Back in October 2020, Japan’s largest online artwork community, Pixiv, rolled out a request system to its users. As its name implies, this functionality allows any artist on the service to begin accepting paid requests from the community, and should they like a concept, accept it, and produce it within a 60-day deadline. To date, more than 8,000 requests have been sent by clients to artists on Pixiv.
With this being a brand new concept introduced onto a pre-existing website, it felt like what we received at first was more a beta test of things to come. Fortunately, as the weeks and months have progressed, while there are still some “coming soon” notices included where desirable features are noted, the website’s developers have continued to update the Requests System.
New updates have been rolled out to the service in recent days, billed as a ‘Major Update’ rather than the monthly updates rolled out previously.
This update brings a significant overhaul to the Requests Portal which was the hub of many “Coming Soon” notices. While it is still difficult to discover new artists within specific niches and genre styles, it makes it significantly easier to find artists you already follow who are taking requests. In my mind, picturing an ideal world, allowing artists to present tagged request briefs which can be searched, would make discovery of the perfect artist much easier.
Coinciding with this update, the 3.99% commission promotion for artists has been extended until 12 January 2021 – at which time the cut taken by Pixiv will increase to 10%.
[Source: Pixiv Website]
You can read my review of Pixiv’s Request System by clicking here
