scornful Saver
- The “I-Could-Do-This-Myself”-er
- The Control Freak
- The Dream Client
Being able to identify the type of client you are dealing with will prepare you for the job ahead. It will also help you decide whether to accept the job in the first place. Your contract will reflect the power dynamics of the project, so the more you know about the client, the better able you will be to adjust the contract as necessary.
While Smashing magazine is a web/ graphic design related blog many of these pointers can save you from frustration with your clients when they commission work from you.
Read this article on Smashing Magazine
