The quickest ways to have your commission rejected

[blueroo.livejournal.com]

Folks, if you're going to commission an artist, please remember that respect runs both ways. Customers expect artists to be professional and courteous. Artists expect customers to be courteous too. If you are difficult, expect to have your commission rejected. If you are rude, expect to have your commission rejected. If you threaten the artist, expect to have your commission rejected. Remember, artists have the right to choose who they sell to.

Here are some big no-nos. If you do these, you should not complain if there are complications.

1. Fall off the internet, and fail to respond to communications.
2. Fail to contact the artist about any grievances.
3. Post inappropriately to public communities in a shameful effort to strong-arm an artist.
4. Send email threats like the one below. Set a 48 hour deadline, but then carry through on the first threat only minutes later.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 19:12:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: Customer
Subject: 48 hour notice - last warning
To: Artist

Artist, you have 48 hours to send or post me any indication that you
have started my art, or your my grievance with you will be posted on
artists_beware and as many friends, communities and related websites as
I can find on the internet.
Further, I am not at all reluctant to take this case to the Washington
State Attorney General's Office, as well as the King County small claims
court system.
Your website has been down for days - you better be updating it with
photos of my project.

48 hours - that's it. No more pathetic excuses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comments

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

O.o

[fauxpawroo.livejournal.com]

Personally I think artists_beware is an awesome community, but I have to agree that people get out of hand with things sometimes. I've seen some artists names up here that I've had no problems with, and never heard anyone else have problems either. Sometimes the crazy flukes just get blown out of proportion. I think using artists_beware as a threat is not a good idea even though I can feel for the customer. I hope things get resolved and Sairah's name doesn't get dragged down. She's always seemed to be a pretty on top of things kind of artist.

Hope things work out for everyone.

~Faux Paw roo

[crssafox.livejournal.com]

There should be no reason for her name to get dragged down in the first place. You could tell someone was just being whiny about something he never tried to resolve in the first place.

blueroo, you're absolutely right in what you're saying here. A lot of commissioners don't realize that bullying an artist into doing the work is going to produce less-than-stellar quality work. They're just going to do whatever it takes to appease the person complaining, so they don't have to deal with it any more.

Patience is a virtue. =P

[fauxpawroo.livejournal.com]

yes I agree

being mean= bad mojo

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

I do think that there my be times when it's appropriate to inform an artist that you'll post about them here, but I'd consider it to be a last resort. You know, after a year's worth of trying every other method possible, kind of thing. But a 48 hour period? What if they're out of town for a couple of days? That's just absurd.

[fauxpawroo.livejournal.com]

I agree that artists_beware can be a great tool for the customer and for the artist, but I think its over used alot of times. And maybe not a year but definatly several months (maybe 6?). Also I agree that blueroo is in the right for posting this. Its people that try bullying that make artists_beware look bad.

[witchiebunny.livejournal.com]

That gets a giant Doubleyoo Tee Eff from me.

Honestly, though, that's just pathetic and rude.

Who is he, so I know now to accept a commission from him?

[witchiebunny.livejournal.com]

erhm, not to accept a commission from them, rather.

[dunaerin.livejournal.com]

I thought I smelled something fishy when I saw Sairah's name on here. I have always heard of her as being a quick worker, concise artist to work with/

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

The flipside is: The quickest ways to earn a bad reputation as a freelance artist;

If you're going to be a professional freelance artist, please remember that you're not guaranteed a spotless record and good reputation; You have to work to both earn and keep one.

Remember that just as with a 9 to 5 job, you do not have the luxury of giving endless excuses to someone who is paying you to do a task. People in less flexible jobs face and cope with difficult situations as well, being a freelancer does not guarantee you unlimited time to complete the work.

Also customers do not need to hear about how awful your life is unless they enquire, they and everyone else have hard lives too sometimes, if all they ever hear from you is complaints about how hard things are and how you still haven't started their commission they're not likely to be the most sympathetic people.

Realise, you are going to get a less than stellar reputation if you fail to understand that even the most patient of customers has a finite amount of patience no matter how good you are; because even the most patient of commissioners is bound to complain to at least one person if their commission is dragging on and on with no end in sight.

Also if you are behind already then now is not a good time to take more commissions, you'll just dig yourself a deeper hole which you won't be able to get out of and end up with more damage to your reputation.

In short when an artist acts professional and does their own end as professionally as possible, then they usually don't get people complaining about them publically, and yes I am an artist, I realised long ago that I needed to behave in a professional manner even when doing freebies, but a large amount of freelancers forget that as flexible as the job is, it's still a job and needs some professionalism in it.

[wicked-sairah.livejournal.com]

I would like to point out that I offered him a refund twice and he refused to take it, telling me to take my time on it. Within the last couple of months, actually. I have been in contact with him as well. He knew where he was on my list of backlogged art, I had sent him e-mails. I don't know if he got them or not, because he does not tend to write people back. and if he wanted a refund, I would have given it at any time. He just had to ask. As a matter of fact, I sent him an e-mail yesterday after I found out about all of this, offering that refund in full, and I have yet to hear back from him. I am currently out of town and did not get his 48 hour notice until after the time was up. So there was not much I could do. And I am still out of town, so I can't send him any pictures, I can't send a refund right now or anything. I can just watch from a distance.

He knew that my husband had major surgery, I was married, I moved, spent a month out of state and so on. These are not pathetic little excuses to avoid getting art done. These are life events that come first. I am sorry that this was a problem, I am sorry he was so upset that he felt he needed to give threats. I understand that every artist will have someone who is mad at them. They will have people who will get a kick out of smearing their name. Fine, part of life. I am more upset that he felt that threatening me was the correct way to go. And not only did he threaten me, he threatened two other artists and decided that smearing the name of all seattle artists was the way to go.

I would also like to point out that since I am backlogged, I have not been taking on any other commissions, except for badges. So it has nothing to do with me taking on more than I can handle.

I have been doing this for over 12 years and this is the first time I've had someone act like this towards me. I don't expect every commissioner to be awesome or understanding of things like major kidney surgery or getting married. I would just hope that in the future, they come to me, rather than go out of their way to smear my name or any other artists name.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

That wasn't just in reference to your situation though I must admit I didn't see any mention of previously offered refunds before now. I see it a lot in general with a lot of the small time freelancers, they take work, life gets in the way and 2 years down the line, the work still isn't done. Heck, I've done it myself and I seriously think people need to wake up and realise that freelancing is still a serious job.

My point about serious life events is what would you do if you were working a regular 9 to 5 job and the same events cropped up? You'd have to figure out a way to work around them. Sometimes life does give you a big old kick in the shins but ultimately that's not the customer's fault so why should they accept that their work isn't done for ages because of some life crisis on the part of an artist? When I was working regularly, I certainly didn't get the luxury of telling my boss I needed months off because of some of the things happening to me, I had to soldier on.

My comment was partially playing devil's advocate, because there are things that could have been done better on both sides. Yes, he shouldn't have done some of the things he did, but on the other hand, life events happen to us all and we all have to deal with them and your husband's responses in the original post probably didn't help and did look somewhat less than mature.

[kieferskunk.livejournal.com]

The thing that puzzles me is that the person in question struck me as a pretty nice, reasonable guy at first. Fire and I consider(ed) him to be a friend, but he hasn't kept in touch with either of us in more than a year (despite Fire's repeated efforts). So near as we can tell, he just turned around and got really hostile without warning. Pulling the same old crap that I've seen several other people pull, too - "You have 48 hours to respond or I'll sue you!" Geez...

This just baffles me. It really does.

[firesplace.livejournal.com]

Good points, and I very much agree!
If someone is going to sell a service, be it chopping wood or drawing a picture, there is a reasonable expectation that the end result will be delivered in a timely manner. This expectation continues, whatever may happen in someone's personal life, just as you're expected to show up for a 9-5 job every day and get stuff done there. My boss is very kind, but if I suddenly declared that I wouldn't get any of my assignments for the next 6 months, I do believe I'd be out of a job. XD

In this particular case, tho, the commissioner really came out of nowhere on Sairah (and me, accusing me of never completing a commission from 2004 that I honestly have no recollection of), and suddenly struck her with this 48-hours-to-respond stuff. He also brought up a third person who apparently borrowed a book from him some time ago in the same LJ-post, which leads me to believe that these are more personal than professional grievances.

Go fig! O.o

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

I wasn't so much bagging on this case, it was intended to be more a sort of general thing since I've noticed a lot lately that the furry fandom tends to take for granted that people will wait rediculous amounts of time for a commission.

Commissioners can be total fruitcakes though I know, but so can artists. I mostly posted to point out that there is a flipside from the customers perspective, it's not all about the customer being nice to the artist as if the artist needs petting and cuddles to produce the artwork they're being paid for.

[moonstone-wind.livejournal.com]

Wow what a cranky person... Ive got a few ppl very paitent with me that ive been keeping and owed for months now ... one of them a year ... But im not happy with the art as it was and ive had many RL issues hit me in the last year or so they understand this, I keep in touch. Im thankfull for that and would reccomend them to anyone else because there so paitent!

[frisket17.livejournal.com]

Noticed the person who aired their dislikes for Wicked removed (or the Mods did) the post.
curious.

But you've brought up a lot of good issues.

Additionly, I'm not exactly how positive verbal contracts go over (in regards to the email threats) in court. Take Judge Judy.
In another addition, I'm pretty positive the State Attorney General wouldn't sniff in direct of a minor sum like that. Ya. It's a lot of money they claimed to lost. .but REALLY small in the grand scales.

Are they aware what the SAG office does? I've a good idea. My second mom (stepmom) is Assistant Attorney General for the state. Most of the times she deals with politics and criminal justice cases.

Things below $500 are...eh. Not priority of the -STATE-. :/ Sorry.

-shrugs- Like I said. Don't know things in depth, but damn well can ask.
That's just my two cents and what I know about law and the like.

[drake-anaya.livejournal.com]

The poster voluntarily removed most of their message, and I deleted it fully because it was no longer necessary. I can guarantee that if I had known the poster's true intent (to defame rather than give legitimate warnings) I would not have approved the post. And in the long run, I'm sure courts would care more about libel/slander/defamation than a relatively measly $250.

[anjel-kitty.livejournal.com]

You should always exsaust all your opitions first before coming to this community to voice your grievances. Though I have to say the guy that spurred this had waited for quite a long time for so much money. But He should have gone to you guys before hand and exasuted all options before he made that post.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

What the...

May I ask who the sender was so I can refuse their business straight away should they ever approach me?

[thornwolf.livejournal.com]

ditto, the post is gone so i cant see who it was. i really would not want to deal with a person like that if they approached me.

[blueroo.livejournal.com]

Email me personally. :)

[thornwolf.livejournal.com]

wwwwow. If thats who I think it is I'm certainly not going to deal with them at all. *makes note*

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

#1 is a problem I have had 4 times. The commissioner vanished, what could I do? Even snail mail did not work.

[likeshine.livejournal.com]

just wanted to chime in with the masses and say i will never, ever do any sort of work for this person. i dont recall their name on LJ, but i do remember the character. consider yourself blacklisted, buddy.