My experience contracting as led me to a realizations.

Have a paid art test ready. This is good for a number of reasons. Mostly because it shows the artist you are financially serious.
Itemize, in whatever way, on paper exactly how much work is needed to be done for review. https://twitter.com/AmyHarman1/status/1390436020366155776">https://twitter.com/AmyHarman...

Be ready to pay their rate. Every artist charges a different rate based on a plethora of different reasons and circumstances.
If you& #39;re budget is small, plan on only getting the amount of work you can afford done based on their rate.

Speak plainly and up front. A lot of contractors appreciate people being up front about their financial situation especially when working out the terms of your agreement. What they don& #39;t appreciate is their time wasted.

Last one is the hardest but what I& #39;ve found over the years is contractors only do exactly what you pay for. They aren& #39;t paid to care about your project as if it was someone you hired full time. Meaning, they probably are concurrently working on multiple projects simultaneously.

Some of what I& #39;ve said can be interpreted differently or is subjective but it& #39;s entirely based on my own experiences and might not be applicable to what you may or may not experience.