Diggla, Commissions, and a note about Cons

[space-mutt.livejournal.com]

Alright, I really did not want to post this, but it's been escalated to that point. While attending FWA just the other weekend, I accepted a ton of conbadge commissions as is the usual. One of the badges was for a guy named Diggla on Friday. Now, I'd been downright ill from the very begining of the con, but tried to push through it. Early Friday afternoon, I gave up and retreated from the Artist Alley. We returned the hotel room to work on these in peace, finished 20 outta the 24 accepted. There were several reasons for these last three not being finished - not only was I feeling nasty, we'd run outta laminate and clips too. No worries, I've taken badges home to finish before without issue. Went ahead and passed out my contact info to the folks who's badges weren't finished and relaxed the rest of the weekend.

I come home to find a shout on my FA page about the one for Diggla. I respond, lettin em know everything's fine. Real-life happens, I'm still trying to get over this con crud, I start a new job, etc... honestly, checking FurAffinity messages is not really a top priority for me, and I'll be the first to admit it. A couple of days go by, and someone sends me a link to the FWA LJ community. I find out Diggla's 'looking for me' with the assumption that I've taken his money and run. Now, it's been a week, tops. I gave this guy my info in a heartbeat, no issue. He makes the accusation that I 'avoided him all weekend' and that since he provided the money 'upfront, there's no incentive to finish the badge'. Right... First, I ask that everyone provides payment upfront, that's standard procedure and always has been. We argue back and fourth a bit, I log into my FA page and realize that he's made three shouts on my mainpage and Noted me twice within this week. This really seems like overkill. He tells me that being sick is no excuse for not finishing his badge. A week is 'too long to wait for a commission'. Right. I'm done arguing, done having my name dragged through the mud. Unfortunetly, the badge has already been sent out, I'd much rather have just given this guy his $15 back.

What I've learned from this is that if you intend to do business with Diggla in the future, you best well have that badge done when he says so. Forget your real-life priorities, his should be #1 on your list.

This little encounter has made me realize how much customers expect from artists at cons. I've been doing artwork for furries for six years now, and it seems that more and more people assume we can go all weekend without breaks for eating, sleeping or relaxing. It's very disappointing, and makes me very apprehensive about continuing to take commissions at cons in the future.

Comments

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

What a tool.

Don't let this scare you off, most people really are reasonable. You just can't please some folks! But most of us know that it does take time. I'm waiting on a badge from FC still, and I'm not too fussed, I know I'll get it eventually and it'll be worth the wait, and the artist hasn't just up and vanished, she's let me know she's working on it. A week is ridiculously fast, honestly! Even without being sick!

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

This is the kind of thing that really really makes me apprehensive of attending any fur-con in the attempt to do business. I'd rather sit in my hidey-hole the more horror/war-stories I see and read.

[avanyu.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[badkitty.livejournal.com]

sorry, but i always take payment upfront. i've been jipped before.
any seriously, do some people think artists are machines??
i know i can't crank out 50 high quality pieces of art (badge size even) in a day.. let alone a weekend.
sheeesh!

[allykat.livejournal.com]

I thought about putting 'Trained Art Monkeys' in instead of boot scrapings, but I was pushing the envelope of legibility as it is.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Nice graph! :P

[hellebore.livejournal.com]

hahha

[banrai.livejournal.com]

Man, I saw that post on the FWA community and just blanched at it for a bit. That was the point that I made a personal note to never do business with that person.

[johnthornbush.livejournal.com]

Sadly, people get really edgy - way too many artists do just flake out, and take the money. It doesn't justify this guy being a tool though. If your communicating and being honest, then he has no reason to be Mr. McNasty.

It's not to say that you do - as I've never had the privledge to work with you. It's something that's been happening for a while, and needs to be nipped before it kills the fandom.

[completly-naked.livejournal.com]

thank you. You just gave me hope for this world.

[completly-naked.livejournal.com]

Hi, im the tool! *waves* I will make this easy, putting it into a list.

1) I commissioned the badge on Friday around noon. I was told by the artist that it would be done in two hours.

2) I was very patient all weekend, talked politely, and understood every issue the artist came up with.

3) I was never once told the artist was sick, it was a list of other reasons, like laminate, i'm working on it, its done, its in my room, etc.

4) I did leave three shouts on the page, one was like, hey you did a badge for me but i never got. the messages consisted of, heres my addy you asked for, can you post a scan. I never got any more response, so I started asking if I was getting a response.

5) I was polite, maybe anooyed, but polite. I was attacked out of the blue by the artist. It seems I was out of line for expecting my badge done by the time she said it would be.

6) I was not nasty until I was confronted with this. If she could complete 24 badges over the weekend, what happened to mine? I commissioned it early during the con. The biggest issue here was the utter lack of communication.

7) The artist never gave me any contact info on her, whatsoever, I had to google her name once I got home. She had plenty of chances to give me that info, jsut never did.

8) so can anyone answer why I am the tool, asshole. All I wanted was a badge, if it couldn't be done, fine let me know, refund my money, I would have understood completely. Now thanks to her, I have been smeared, trash talked, etc.

9) One final point, still no badge, I check my mail daily, and its been a week and a half, and the first real communication was the attack job I got yesterday.

So please feel free to hate me, not do business with me, fine, more money for me, less for you. But at least think there are two sides to every story. I invite anyone to read the LJ post I made, read her FA account, see what I posted.


-Diggla

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Quite frankly while I agree the artist could have done a little more to inform you of the progress, some of your messages have been harassing, demanding and quite frankly in poor taste.

Things happen, things go wrong, people get sick. A deadline is rarely iron tight, most artists will try to stick to them but sometimes things get in the way.

Furthermore not everyone checks their page every day, learn to give it more time before asking an artist in what could be considered an accusatory manner if they're "going to respond to your messages".

Your post in FWA wouldn't exactly thrill many artists, the comments afterwards were especially accusatory. Also you should count more carefully, it was three messages not two on the front of the artists page.

As far as I'm concerned this is six of one and half a dozen of the other, the artist could have done things a little better but your response isn't exactly A grade material either.

[leswamp.livejournal.com]

Just to provide an alternative perspective, some artists at cons accept waaaay more work than they can actually do. I've seen folks accept way more work than they should and then spend half the con working on thier own doodles to boot. It all depends on the artist. I've had bad experiences.

It does sound as if your customer was shall we say, a bit high strung, but maybe at future cons you should cap yourself at a certain number and warn people that the work may have to wait til after the con. That way if they can't handle the wait, you both know.

Sorry for your bad experience. :)

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

While I don't side with your customer, I do think you shouldn't have assumed you would get better within a day and I do think you should have maybe made more of an effort to inform waiting customers of your illness.

I'd suggest in future making sure you take their details and ensuring they've got yours so you don't have such issues crop in event of things interfering with your stated deadline.

[space-mutt.livejournal.com]

In retrospect, yeah, I'll agree to that. I'm not very 'open' with customers when it comes to stuff like illness, and had I anticipated that it woulda gotten this outta hand, it woulda been made known earlier.

so I am not hiding aynthing...

[completly-naked.livejournal.com]

http://community.livejournal.com/furryweekend/188867.html

This is the link to the "harassing, and mud name dragging" post I made...

Please not, her sarcasm, and mocking in her response.

Re: so I am not hiding aynthing...

[anjel-kitty.livejournal.com]

I know you are trying to clear your name here, but really this doesn't really help your case. I too ordered a badge from Space_mutt at the con that was not finished, and I have yet to get it either and I emailed her about a week ago. I am not going to sweat it though because I know if I am patient, she will get it to me, because she doesn't have a record of fucking over customers. If you could have showed just a little more patience and kept correspondence with her personal and to yourself, this would have not gotten blow out of proportion like it did.

If this is how you behave when your badge is simply 2 weeks late after most of the artists from this con all came down with the flu (being one of them, I know) than people here are not going to want your business, because we'd rather loose out on the money than deal with it.

Edited to fix typos

[runcoyoterun.livejournal.com]

if/when i attend a con, i plan on telling customers that their pieces may NOT be done at the con. this may be a help in the future for you too since believe me, i know stuff comes up.

good luck.

[space-mutt.livejournal.com]

Oh trust me, that's certainly how it will be from now on.

[anjel-kitty.livejournal.com]

I think everyone got sick at FWA. I'm lucky that I didn't get any of these because I ended up bringing home a lot of badges.

I'll be on the look out for this guy in the furture.

[rainbow-roo.livejournal.com]

I've waited for up to a year for badge commissions before.

A week? Come on man.

I mean..come on.

Sheesh.

[completly-naked.livejournal.com]

....not that anyone even listens at this point...but its much more than that....

[maroh.livejournal.com]

A week is nothing. His actions were not justified.

I agree that things could've been done better on both sides, but I'm especially sorry to you for having to deal with so much of his grief. Life happens to artists too, and if he doesn't realize that, then he's not worth the time.

Anyone who doesn't want to deal with an impatient and perhaps dramatic client should not work with Diggla. He's done a good job of making that clear to everyone here.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

What I think you are missing is that most people wouldn't have responded the way he has done within days, he's been downright accusatory and unpleasant over a delay of next to nothing.

He's impatient, it's one thing to wait a week and then ask if someone's been around but he messaged the artist repeatedly within that week then was like "zomg they've run off with my money".

I have waited months for a new kitchen to be fitted, they lost my plans twice, gave me excuse after excuse, you however do not see me doing what the commissioner here is doing, because of that when I complained, I got taken seriously.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Not often the subject of the post comes in to emphasize how pushy, rude and self-centered he is.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Don't you just love it when they come in to "defend" themselves and just end up proving that they're not someone anyone wants to do business with anyway? :P

[andre-rabbit.livejournal.com]

For all you people who are saying that two weeks is nothing. How long of a wait IS acceptable after being told of a two hour time frame?

As stated before, he was 13th in a line of 24. It's not like he was one of the last people to pay for a badge or anything, he was nearly within the first half, and still his badge was not done. I know personally it'd make me a little nervous if I were waiting for a badge to be done, while seeing other people pay for and get their badges after I did.

In retail I've had people try to PUNCH me over less than that.

I think that if she was sick at the con, which by now we know that damn near everyone was sick, she could have made more of an attempt to at least let people who had already paid for work know. She could have been more active in getting her contact info out, she could have done a lot of things to avoid this kind of situation, but she didn't.

Instead she made it seem as though she was trying to take his money, even if she wasn't, she made it seem that way.

I think that Diggla was fully justified in feeling concerned, and then a bit annoyed after not getting any response.

[frazzled-niya.livejournal.com]

Sounds like things have just become bigger then Ben-Hur! ~_~

[andre-rabbit.livejournal.com]

And Ben-Hur was HUGE.

Srsly, what shouldn't have been that big of a deal got huge because one person wouldn't talk to another person. It's like they're freakin married or something.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

What I've learned from this is that if you intend to do business with Diggla in the future, you best well have that badge done when you say it will be done. Or else actually go and tell him why it's not and actually try to obey those stated deadlines too.

Fixed.

[chapperice.livejournal.com]

Eesh, reading all this makes me feel bad I take about a week to do an icon o.o (I'm very very slow because if I don't take my time, it comes out really messy D: )