Beware: Shon Howell / King_Cheetah

[daemionfox.livejournal.com]

WHO: Shon Howell / king_cheetah

WHERE: Furaffinity / Deviantart

WHAT: Commssion work and Retail book (two different things)

WHEN: May 2009 and October 2009 till current


PROOF:
I originally contacted Shon Howell for a commission based on a comic I was working on.


and was responded to almost immediately.


I sent payment immediately, Shon was known for cranking out work like mad.


And let him know


EXPLAIN:
After a month without hearing anything at all (including receipt of payment), I sent him a note to make sure that he had all the info he needed.


And got a "Working on it note"


And then nothing. Not for a while. I sent out a couple of pokes (notes and shouts, unfortunately, the shouts aren't available to screencap) just to see where he was on it. This note is still listed as "unread". 2 emails went unanswered.


I received a response on Sept 23rd 2010 (almost a year since my commission) saying he had sketches and would be finishing them up soon, but I never heard anything after that.


Even a quick note 3 months later resulted in nothing (This too is unread)


I like to think that I'm fairly patient with things. I don't mind if artwork is late, but I'd like to be kept informed, especially if I've paid in advance. However, this is not the only problem I've had with Shon Howell/King_Cheetah.

One of his comics, done with Phil Gibson (who is an awesome guy, really), had their first book printed back in May of 09, and I ordered a copy.

Phil, as a favor, signed it and sent it with postage included to Shon, to be signed and shipped.

It's, to my knowledge, never been shipped. (Receipt for the book follows)


During this entire time Shon's been posting art on his FA, he's got his up and down times, but he's been posting fairly regularly.



Conclusion:

Beware. Shon Howell is a lousy communicator, and you'd do much better working with just about _anyone_ else. Getting updates out of him is like pulling teeth, and getting anything you've paid for is exponentially harder.

Edited to fix broken image names

Comments

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

I've approved this -- but I think a few of the images aren't coming up? I'm not sure if it's my internet or not.

It really is a small world. Unrelated to the case at hand, I've known Phil Gibson for almost as long as I've been on the web.

[torinir2.livejournal.com]

I think it's your end. I'm looking at 7 good images here.

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

It is a problem on my end, confirmed it with someone else as well.

[uozlulu.livejournal.com]

I'm missing half the images too and my Internet is working fine.

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

It's very odd considering they all seem to be hosted on the same space... huh.

[uozlulu.livejournal.com]

They're fixed now on my end.

[daemionfox.livejournal.com]

There should be nine images. I found 2 of them had typo'd names, so I edited the post.

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

I'm still seeing one little red x, but I do see nine images.

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

http://www.capnbells.com/~sowersm/ab/commission_from_2009oct01_payment.jpg

That image is -not- on the directory listing for http://www.capnbells.com/~sowersm/ab/ , so it's a real 404.

[daemionfox.livejournal.com]

Got it, another typo. Copy and paste and not watching too carefully.

[mr-cullen.livejournal.com]

I can see all the images fine here myself.

[redadillio.livejournal.com]

Bit of a tangent, but I too can attest to Shon Howell's lack of communication.

I was wanting to include a guest gallery in a graphic novel I was creating and he was one of the artists I had contacted for it. He initially agreed and I followed up with further information including a deadline.

Come a week until the deadline and I have heard nothing. He had quit FA over some drama (if I remember correctly it was over an artist being banned for drawing that decapitated Dragoneer image. That or something else as I believe he's publicly quit FA at least twice now). I did have an email address of his and attempted contact him through there with no response.

I finally got a hold of him on Twitter simply asking if he was still interested in contributing. He told me to contact him through his FA account about it. I personally asked myself why as the question would not be any different and at the time he was not using his FA account (so it sounded like "go ask it to a dead account") but I still gave him the benefit of the doubt and noted him there.

He had pretty soon after returned to his FA account, but the note I sent had remained unread for several months on end. If he didn't wish to contribute, I would have understood, but I don't appreciate being blown off.

[puritikoneko.livejournal.com]

Lack of communication is one thing that will really drive me away from potentially commissioning someone. It's really discouraging to see people so eager to communicate up until money is exchanged, then completely start ignoring a paying customer.

[ichigoneko33.livejournal.com]

Ugg, this.

It's understandable to be busy, but weeks is another thing. I keep my email open all the time and I'm almost always on FA so I can always reply right away.

I tend not to commission people again if they never reply to me. More often then not, they always have personality issues, at least the ones I've commissioned has.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

Same. There are a lot of really good, even popular artists that I love the work of but don't commission anymore because they had attitude and communication problems. It's always a big shame.

[ichigoneko33.livejournal.com]

Yes, sometimes I hate it to be honest. There's a couple that are just amazing, but I could never commission them again with how they treated me. And you can tell by how they talk about commissioners in public if they've changed or not ya know?

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

Shon is a good guy and a hard worker, he just falls off the map sometimes.

[puritikoneko.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone here is questioning whether or not the artist is a good person or not, the issue here is the lack of contact.

If an artist takes someone's money, it's their responsibility to deliver a final piece. If something happens where the artist is delayed or cannot complete it, they need to be responsible and notify their customers of such. If someone pays them for art, they should make themselves readily available for communication until the product is in the buyer's hands.

[ichigoneko33.livejournal.com]

Agreeing here.

Some people are very nice people, but not so good with commissions. And it can be the opposite, someone might not be nice but great with their commissions

[daemionfox.livejournal.com]

Shon's character is not in question here. I don't know the man personally, but at this point, he's never going to get any more business from me.

It falls down to if you can't handle business, you shouldn't be in business, and part of being an artist for hire is communication with your clients. End of story, no ifs ands or buts.

If you can't handle clients, you get an agent, but if you're going to take money, you better be ready to have your head in the game.

Shon's head isn't even near the ballfield from his behavior, he needs to get his act together and his ass moving. As it is, he'll never see another dime from me. 18 months isn't too long to wait for a commission, but leaving emails and notes unanswered is bullshit.

Additionally, this wasn't mentioned, but I did track him down on twitter to ask a status, and was consequently blocked. I don't know what that says to you, but to me it says "sucker, you gave me money and now I don't have to do shit, go fuck yourself."

[jurann.livejournal.com]

I can attest to his flakiness when it comes to delivering the goods. =P I won several hundred in originals by him from auctions and sent him payment, and when I asked 3 months later where the art was, he said he had a hard drive crash and lost all records of who won what. I sent him copies of my winnings repeatedly, and never heard from him again nor got my winnings. Still very pissed off about that, and still been trying to get a response from him every 6 months or so, some 4 years later.

[puritikoneko.livejournal.com]

Wow... That's a lot of loss on your part, not to mention the span of time that's passed without seeing any part of what you paid for. =/

[jurann.livejournal.com]

Yep, I didn't know about A_B back then, otherwise I would have posted when it was still remotely relevant. =P I still have the records of my auction winnings that I never got, but I doubt posting them here's gonna change anything. Odds are he already sold the items I won to someone else and double-dipped his income. =P

[meleeisgood.livejournal.com]

Was this really necessary?

[icen-rose.livejournal.com]

DON'T MIND ME just throwing in my own Sheldon icon. :>

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

What did you mean by this comment, exactly? Screening this until it's explained.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

I have to say I'm really not surprised to see such a complaint about the artist in question. I wouldn't expect a reply from the artist on this one, as I doubt an AB post will nudge him into doing the work or refunding.

I've seen the artist in question blow off plenty of people, someone can spend an hour writing a comment on his work and his response is to run away if they've said anything he didn't like or brought up the possibility of something that sounds like actual work.

My personal observation is that he has no interest in improving or working any harder than he has to, so long as fanboys are willing to shell out money for his least effort he seems to be happy to coast.

[mdetector5.livejournal.com]

I've commissioned him in the past, and it was for two of my characters. I sent away the money and let him know and everything, and that was back in 2006.

As much as I've seen him crank out work, I was expecting the pieces I commissioned to show up rather quickly, but they didn't. I had to go through one of my friends (which he was friends with also) to get the art from him... about a year or so later.

He's alright, but he's hard to get in touch with sometimes.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

Please cut back on the personal insults and flaming. You can make your complaint without them, and trash-talking people isn't what AB is here for. Thank you.

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

No you won't if the mods tell you not to. This is your second warning. Continue this and you'll be suspended.

[puppyloveb.livejournal.com]

Listen I can warn people all i want...

This is a friendly warning post for all people..
View my links to my account... I do plan on sueing Shon..
So we will see how this works out, since others are having the same issues
:) Thanks for listening

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

You can warn people, but you should do so without name-calling in a calm and mature manner. If you can repost your links without giving sass to the mods ('I'll trash talk however I want!'), then we'll allow it. For now I've screened that post.

You can also submit your own beware post.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

Not here you won't.

You're free to discuss what happened to you, but we have rules in this community, and one of them is to not flame.

It does suck that you lost that much money, I'm sorry that happened.

Same experiance

[draggo88.livejournal.com]

I had exactly the same problem with him. I commissioned him one time for two sketches, and recieved them in FIFTEEN MINUTES! I thought 'wow! that's awesome!'.

Keeping that in mind, I commissioned him again a few months later. Again, two sketches, involving characters he's more than used to drawing. I contact him, get the all-green, send him the money, and wait. And wait. A reminder note a week later, he says he's working on them.

He has three months out of state, which I pass off as RL stuff. But then he comes back and continues posting regularly. I send him a Note about mine, get ignored, and finally threaten to report him. At that point, I'd been waiting 8 months for two simple sketches.

Two months later, he refunds me with promises of free sketches, which I have yet to recieve.

That was last year :/

[zachary smith (from livejournal.com)]

I had similar problems with him on eBay, It took forever to get the items I purchased, I was supposed to get a sketch with them, but they never came & on a second purchase he sent the wrong bid item o(>3<)o
I love his work, but he needs to do what he gets paid for

[andrew aw chun hong (from livejournal.com)]

Okay, he's not really that kind of guy to me... maybe he forgot... ? Or should remind him again multiple times, like me ? He done my commish after several remind in 6 months.

At least to me... he's able to done my commish (posted at pixiv).

[daemionfox.livejournal.com]

Rather hard to do when notes go unread, emails unopened, and he blocked me on FA, Twitter and others.

No, I had a brief chance to talk to Shon about this around 6 months ago. He told me point blank that he decided to "sweat" me because of things he thought I said about his comic "Cantrip the Magic Rabbit"

(What I had said boiled down to "You'll lose your readership if you don't tell them what's going on instead of just letting them guess") Who the hell knows what he thought I'd said. Telephone game in operation.

Either way, it's still not a good business practice.

[ked62688.livejournal.com]

Howell owes me nearly 200 dollars in undelivered art, and it's been nearly a year and 3 months. I wouldn't trust him, and I've tried talking to people, no one seems to be able to help. I'm probably out nearly 200 dollars, and doubt I'm getting it back. I've seen hims selling off the things I had commissioned, or pictures I'd purchased, both on ebay, and on his shut down tumblr.

[mewtwolover.livejournal.com]

Pics are broken.