Beware: Rikku

[slicklion.livejournal.com]

First off, this person is not a bad person, nor insulting. I'm just sick and tired of having to wait almost a year now, without a single WIP ( Work In Progress ). I'm posting this because I see way too many people considering to commission her, now for the story.




WHO: Rikku

WHERE: Furaffinity

WHAT: 2 traditional pieces to be shipped, both contained 2 characters.

WHEN: Late February 2011 to now.

PROOF: Proof added below.

EXPLAIN: I came across Rikku's gallery around February, and looked at her price chart, they were fairly cheap. I loved the art, so I decided to note her, asking for something of me and my fiance, she was very eager to get to it, here are the notes in order how the conversation went.



So I waited, then I got this message in my inbox



so I replied


Aaaand she got the payment



So now I played the waiting game, the suddenly, on March 25th, I saw her post a journal, asking for small chibi commissions to fix her scanner. At first I was rather weary about it, but then I thought, why not? I could use more art, plus commissioning her, she can get the scanner fixed quicker, we took it up in notes.





So we discussed about it, she agreed to have it done the Monday after, I paid her immediately, since I for one is a commission who doesn't like paying an artist after they started work.





Again...playing the waiting game

The Saturday comes, after the Monday she promises to get the sketches done, I noted her.



I got no reply, she read the note.

So I waited some more... gave her time.
Decided to note her AGAIN around the end of June



And waited...Finally got a reply from her a month after, it was a lenghty conversation about not being able to give me a refund, and asking me for more patiance, I think I'm a little too kindhearted on this end, but these were her intial replies.



The last one.... is what got me the most. I've been waiting so long, and she forgot the commission completely, it wasn't even that hard, nor is it hard to go into your inbox and look for notes. This fired me up, but I kept my cool, and told her I got the patience, and I'll be waiting for when she sends the sketches.

Haha...what was I thinking?

August came and I was already on a trip further up in the Caribbean than where I was, I didn't know whether or not I would have internet there, it turned out I did, so I noted her about 3 days before I left to come back.



She noted me, all the way in the second week in November, replying that she's VERY EAGER to get to the commissions. Sorry I don't got a screencap of this one, I probably deleted it by mistake...but this was my reply to her, November 11th.



We spoke a bit, I told her I'm glad her other customers isn't throwing a fit, I know how impatient some people are. All of said conversation happened on that day.

I haven't heard from her to this day, and I know I'm not the only person out there having difficulties with Rikku.

This is a warning not to go anywhere near this person for commission work, as I've seen a lot of people wanting work from her, stay far far away. Either she really has as much life troubles as she puts out to be, or she's a scammer, but all I can say I lost my $35 and I'm not pleased about it AT ALL.

Comments

[ghrelin.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your thought-out explanations, they do give a good perspective from the artist's side.

While I do usually ask for a lot of very specific details, I try as much as I can to be considerate of the artist and professional as a customer. As a rule I am very good about paying and have also commissioned some rather expensive artists because I wanted specifically them to do the work. I'm willing to pay more if it means a better outcome and in cases where I really believe the artist had worked harder.

I usually make it very clear from the get-go what it is that I want, the level of detail that I want and which details are most important. I also try to establish in advance approximately how long the commission will take, where the artist tells me how long s/he thinks s/he'll need, but that once that's established, we stick to that. At that point the artist can always back out if they don't want to do it, but I've never had an artist back out.

I only ever commission someone if there's something very specific I want to see that had not been done before, to the extent that I know, and this is why detail is important, and why I am willing to pay a lot sometimes. Therefore indeed there were times I'd asked the artist to revise something s/he'd done multiple times. I think if artists do intend to charge for revisions, they should make that clear in their original rules, because while it does make sense as you say that if there was room for artistic freedom and the artist did their best to depict something the way they thought the commissioner wanted it, they should of course be paid for their work.

Sometimes indeed it is inevitable that something comes out differently from what you had expected, even when you thought you'd described very specifically what it should look like, because you'd not taken into consideration that it could still come out some other way - in my experience I would usually catch that sort of thing in original drafts that were made specifically in order for me to see if there was anything about it I would want changed.

While I understand that asking for a lot of detail can be annoying, on the other hand some artists prefer that because they say it gives them much more direction as far as what they need to do. Likewise, expensive commissions are an investment and I don't feel there's a point in paying a lot of money to get something you might have just found for free browsing the web because it's so different from what you had wanted. All in all, I've had a generally positive experience and friendly relationship working with artists, except for my first two commissions where the artists took a ridiculous amount of time to deliver (a year and almost a year). Since then I always establish a deadline in advance and it had not been a problem after that.

[ocelotish]

I'm not sure how much of this relates to what I said earlier.

There's also a difference between "level of detail" and the amount of detail described. A piece of a similar detail level is always going to be more if the commissioner is specifying every detail. I think most people find it very helpful to have people point at a piece in their gallery and say "Like that" but specifying every little detail gives them that many details that they have to get right. Also there's a big difference between "Sitting down to a feast at a wooden table," and "Sitting in a golden throne with a bird design, with ruby inlays to a feast of..." I might put the same level of detail, but having all those specific details just means that I have to wrangle all those little bits and make them work together.

Artists should make things clear from their TOS, but if they don't you can take the initiative to set them. Ask them about revisions and get the policy direct from the horse's mouth before it becomes an issue.