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

[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?

[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

[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.

[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/

[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.

[fauxpawroo.livejournal.com]

yes I agree

being mean= bad mojo

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[kaputotter.livejournal.com]

Reality check here:


This is not real life.


This is furry art.


Like, seriously: it's kind of foolish to even compare furry art to real life a lot of the time, because they're two completely different dynamics. Furry art is a hobby, period. Even if you're making a living doing it, the people who are paying for it are paying for it as a hobbyist, not a company looking to use the image for further capitalization.

Furthermore, if they do not have any specifically mentioned deadlines that you are supposed to keep under contract, then technically, unless you have specified a date that you both agreed upon, you're pretty much scott-free in that regard, as long as you live up to your expectations eventually.

I'm talking legality here.


In the freelance world? You know what would happen? You'd give a severance cut to the company, a partial refund, and they'd put a red mark on your record and likely not hire you again. But you know what, while that's a good thing to keep in mind for the real world, it's still not applicable here. So as far as I'm concerned, your point is still moot.


Furry is furry is furry. I understand if this guy is tired of waiting, but if he has no specified deadline that Sairah had to meet specifically, he can't complain that much.

[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.

[wicked-sairah.livejournal.com]

I totally understand, but I've commissioned people too and have yet to see even a sketch two years later. I deal with it and wait... I know people have lives away from the drawing table. Not everyone who does freelance work sits at home all day arting away. Some have full time jobs to go along with it, school, or children, or medical issues. Things come up, life happens. It's not always an excuse, it's not always nice, but what are you going to do?

And yes, I do understand that if I was working at just about any job, they might not think too kindly of needing time off or not getting work done. But that really depends on your boss and where you work. Some jobs are surprisingly kind when it comes to things like that.

It is not like I haven't been doing anything at all. I can't work on 5 sculptures at the same time. You can start one or two to have the basic idea, but you can only really give your attention to one at a time, and then move on to the next when done. He is number three on my list. Number one just needs his base, so he would have had it in about a month.

I do understand though and I'm not saying it's alright. I can totally understand a person getting upset or freaked out when it's been a few months or a year for something that cost them over $100. I just wanted to point out that I HAVE offered now three times a refund to him and he has refused. He now knows that I will NOT finish the commission, and if he refuses to take his money back, that is not my fault.

I did not see the original Artists Beware post made by this person, so I have no idea what was said and I have no idea what anyone else or my husband said. All I know is what the e-mail he wrote me said and what HIS LJ said. That's all. And both were very unkind towards me. And had he taken a moment to check my LJ, he would have seen that I was out of town and there is NOTHING I can do from the other side of the country.

I feel that I addressed the problem properly and that I gave him the opportunity to get his money back and have this settled. The next step is up to him. He just needs to e-mail me.

I would like this to be settled fast and with as little name smearing and mud slinging as possible.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Furry? So when did furry art get to equal not trying to be as professional as possible now? Do you think people like goldenwolf and ursulav to name but a few of the big names sit around saying "oh it's only furry art, I can take as long as I like"? I somehow doubt they do.

Actually legally you can be sued for breech of contract if you fail to have taken reasonable steps to keep your end of the bargain, reasonable steps would include not taking years to produce something.

You left out that the art director at that company would probably tell other art directors about you, word does spread eventually.

[kaputotter.livejournal.com]

What I'm trying to say is:

Real life is a good model for furry art. Furry art cannot simply be all hodgepodge chaos with no method whatsoever. It's awesome for furry artists to strive to be as professional as possible; I've been doing this for years, I've been encouraging every single artist I know to do the same.

But to expect furry art to work on a purely professional level? That goes too far.

I will repeat: the people who buy furry artists are hobbyists. Not companies with a deadline. We not only already established that this particular client's intent was needlessly and preemptively malicious (see other comments in this thread); furthermore if he didn't have a deadline specified to Sairah he could have made much more of an effort to contact her in the very systematic and professional way that you are insisting upon.


It takes two to tango. In short, Sairah was professional in her responses. Her client was not.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

I guess my point is, that a lot people will wait patiently and I think furry artists in particular are starting to take that for granted. Just because most people will wait doesn't mean it should be expected that they all will wait for however long without getting upset.

The fact that you have offered a refund was unknown when he posted, he certainly didn't mention it, though I can see why he wants the art rather than a refund, your work is very nicely done.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

And I wasn't just talking about this case, I was talking in general. Too many furry artists rely on their customers having insane amounts of patience. This situation could happen to any one of us and quite frankly I'm surprised we haven't seen posts like that first one before.

Just because a customer is a hobbyist doesn't mean that he or she may be happy to sit there and wait over a year for something.

[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.

[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

[kaputotter.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you're not taking reasonable behavior into account here, which is at the heart of this case.


This guy was waiting a long time. He was angry. That's understandable. He and Sairah were in a contract which she should have honored. She apparently took steps to amend this, he refused to go by her rules; he posted about her in a malicious way, which was subsequently deleted by moderators because it was deemed completely unneccessary.

Is this really a model for the real world? My answer is NO. A real client would have made an effort to come to a compromise with Sairah, or at the very least contacted her.