artists_beware | Beware: Starfinder/Kannos

WHO: Kannos, Starfinder, Astray, etc.

WHERE: https://www.weasyl.com/~kannos, https://inkbunny.net/Kannos, although this commission was not initiated in either of those places.

WHAT: An extensive traditional painting with full background of a tribal wolf character in a forest/jungle by a waterfall.

WHEN: July of 2005. That is not a typo. 2005. A brief timeline follows.

Commission initiated in 2005. Had found Starfinder's work online, really liked it, decided I'd commission her. This was my first real commission attempt in the fandom, back when I was apparently a bit too trusting. Agreed on large traditional piece, full background, agreed upon price of $900.

Initial payment of $450 paid on July 15, 2005.

Soon thereafter, Starfinder expressed concern that she had a car insurance expense. Since, at that point, the commission had been going well, along with her stating that it would be done very soon (in a matter of a week or two), I decided to be kind and help out, giving her the remaining amount due of $450 in the assumption I would not have long to wait. And I guess that was my mistake; now that she had her money, she had no reason to ever finish the piece.

Image of the paypal (thanks to Starfinder, actually - she sent this to me because, in the AB post from May regarding the petition to get her back on FA I had finally come out and mentioned my commission experience with her, and she didn't care for me saying 'almost $1000' therein). http://imgur.com/IuxYuPN

Communication continued, for a while... I would ping her regularly on IM and email, she would respond with the 'really soon', or comment about the reasons she hadn't had chance yet. It became harder and harder to get in touch with her over time, and eventually she stopped responding altogether. I continued to ping, as the years went by, every 6 months or so.

Now the AB post in May of 2013 came about (http://artists-beware.livejournal.com/679851.html). Finally I decided to say something. I hadn't posted before, because of the (foolish) hope that maybe she'd come round and my associated fear that if I posted something she'd take offense and I'd lose that 1% chance of ever getting my piece. Please feel free to read that AB post and see my (much abridged) story there. Any proof required of the existence and acknowledgement of this particular commission is contained within Starfinder's own responses there.

Starfinder says she will make good on it. Of course, it's not going to be what I originally wanted - she doesn't want to do traditional any more. But at this point, I figured anything would be better than nothing.

And then the Starfinder Past-Due Shout-Out (http://artists-beware.livejournal.com/679971.html). Further acknowledgement, and she actually started doing preliminary sketches. Perhaps something would finally come of this!

And.... no. I immediately offered feedback on said sketches, was communicating via email with her, and then... silence. It seems to coincide with the failure of the petition to get her back on FA. I have sent emails asking for just a response, but have gotten nothing. The last email I received from her was Oct 5, 2013. I have sent successive ones since, but nothing.

EXPLAIN: Most of it's up there in 'WHEN'. All I can say is, this has caused me a LOT of grief and heartache over the years. I would have been happier throwing that money in a fire, because then at least it was over and done with, rather than being strung along for so many years, coupled with the feeling of being scammed. I have been completely polite and courteous throughout the ENTIRE situation, and bent over backwards to accommodate all her crises and excuses. I'm thoroughly fed up. This was my first commission attempt, and soured me on the whole thing for several years afterwards. For those who know me and my character, I get a lot of art done these days, and usually from really awesome artists. And I'm happy that I finally was able to make the attempt at commissioning again. Thank you to ALL those other artists who made the commissioning process a wonderful one; you've made me a happier Utunu, and I made it so I did not completely lose my faith in the process. :)
Please feel free, in the comments, if any of you would like me to speak further on any aspects of this rather sordid tale. :) I'd be happy to answer. Right now, what I really want? I want a refund. I wanted traditional, she doesn't want to do that. And you know what? Anything I did get, after almost 9 years, would feel tainted anyhow. I had better sign off here, before I start ranting too much. :)
And mods, please let me know if you need anything further for this AB post. I haven't done this before, so hopefully this is sufficient.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The reward fulfillment is where she has real potential to disappoint. She has a notoriously terrible track record of completing fully paid commissions, in the..what..10+ years I've observed her doing business through the internet and with how many people she's scammed, nothing suggests that she'd actually complete a discounted one or any make-goods or freebies she's promising. Where's the motivation? It's Scooby Snack rules: Money now in the hopes that MAYBE she'll do something later? With a loose verbal contract and a terrible history? Sure she'll get paid per image, but the tiers people signed up for for their rewards are completely on the good will this person has not demonstrated unless it was under duress and extreme negative pressure from our artistic community.

This makes me genuinely upset. I just set up my Patreon the other day with a similar model and have encouraged other non-comic artists to do the same to share our head-worlds and ideas with our audiences without too much financial sacrifice (since most of my experience with it has just been comics), and so far it's been going pretty well and I'm genuinely excited to give back to my fans as thanks for buying me some freedom. But then I see a scam artist like this using it as just ANOTHER avenue to further shirk her responsibilities and potentially scam other people, and it just lessens the excitement knowing there's dishonest people using the same platform. I wish there was a more effective way to tell people they should check the tags here before they hand any money over to any artist in this community to know what they're getting into. Buyer beware!

Beware: Starfinder/Kannos

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