I really could use some help.

[posterslapper.livejournal.com]

I commissioned someone over a month ago. Granted it was a little bit of a complex commission, but she seemed fast and reliable. It’s a acrylic painting of one of my characters. So I can understand the bit of wait. It’s just…I’m getting frustrated at this person (no going to state any names). I was SECOND on her commission list and the first one was already done by the time of me commissioning her. And after 3 weeks of waiting I dropped her a nice note just asking how it was coming along. She replayed saying “I was going to start on that really soon btw!” I’ve done some more waiting. And still I have gotten nothing. And I know she is active because she some how managed to make two masks, like rubber prosthetic masks, at lest 3 molds for soap and several bars of soap all in one month. She had announced she was going to start making soap the same time I had commissioned her, so they’re not old projects.

So I sent here another not asking for another update and she reply’s with “I’ll submit it Monday maybe.” But yesterday I checked FA many times, no art was posted from her.

The main reason why I am so frustrated is because she is submitting oodles of personal work and is giving little to no communication. And I am not sure what I should do. Should I wait a week? Should I just demand my 40$ back now? Or am I just to impationt?

And if you think I SHOULD refund my money how should I word it with out sounding like a jerk? This so far is my only "failed" commission thus far, and I just dunno what to do.

Comments

[houndofloki.livejournal.com]

I never said artists could change their style to hide from bad reputation. I understand that they can't. I just said that it's not easy for buyers to do that, either.
As a general rule, furries are very emotionally invested in their characters. They're not going to deliberately create a generic one just to repeatedly "hide", or create new ones and drop the old every time they need a new name, because most furries aren't wired that way. Their characters are their preciouses. And while furry is large-ish fandom, it's also a pretty small world. Even fairly generic characters will be recognized - look at Allen, who is basically just a plain black wolf in a doo-rag.

White knights kind of prove my point. Public complaints are the only recourse a buyer has when a commission goes badly and the 45 days are past, and public complaining is really pretty useless. Popular artists will draw a ton of defenders and whiteknights, every letter the buyer ever typed will be scrutinized while the knights make a ton of excuses for the artist, etc etc etc.

That's why people get so twitchy about the 45-day window. Because if it passes they are basically just screwed.

To reply to your comment below, I'll repeat that I never buyers shouldn't be expected to pay until the work is done - just that the "pay in the full upfront" system does kind of screw buyers over and leave them without any protection, and a split system (i.e half upfront half on sketch approval) is much fairer and doesn't put the artist at any additional risk (because even if the second half of payment never shows up, the first half is enough to cover work done on the sketch).