Advice for an Artist?

[kyeoulsarang.livejournal.com]

Recently someone has been going around to artist gossip/hate blogs and telling everyone that they are one of my commissioners and have either lost contact/been on the receiving end of rude emails/notes from me. They also are stating that they have repeatedly noted/emailed me and asked me for a refund and that I have refused/given excuses/been rude. They are also threatening to create an artists_beware entry on me.

The thing is...I have no such customer.

I can honestly say that I've uploaded WIPs for nearly every customer that is remaining on my list. Five of which that don't have WIPs are either new commissions, or I have otherwise contacted/given WIPs. All notes that I have received regarding a commission have been replied to, not once have I ignored a commissioner. When asked for a WIP or update, I provide, and I make it my business to be as polite as possible and to avoid all conflict if possible.

I'm worried that this person will continue to attack me through these peripheral websites, or worse, photoshop some 'evidence' and cause me to lose existing customers.

What should I do in the case of them fabricating evidence against me? Should I ignore them? Because it seems that the more I ignore them the more they feel they need to escalate things. I keep track of all of my notes on dA and my commission list is public on my front page.

-confused artist

(skip this if you want, my main problem is above)
To be completely honest, this person sounds like an unhappy commissioner I had earlier this year. They asked me to issue them a refund because of the length of time it took for me to complete their commission. They ordered six pieces of art, two of which were completed early as a kind gesture on my part, she was last in the line of eleven commissions, and I knew she'd have to wait a while to get hers.

I spend an average of 12-15 hours or more on each piece of art (if they have detailed backgrounds) and probably 4-5 hours or so if there is no background. This plus full time university plus a DV case means that I can probably spend 3-4 hours on each commission every week.

So if you do the math, 4 hours per week divided 12-15 hours per commission could easily equal 3-4 weeks. Multiply that by the amount of customers ahead of her? You can see where I'm going with this.

Regardless of the wait ahead of her, I sent her two of her six orders, and when asked for an update, I kindly explained to her that she was last in a long line of commissions and that I would get to it as soon as possible. Five months later, I had completed nearly all of the commissions ahead of her when I got a note asking to cancel her commission as she had not received any updates and that she never lets any of her customers wait longer than a week so I should do the same, regardless of the fact that our styles are at two opposite ends of the "time it takes to draw" spectrum. Does that make sense?

tl:dr, I refunded her commission even though I had done all of the lineart and completed two of her commissions. She was still unhappy and proceeded to trash talk me on her page, leaving out the fact that I DID give her WIPS and completed artwork, AND that I refunded her money without question.

Comments

[funkicarus.livejournal.com]

this all sounds like good advice, i'm seconding this.

there's also the off-chance that they've confused you with someone else, or someone is posing as you on another site you're unaware of. i had that happen once. imagine the person's surprise when they discovered their cabin-mate from summer camp was not, in fact, the artist they were contacting (as he had claimed to be!)

[wolf-goat.livejournal.com]

This can happen - you can be mixed up with another artist. I was mistaken for a notorious "serial scammer" artist one time because my username was vaguely similar to one of the several they'd used. Not super close but enough for this one guy to see it and go "hey wait a minute..." (my art style wasn't even remotely close to theirs - but he still sent me an angry note and email!).

It sounds like this person may be crazy, but there is always the chance that they are very mixed up?

[kyeoulsarang.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure they're not confusing me with someone else. My username is pretty unique--and only four letters--with a specific spelling, and they clearly expressed that it was me. :/

[anjel-kitty.livejournal.com]

Second this. It may just be one massive understanding. It may be worth it to go to that person calmly and politely and make sure that they have the right artist.