artists_beware | Entries tagged with artist-jace/brianharp

animakitty.livejournal.com

Brian Harp (He uses his real name openly on his current place of business, http://www.furaffinity.net/user/jace/ ) aka Jace, owes me for ~300 dollars of money and goods paid for two multi-character full color commissions never delivered, one ordered in 2005 and the other in 2008. This year I offered him a final chance to do right by me, giving him four months to deliver what I was owed. That deadline passed May 31st, thus this account to warn potential commissioners of his inexcusable behavior.

( Cut for length )

Whatever his intentions were, Jace took my money and my goods while reneging on his side of the deals, exhibited extreme disrespect and callousness in how he dealt with me, and betrayed my trust. Even after being offered a chance to make things right, even being permitted to completely change the deals he had entered into with me to accommodate him, he failed to put things right. By most accounts he does indeed suffer from serious medical problems, but they don't prevent him from drawing and they don't prevent him from keeping his promises. That's all his doing.

dracoleerose.livejournal.com

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: My Home

I have been nice, patience, and willing to give chances but not any more. I am here today to warn all of the two artists that have more then ran away with, between the two, over $1,000.00 USD of my hard earned money. The two I am referring to is a artist named Synxirazu-niam and another by7 the name of Jace. Both of which can be found on FA. Synxirazu-niam was commissioned as of now nearly two years ago for a amount of over $500.00 USD for two comic commissions and have yet to give a single sketch of any progress of working on it. However during our transaction together he did make a small change it the format of the commission and turned it into a flash animation project, with my agreement of course. He did so and so far the only thing I have seen out of it was this http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2876847/

. Notice the date of it being posted, it was posted after about two to three months after I had commissioned him. Since then nothing has shown up of any progress towards my commissions. I have countless times IMed him on his YIM account, gotten hold of him during his livestreams, and noted him through FA about it and I get the same ol sad story that he will start it, he will do it soon...ish, or that he will get with me on such and such time and date to have him not come online. SO if you commission him BEWARE BEEEEEWAAAAARRE!

Now then, Jace on the other hand has done the EXACT thing to me without so much as a single note, sketch, or anything about my art. He has since posted many new artworks, sketches and gift pics he has gotten or done on his FA account LOOOOONG after I have commissioned him. He was commissioned roughly around the same time I commissioned Synx, so you can agree with me that I am more then ready to give a rant about him and Synx. Jace has a bad habit of changing the subject as well when I ask him about my commissions to how he is depressed or heartbroken,. Sad to say I have even told him in these words before "I dont care about your RL drama love life, you did a business transaction with me and so I expect payment for what I have bought in terms of art. That is my thought to it, put your RL drama aside and give me what I paid for or refund me the $500.00 USD." The quote may be abit of my thought during what I really wanted to say to him, but yea, it was close to that. either way BEWARE BEEEEWARRRRE!

Ok now that LJ allowed me to post the image I have of my paypal transactions you can clearly see the amount of money I gave him back in 2009, a wowing $530.00 USD.

And heres the Jace proof of how much I paid. And as you can see I have been a very nice dragon to wait this long from Jace to not have a single sketch flipped my way. Also note the black smuged spot near his name, that is there to protect his email accounts handler so trolls wont try to go and bomb him, but that is indeed Jace.

dracoleerose.livejournal.com

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: My Home

kjaeger.livejournal.com

Greetings, it's been awhile... last time I made a post concerning Jace/Brian Harp and backpedaled for personal reasons but now I think it's important to let know others of my story.

I commissioned him since the start of February 2009, I made a mistake by trusting him, he got the money not too long and the promise of art but I was deceived by his wit so I believed he would do art some point but that never happened. At the end of the journal I'll attach screencaps of the transactions which add up around 240 dollars. Judging from his past he has tricked a good handful of people for a greater sum of money and nothing but unsound promises of art or money guarantee.

We used to get along very well in the past, I can only imagine worse treat for those that kept it at a business level. I won't divulge much but I know him well enough to know that there's concept of 'giving' in his personality, one who has spent a considerable time with him should know this. I tried helping him when he had a bad financial situation, in the end I was 'enabling' and feeding his insecurity, he's currently job-less and lives by the charity of others.

I used to respect him as a friend, I was nothing but a mean to his ends. I don't know whether to feel contempt or pity for him for he will continue to psychologically torture his self for commodities at the expense of others. I apologize if it comes across as too personal but I think it's fair to do him a favor by stopping any means of enabling and warning others of his destructive behavior for they might get ripped off as I did out of an act of 'generosity' and belief of him being a professional artist.

Screencaps:

http://pics.livejournal.com/kjaeger/gallery/0000f64z

Transactions:

http://pics.livejournal.com/kjaeger/pic/00020gcb/g15
http://pics.livejournal.com/kjaeger/pic/00021rd7/g15
http://pics.livejournal.com/kjaeger/pic/00022gdw/g15

kjaeger.livejournal.com

I made a post concerning Jace aka Brian Harp, I made a mistake which I want to clarify, I made a rash decision and accused him on not finishing art, he might have done it in the past but come to think of it 8-9 months is not that much of a long time, I'm sure several other artists have been in the same situation

I had communication issues with Jace, I believe he can change and was promised art completion by December, if he can deliver by that date, I think he's worthy of another opportunity. I don't wish to stir up things any longer and I hope those with a grudge can forgive him like I did, from all this I learned that with communication anything can be worked out

kjaeger.livejournal.com

madd-tom-kit.livejournal.com

Well since there's such an issue of lots of people getting taken for a ride by Jace I'm wondering if it's enough to do group legal action.... I dunno if it'd be called a class action but i'm sure everyone involved could afford the cost of the lawyer if we all pitched in. Suggestions?

madd-tom-kit.livejournal.com

I've been waiting three years for this 300$ comission from Jace, but just recently I decided to organise the emails into one folder as they take up a good portion of my inbox.

Here's a jpg to give you an idea of all the times he's made excuses for not having it done.
http://img515.imageshack.us/my.php?image=jacede7.jpg

over 150 emails back and forth and I still have nothing to show for it.

I don't know what I can do about it yet..... he just won't do anything.

madd-tom-kit.livejournal.com

faithry.livejournal.com

Current Mood: pensive

Ahh, my very first post here and, considering my surprisingly positive experience with a lot of furry artists, currently the only one.

Does anyone know what's going on with Jace? He's supposed to have cleaned up his act, at least, that's what I've been told, but I don't know how far that actually got.

Hmm, perhaps I should start at the very beginning.

Somewhere around.. oh, 1997-1998? I can't really remember. Anyways, around that time, Coldfire, Jace' mate at the time, set up a roleplaying game online (over IRC) involving dragon player characters. I'm sure you know the type: dice, character sheets, swords and magic spells.

Anyways, after the game started, Jace decided to give us players a good, cheap deal for pictures of our character in the game. I was quite eager and sent Jace eighty dollars for two color images of my character. That was way back when the game started.

...and then the game collapsed. Coldfire stopped showing up and we were having trouble organizing times for the game because of timezone issues. I had, by then, obtained a partial sketch of the first picture, which was quite promising.

Then silence.

I poked him by E-mail, and he explained he was having a hard time, he hit upon trouble, art didn't just drop out of his ass and he would work on it when he had time.

Time passed.

More E-mails. Again, working on it, etc-etc. 'I'll have it done by next monday.'.

Monday came and went, months passed, more E-mails, the same responses. I asked for my money back.

Time passed, more e-mails, but no more responses from him.

Then I started hearing other things about him. Commissions that were never completed, andsoforth. In one specific example, I heard from an individual who had an art-trade with him who never did recieve his end of the bargain. Rather, after much effort, he got a Part II (it said so clearly on the picture) of someone else's commission along with a lie that it had been made specifically for him!

Time passed, and I discovered that Jace was offering an art-trade to a fellow Dutchfur, Meanbean. I warned Meanbean that if he accepted the art-trade, he would either be pushed in front of people who were waiting a lot longer than him, or he would have to wait at the end of a long list of commissioners.

Jace apparently reacted to something Meanbean to him said in response to my warning, and sought contact with me, profusely apologetic and claiming he wanted to clear things up. Shortly after, he even produced a sketch of the second picture. Yay!

...and then nothing again.

After another long wait, I brought up the issue on a mailing list that both Coldfire and Jace were on. It quickly turned into a sort of discussion/flamewar hybrid which ended when it was announced that Jace had been given a new computer, and he would attempt to work off at least part of his commission list while also working on new commissions.

Then I met Dark Natasha during last year's Eurofurence. And lookie-loo, she had a portfolio for sale with some of Jace' work! I talked with her a bit about what her experiences were concerning Jace, and while I don't remember most of the details, I remember she had to go through quite some effort to finally get the art for the vore portfolio she was selling.

That brings us to now. The time it took him to complete the art in question is, unless I'm mistaken (and I must confess I'm very vague about when it all started) steadily approaching a decade.

I will ask him in E-mail how it's going sometime soon, but before I do, I'd like to know: Does anyone here have any signs that Jace did indeed turn over a new leaf?

--Faithry

faithry.livejournal.com

Current Mood: pensive

faithry.livejournal.com

Current Mood: pensive

iridium-wolf.livejournal.com

Current Mood: blah

I've been encouraged, after posting this information in my own LJ, to repeat it here. And given the artist's reputation, it may not be a surprise to many.

Four years ago I commissioned Brian "Jace/Sharky" Harp for two pictures. One was for two characters, full color and ink, at $100, the other for one character, full color and ink, for $70. I sent him the money soon after he agreed to do the pictures, the full $170, in June 2003. I can produce a copy of the letter I sent and my bank records for the check, which was cashed soon after it arrived.

For four years, I did not receive any progress reports, I have not received any preliminary sketches, I have gotten nothing. I have been told that work had been done, but I haven't seen it. I had never met Mr. Harp until this past FC2007. Leading into it, I asked again since I would be out there on the West Coast, and he assured me a month or more in advance that he would have something to show me. There was nothing to show me at the con, and nothing was produced for me during the con.

Afterwards, he made it clear to me that he felt unable to produce the character(s) that I had initially asked for. I then asked him to switch the problematic character to another, and the second one in the other picture to a very good friend of mine. He said he'd have to ask the other friend, and I've heard since from the other friend that Mr. Harp was not very enthusiastic about it, the phrase went, "he doesn't feel good about it [the commissions]."

This past Friday, given the sum total of the above, I contacted Mr. Harp to release him from the obligation to do anything, since it has been pretty clear that I will not see my commissions. In the intervening four years, he has done several dozen pictures of similar effort and complexity, just not mine. I also know Mr. Harp is pretty much habitually broke or close to it, so I have released him from the obligation of paying me back. It is stress and tension neither of us need that will only produce bitter feelings.

It has been an expensive and frustrating lesson, one that I am passing on to this community, again, after several people encouraged me to do so. So here I am, sharing my experience with Mr. Harp with this wider audience. Mr. Harp is a very nice guy, I do consider him a friend, a talented artist, but it would appear that professionalism and business acumen are not his strong points. I know better now, and I hope this helps someone else from making the same expensive mistake I did.

Thanks for listening.