yessiree! Artist here, so first of all, thank you for considering commissioning an artist! That’s always nice to see. Anyway, here’s my 2 cents on what I look for from commissioners, and what you should be looking for from artists:

Short version:

Know roughly what you want, find an artist in your budget who’s open to commissions (and who has an art style you think will fit), then give them the references they need to draw your fursona.

The best places to find artists are Furaffinity, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Tumblr. There’s also iitaku and e621 if you’re OK with NSFW.

Long-winded, ADHD-took-over, rambly and run-on-sentences version:

First of all, you should have at least a vague idea of what you’re looking for. Here, in the case of “a first image for a fursona”, do you want an illustration of your sona doing something, or do you want a reference sheet? Personally, since it’s the first image of your fursona, I would recommend going for a ref sheet; this will facilitate future drawings (also not all artists will want to do the design work of drawing a character basically from scratch).

Once you’ve decided that, it will be easier to look for artists. Ideally, you want to find an artist that has a track record of drawing something similar to what you want; for example, if your fursona is fat, you might might want to look for artists know for having drawn fat characters. If your fursona is a bird, you might want to look for artists who have drawn birds before. That kinda thing.

As to where to look for artists, you have many choices; deviantArt used to be The place, but nowadays it would mostly be Furaffinity and Bluesky (with some on Mastodon and Tumblr). You can also browse art pieces by tags on e926, the SFW version of e621; the tag for ref sheets is “model_sheet”. Though if you’re OK with NSFW, then iitaku (and of course e621) are also very good places to look; on that note, SFW artists will not always do NSFW art, but NSFW artists will usually accept to do both (I know I do). Artists will (generally) advertise if they’re open for commissions in their bio, pinned post, or directly in their handle. If you’re unsure, you can just DM them to ask! Most artists also advertise their prices, so you can filter out the ones that would be out of your budget.

And finally, once you’ve found an artist that you want to commission, they will need references. Is your fursona a great plains coyote? Or perhaps a hybrid between a red fox and a gold-crested mackerel? In that case, you should pick photos or art pieces of the elements that you want the artist to incorporate in the art piece. Written descriptions can also work in a pinch. If you’re a bit unsure about the design of your fursona, don’t hesitate to let the artist know beforehand, so you two can exchange early on design decisions. Finally, if you’re going for an illustration instead of a ref sheet, the artist will love you if you give them a crude sketch of what pose you have in mind. Literally open MS Paint and put down what you want the artist to draw, as simple as possible. Go full stickman. It will look like the art of a 5-years old who’s picked up a crayon for the first time and believe me, that artist will hang it on the family fridge all the same.

Mind, I said a lot of “you should” and whatnot, but all of this is just so you can be as prepared as possible. If you don’t know what you want for some elements in there, that’s also OK and something you should discuss with the artist. Also, don’t hesitate to let them know that it’s your first time commissioning; when I have first-time commissioners, I usually ask them that, that way I know how much of the process I need to explain.

And that about covers most of it, I think! I understand if this was A Lot, but hopefully this helps you, and please don’t hesitate to ask questions!

honestly, all you gotta do is find an artist you like and see if they are open for commissions. there are tons of smaller artists who don’t have big queues! i’d say check around the furry scene on Bluesky and don’t be shy sending a DM if they’re accepting requests. let them know you are new and tell them up front you’re looking for someone who is able to help assist them more than the average client. they’ll decide if they wanna do that for you or not. that’s basically what i did and it went well.

When I got my first one done, I got a simple reference sheet. I gave the artist a bunch of random images from Google, and the colors I picked out for my character. I would start with that, then branch out to other things like stickers, badge, or other artwork.