I'm sure if somebody is looking to represent people born with no eyes, in their marketing... then you'll be their first port of call! They do look really good though!

Very beautiful. Since you asked about commercial value, I'd say it is beautiful but low commercial value. Think about it, just how often is a buyer looking for someone folding laundry, versus, an illustration about 'small business'. Maybe you can draw a row of people in different occupation in your illustration style. That I think would be more commonly searched. My 2 cents.

I'd say it has commercial value. Two black people doing laundry - could be used for laundry/cleaning commercials/flyers/etc, race related material (i.e., black families, events, etc - as a stretch - the guy 'could' look a bit east indian), family event flyers, looks like it could either be a husband/wife, or father/daughter (because of the grey hair), could be for a sports team because of the jersey and white soccer socks (although it looks like he is into football, and she into soccer), could be for afro day, could be unpacking boxes, etc, etc...

you don't 'necessarily' need to have eyes, because it is 'stylistic' - although that is one of the things I did notice (woman not so much, because her hair 'could' be covering them, whereas the guy was more noticeable)...

so yes, lots of commercial value...

It's a nice illustration but its concept is a bit unclear to me. Are they folding laundry (then why are they sitting crosslegged), are they unpacking boxes from moving to another place, are they just checking clothes they received from charity...Perhaps that's why it could be used for different things... On the other hand, the combination of things depicted (looking at the people, what they're doing and in what position) is kind of specific, so I wouldn't expect too many downloads.

Thanks for all the replies. There's a lot of food for thought here. I guess where I'm having the most trouble is in thinking like a buyer without creating the thousandth version of the same illustrations already available. Am I overly concerned about market saturation?

I started out selling stock art to the individual buyer--social media, blogs, etc. But I recognize the big agencies like Adobe and Shutterstock have different clientele and I don't quite have a handle on their needs. Aside from looking at top sellers, how can I learn more about how businesses/industries choose and use stock art especially on these subscription models? Much of what I've read is out of date and emphasize selling decorative sets.

Thanks again--and I'll certainly take the eyes thing into consideration!

I think you should do beautiful illustrated concepts that the maximum of people might be interested in, not beautiful illustrated concepts that only a few random people might be interested in. AFAIK, the number category is business. You should do business illustrations.

I upload the same type of photos over and over again, year after year, over a decade now. I sell tons of this stuff. If this stuff didn't sell day in and day out, year after year, I would stop.

The fact that people thought folding laundry moving new home packing unpacking new baby donating charity means that there are quite a few concepts you can keyword this for. Very nice illustration it looks authentic not so �stocky� which is good. The lack of eyes might make your style noticeable or it might hurt depends on the buyer. Only way to know is to get it online. Think about other activities. Maybe try some in this style with eyes compare how they sell. But really nicely done and there�s a market for moving new home new baby etc. even if it�s not as large as the very saturated business concepts. And you could put them at desks, in business meetings too but I like this more outside the box. Hiking, jogging so many things. Good luck.

Quote from: charged on June 09, 2019, 18:00

I upload the same type of photos over and over again, year after year, over a decade now. I sell tons of this stuff. If this stuff didn't sell day in and day out, year after year, I would stop.

Fascinating. How do you find fresh ways of covering the same subjects?

Lots of great ideas here in the thread. I hadn't even thought of using some of those keywords. I'll definitely try to compare sales of illustrations with and without eyes. And overall I'm getting that I need to keep my portfolio balanced, with both uniqueness and salebility in mind.

Also thanks a lot for the complements on style quality. I worked really hard on it without many people to get feedback from, so it's helpful to know I'm at least on the right track.

Different models doing the same poses. There is only so many poses that people actually buy, so then the next thing to do is to change models. For you with illustrations, it might be changing out background colors, mixing and matching elements from different illustrations you�ve already done, so then you are recycling some of your past work. Also you can change skin color, sometimes a customer is looking for a dark skin person and sometimes a light skin person, sometimes long hair, sometimes short.