There are several criteria how people rate your paintings. They influence whether or not a person wants to buy your paintings and how much the person is willing to pay.

One thing to keep in mind is that the game cannot "see" what you painted. A sun in the sky is no more than a yellow "field" of paint on a blue background. The game is incapable of interpreting what those fields of color mean, so the subject of your painting doesn't make any difference


The game tracks how many colors you use in a painting and how much adjacent colors contrast.
Some people prefer or hate certain colors, others care about the contrast between adjacent colors.


This counts how many individual "fields" of color there are. If you paint an unicolor background and a dot of a different color in it, you have very low complexity. However, if you use the spray paint, the complexity is much higher, because this tool creates many small fields of paint.


The game tracks how often you start a new line (aka how many brush strokes there are in your painting). The tool you use (brush, spray paint or precision pen) doesn't make any difference to the cound.

It also tracks how slow or fast you move the brush over the canvas. The precision pen always has a very slow velocity.


I don't know how exactly the originality of a painting is calculated, but if you repeat certain patterns in your paintings, customers will get bored.

This is where it's important to keep in mind that the game cannot interpret your painting. A yellow sun in a blue sky can look very similar to a red ball laying in green grass. Even though you painted very different subjects, customers will complain about a lack of originality.

Turning your canvas around slightly increases the originality.


All customers pay more for paintings that took longer to paint. The game measures the time from the first brush stroke to the moment you offer the painting for sale. Doing nothing for 15 minutes can vastly increase the value of your painting.

Some customers (starting in act 2) refuse to buy paintings if you spend too little time on them.

Hipsters are the guys with the baguettes and they only appear in acts 1 and 3.

They will buy any painting that has more than one color. In general they won't pay very high prices and selling to them won't progress the game.

Abour half way through the act you'll receive a message that they won't support you any longer. They refuse to buy any painting after that time and there's nothing you can do about it.

They want quick brush strokes. Just scribble some zigzags or straight lines over the canvas really quickly and they'll like it. The spray paint is also a good choice if you want to sell to them. Never use the precision pen.

They want many strong, bright colors like all primary colors, orange and purple. Create strong contrasts by putting light and dark areas of contrasting colors next to each other. Avoid grey, brown and pastels.

They refuse to buy single color canvases and pay slightly more if you use at least two complementary colors in your painting.

Random lines of bright colors and graffitis work well for them.

They want the typical Bob Ross langscape paintings.

They demand deliberate (slow) brush strokes. You don't need to paint like a snail sliding over the canvas, but you mustn't race the brush over the canvas either.

You need to use at least 4 colors and they prefer natural colors. Those are grey, brown, green, blue and purple tones of any brightness.

Simple landscapes, still lifes or portraits work well for them.

They are a lot like the old guys, just more demanding.

They demand "carefully crafted" paintings, meaning that the brush speed must be quite slow. Use the precision pen or deliberately draw very slowly. You must spend at least 30 seconds on a painting or they refuse to buy it. Apart from filling in the background, you should always set your brush size to small.

They like the same natural colors as the old guys, but want more colors in one painting and have higher expectations towards the originality of your paintings. They won't accept several paintings that are too similar.

Very detailed landscape, still life or portrait paintings work well for them.

They want simple paintings to make a profit. You can get the highest prices in the game by selling to them.

Don't use more than 6 colors and avoid the spray paint or they'll complain that the painting is "too complex". They prefer bright colors like red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple and pink and any shade of grey.

You must paint at least 10 strokes and musn't rush the brush strokes either or they'll complain that it's not "real art".

I found that random big patches of colors in black outlines or grids work well for them.

They can be very hard to please. The paintings mustn't be complex, but they have to stay "original" somehow. I don't know how the game measures "originality", but as soon as you move the brush (paint more than a dot) you risk lowering the originality and people refusing to buy your paintings. Even if you paint 3 paintings with a banana, a square and the outline of a teddy bear, people will complain that it's not original enough.

You must not use more than 5 brush strokes for the entire painting, not use more than 4 colors and never use the spray paint. It's best to set the brush size to medium - big. Each one of them dislikes a certain color (red, brown, yellow or pink) so try to avoid those.

At the same time, you should spend at least 30 seconds on the painting and draw slowly. Using the precision pen slightly increases your chances of selling a painting.

Just putting 3 big dots in 3 different colors onto a white canvas or a random background color works well for them. A combination of wide and narrow stripes also works most of the time, but they start complaining about lack of originality if you don't change the angle of the stripes occasionally.

As the name implies, they like the expressionist art style. The paintings should contain many contrasting colors, so just go wild. Fill the background areas with a big brush, then either add splashes of colors with the spray paint or set the brush to a small size and scribble in many small lines of a different color.

Like punks, they demand quick brush strokes. Don't ever use the precision pen. Just dab short strokes of crazy colors, scribble random lines or spray paint all over the canvas.

You must move the brush (or spray paint) in order to have it count. Placing dots onto the canvas doesn't satisfy the expressionists, you must paint lines.