Re: The Knight analogy

["darkin" <christian@darkin.demon.co.uk>]

hi
To put this all in the starkest of terms:

When someone hires an artist, they pay for the time it takes to draw the 
picture.  Any work the artist has done in developing their style or 
understanding their subject in the past might be taken into account in their 
fee if they have a reputation, but there's rarely any fee for research.

If you want to be paid for research, try looking for a research grant.  If 
the work you do is as important and valuable as everyone on this list agrees 
it is you should have a good chance of getting one.

That way, you'll be freed from the need to restrict the use of your 
restorations, and you'll be free to charge as a scientist for the research 
work and separately as an artist when you're commissioned to create an 
artwork instead of becoming frustrated by the difficulties of trying to use 
an art budget to do a science job.

If you can get artistic commissions but not scientific funding then accept 
that you're a professional artist and an amateur scientific researcher.  if 
you can get scientific funding but struggle to get creative commissions then 
you're a scientist who does art in his spare time (neither of these are bad 
things to be!).  If you can get both types of funding then you're a truly 
exceptional tallent (as many here accept that you are) and you deserve both 
strands of your vocation to be paid for.

Isn't that the sensible way to proceed - rather than attempting to wring 
research money that doesn't exist out of illustration budgets?

Christian