Crystal-For-Ever

[novathefox13.livejournal.com]

This post is to show my proof that the artist Crystal-For-Ever is very bad about responding and communication when it comes to commissions. I was hesitant to post this to begin with but after seeing another post on her as well as hearing from others who have issues, I only find it fair to warn people what to expect if they commission her.



Where: Alias Crystal-for-ever is used on tumblr, furaffinity, deviantart, and weasyl, with the crystalforever alias used on sofurry.

What: The picture purchased was a digital artwork piece, paid for in two payments sent by two separate people. Both payments (two payments of $40, ending in a total of $80) were sent on the same day, which is shown in the image below.
When: The payment was sent April 23rd 2014, and the image was finished and sent on September 20th, 2014.

Proof: Every note between myself and Crystal between the payment and received date are listed below, minus one note, where she simply asked for my email to send the completed image to.
Explain:

The commission was placed on April 23rd, 2014, for a total payment of $80. Crystal offers it as a "wing it" style, which means you provide the references for the characters, and an idea of a pose you like, and she makes the final call, no previews, and no changes after. I wont go to extreme detail as most of the content is in the notes themselves, but it all boils down to communication. I noted her multiple times simply asking where I sat in her queue, and every time I received the same response "yours is coming up"
When she began posting a large amount of personal artwork, I noted her again, getting a little frustrated I had payed such an amount for my piece and had seen nothing yet. Again the same response. Not long after she explained the delays, I noted her again, just asking if mine had been started, and as it can be seen, she says she has a sketch done. As time wears on and I hear nothing, I note her, she reads it and dosent respond. I post a shout to her page and she almost immediately deletes it and sends me a response note asking me to keep this in the notes area. I did as she asked, and after some more prying, she claims to not only have never had a sketch, but lost all my information as well. There are a few rude comments tossed in, telling me not to commission her anymore and the like, but my main goal of this post is to steer people away from her. She is not good with communication, refuses to answer questions, and seems to only find something urgent if you try and make something public.
The commission was completed, and, as compared to the references located in the links below, the image is completely wrong, both characters have qualities that do not match the reference at all, and the pose is nothing close to the one we had ask for, it seems quite obvious she put a half effort into the image.
With that, I would like to advise any of you to STAY AWAY from Crystal-For-Ever, while her art style is unique and done quite well, she dosent see to understand what it takes to act like a professional when it comes to artwork.
*On one side note, myself and the other commissioner had sent her at least 4 reference images in the original note, but I have no access to this note because it was sent by the other commissioner. However as stated above, she claims to have lost all my previous information not long before our image was completed, so I will provide at the bottom, a link to the an image that has the same general pose that satel and I had originally asked for*

(NSFW) Pose Ref:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14473507/
(NSFW)

(NSFW)
Final Image(s):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0wlzgj9rp66682e/AADiWNF7h1SrFAspxO-I4ZzCa?dl=0 (NSFW)

(NSFW)
Satel And My Own References: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rgbaian5aox5hf6/AAAOvBKI-6oVxuStTQyW2HfTa?dl=0 (NSFW)

Comments

[celestinaketzia.livejournal.com]

Just a note to members: You may have to "view image" to get the images to go full size. They looked fine in the mod queue. (Thanks, LJ!)

[teekchan.livejournal.com]

The poses is nothing like the pose ref provided, even leaving room for tweaks to not be an exact copy.

Considering the error is on her part, the image should be fixed.

[whoop-zi.livejournal.com]

yeah, i'm having a hard time even figuring out what's going on in that picture tbh

[mistresswolf.livejournal.com]

Same here. I can't tell what is really going on either.

[amocin.livejournal.com]

Wow, so much is wrong with this on so many levels.. Just the art part.. I had a hard time figuring out which char was which because she made them look too much alike... The parts that make them unique from each other kinda got tossed aside.. and the ref for what you wanted it to be like was just completely forgotten, like.. you wanted some 'sword fighting' going on there, and what you got is a blocked view of whats going on.. I am so sorry you had such a rough time with this.

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

She is so adamantly against even hinting at what her queue is like that I really wonder how long it would be if she ever posted it. Can`t remember if it was here or a different community but someone suggested FA make it mandatory for commission artists to make their queue known and I really have to say I agree. I guess FA would prefer to stay as hands-off as they can in matters like these though.

(frozen)

[sableantelope.livejournal.com]

That was me. I honestly think it would be a pretty easy thing for them to enforce. If no queue listed you suspend the account for two weeks, give them a chance to put one together. If they don't post it within 48 hours of their account being reenabled they're banned. This is only for folks consistently selling art and taking commissions on FA.

If an artist/crafter doesn't want to post a public queue then they are not allowed to sell anything through FA, no auctions links to other sites, no running YHC, no commission info on their profile, simple as that.

I know there was some concern voiced on that posting about people on the queue being harrassed, so the simple fix for that is that the queue is anonymous. No user names. Just a numbered list and possibly a vague description of the item purchased(so potential customers know if they would be behind ten full colour pieces or ten sketches.)


Yeah, someone might be able to dig through journals and YHC auctions to find people's names to harrass them but in that case thaat user gets handled like any other harrassment case. Honestly I think it'd be a pretty few and far between issue.


Of course it's much easier for FA to just not give a shit. Really the hardware is 75% for running Neer's online gaming sessions more than the site and running a site well takes effort. If they wouldn't even keep Bazeel on staff to help nail scammers they've shown they care more about having popfurs on the site even if they are thieves.

(haha, wow okay I just trailed off one sentence there, had to fix it. Too late to be up posting. Time for bed!)

(frozen)

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Agreed. As far as public queues leading to customer harassment, that can happen on any commission post or YCH, as you said. The only way to completely avoid it is to take all commissions by Googledocs form I suppose.

(frozen) Mod Comment

[arphalia.livejournal.com]

Hey guys! What FA should or shouldn't do regarding artist queues is getting off-topic here in ole A_B so I'm gonna freeze this thread here. :)

[hidden-kyuubi.livejournal.com]

It was the other about her where the person paid back all the way on May 18th 2013, even.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Purple's chest is turned to his left and seems to disappear into Black's chest, but then the hips are turned to Purple's right and that is supposed to be his lower back? We can see his chest and his lower back and tailroot? This is worse than most of the stuff I've seen on eschergirls.tumblr.com even. I guess the lumpy things are supposed to be abs? Where is the spooge supposed to be coming from? The background looks like a photoshopped photo?

I can imagine not wanting to copy a pose ref exactly, but in my opinion the end result is a confusing mess. I've known Stick since way back on the IRC and if you hadn't told me one of those characters was supposed to be him, I never would have guessed.

[dodger-greywing.livejournal.com]

The pose just kills me. It's like she didn't even try to get close to the basic idea. What she did do is so convoluted I can't even tell what's going on.

[masqueadrift.livejournal.com]

Thought you might find it interesting to know that she's changed one of her rules, slightly, since these screenshots were taken.

-No Refunds, I just don't have the funds, I just don't so please understand just work with me and I'll get your commission done timely manner.

[Bolding mine to put emphasis what was changed.]

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Interesting. "Timely" is relative I guess. The other beware on her had a customer waiting over a year...

[celestinaketzia.livejournal.com]

It's cases like this when I am glad Paypal is changing their policy. Good luck trying to enforce that illegal ToS when clients can issue disputes months later.

[dragontripmon.livejournal.com]

That's funny considering the recent previous beware on her when a poster was firm to get their money back. I really don't think she realized how much trouble that will get her.

[mistresswolf.livejournal.com]

I honestly can't believe that some artists think they can get away with a "no refunds at all" clause. It boggles my mind.

[intj-reflection.livejournal.com]

I know, right?

[zillabean.livejournal.com]

I confess I have no experience with this person at all but if I were to see a line like that in someone's profile, I don't think I would ever attempt a commission or trade. Besides being unprofessional it's worded in a fashion that feels dramatic. "I just don't so please understand". I don't think I'd risk my money in a situation like that.

[dragroons.livejournal.com]

Beware well warranted, It's incredibly unprofessional to dance around your commissioner and make excuses, and the finished product is sloppy. As Thaily pointed out.. what is going on with the purple ones anatomy?.. and why does the black one look like a wolf?

[ljmydayaway.livejournal.com]

To be a little fair, the black one in the second reference (third pic on Dropbox) looks like a wolf/like how Crystal drew it.

But uhh.... this is kind of how Crystal's art has always looked (blocky and confusing), so that's not a surprise to me. Check out the rest of their gallery and you'll see it's on par with their usual stuff.

[monoxdragon (from livejournal.com)]

One thing that really catches my eye is how the 'stars' looks rushed and all placed on one layer, and not even trying to make them different on both characters. On some points the stars overlap on the lineart and continue on the second character or a different limb and it just looks extremely rushed and unprofessional to me :s

That said, though, beware well warranted. The final image does not match the characters nor the pose that was given for reference and as such I believe that they should offer a redraw, or just refund despite it being in their TOS.

[maxi.livejournal.com]

That's the first thing I noticed, the rushed "stars" all over the place. She didn't even TRY :/

[ramthedragon.livejournal.com]

One of the characters isn't even supposed to have stars either

[dragroons.livejournal.com]

They aren't? If you are referring to Nova, at-least from the reference I see they do have a galaxy/space pattern on their fur.

[eikthyrnir.livejournal.com]

Both characters have a space/galaxy theme to them and both have star spots, though Satel/Stick has stars in very specific places and is supposed to have blue shading and Nova is supposed to have a galaxy fade on the lighter portions of his body, which lack the star markings

[ramthedragon.livejournal.com]

I saw it without zooming in and didn't see the galaxy texture on Nova, but yeah, defnitely not those shiny rushed spots

[galaxy-deer.livejournal.com]

They look almost alike in her drawing. :c Which sucks because wow the character designs in itself is really nice!

I hope she fixes it or at least give a partial refund. It's not right that she flat out refuses to do anything because it's in her illegal TOS.

[norsepaw.livejournal.com]

I have seen her art since Deviant art way back when she had a Sonic-character and her male anthros look way better back then. That looks rushed.