Update from 3/23: Kilwin was contacted one last time.
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Artists Beware
The namesake database. Submissions are categorized by "Bewares" and "Cautions".
I originally commissioned Kilwin for a Kigurumi last year and they have since finished the commission but have ghosted me after talking about shipping, and haven't shipped it or given me a refund still they also deleted their Etsy post which is where i originally found them to commission them.
Update from 3/23: Kilwin was contacted one last time.
Beware: Kancler_Vell
By James, in Artist Bewares,
On Feb 25, 2022 I responded to a now deleted commission ad put out by Kancler_vell, and paid $70 USD for a colored headshot. Their email has been left uncensored as it's publicly listed.
On Feb 27th they asked for my email to keep in touch when Russia invaded Ukraine. That was the last I heard from this artist. I have sent follow up messages and received no reply.
Message sent on Instagram:
Email attempts:
I've learned from a Russian artist that Kancler_Vell is ok, but is only active on the Russian social media site, VK, on what might be a private profile. So, I sent one last attempt at reaching out.
Edit March 15, 2023: after sending an email to this artist with links to this post, she has gotten in contact with me to figure out our next steps.
Edit 2: Kancler has sent me a refund!
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Proof of transaction/ original agreement:
Backstory:
10/29/2022
Versera had posted a journal with links to their still open multiple slot ych commissions, I really liked the heart glitch ych and decided to comment to get one of my fursona Nyx. They responded to my comment and then dm'd me and I paid promptly.
01/22/2023
It had been a while since I had seen them post anything so I decided to check their page and noticed they hadn't posted any artwork since December 22nd and they had cleared the shouts on their page. Their public journal with their queue size had also grown significantly vs the amount of artwork they had produced so I decided to note them and ask them with my worries and ask what the status on my commission would be.
02/02/2023
My note had remained unread so I decided to leave a public shout hoping it'd catch their attention asking them to please respond to my note.
After I wrote the first shout I was looking at their page and saw that they had two other accounts of theirs listed in their bio. (A NSFW account and an Adopt account) I decided to check them to see when they had last been active. They had been active posting multiple NSFW YCH's on their NSFW account as recently as four hours before my initial shout on their SFW account and had been posting YCH's on their adopt account three days before. This NSFW also had a journal with a separate queue from the one on their SFW account showing that their queue was a lot larger than I thought.
I decided to leave a shout on the two other accounts asking them if they could read my note that I sent them on their main account.
02/04/2023
I checked their page again and noticed that on their NSFW account another user was posting in their shouts asking where their artwork was as they had been waiting for over a year. This raised alarm bells so I wrote them a shout stating that I was going to give them two weeks to do my artwork or refund me or I would be writing a Beware.
02/09/2023
They messaged me from their NSFW account stating that they were sorry for the long answer, and that they were in another country temporarily and very sick but they had their laptop and tablet so they could do my artwork if they felt better in the next few days. I responded that I was looking forward to hearing from them and waited. They had nuked their shouts on all of their accounts.
02/13/2023 - 02/17/2023
They uploaded three YCH pieces on their nsfw account and two brand new YCH's.
On their sfw account they uploaded a piece of personal artwork and one YCH commission on the 15th.
02/25/2025
It had been over two weeks so I noted them again and this note has went unanswered since.
I honestly don't feel like I'm going to get my artwork anytime soon if at all. The payment was through Boosty and I'm not sure if you can charge back a payment through Boosty through Paypal. I don't want to attempt it and get banned from the platform as I have a lot of Russian artist's that I want to commission. I'm just glad the payment was only 25 dollars.
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caution Beware: Lewdtime
By Solik, in Artist Cautions,
I pledged to Lewdtime from April to June of 2022 on Fanbox. I was subscribed to their $45 tier for those three which guaranteed a colored sketch commission. Here are the receipts for those three months.
After pledging to the tier, I had Dm’ed them on discord about the details for the first sketch. A month went by and I asked for an update.
soon after I realized that I had continued staying pledged for a couple more months. It wasn’t intentional but I didn’t mind because I figured the commission would come pretty quickly since I had already gotten the sketch for the first commission. I asked if it was alright to send the ideas for the other two commissions which at first got no reply until a few days later when I checked again.
I omitted the post on June 12th as it was simply my post about the details of the commission. But this was not replied to by Lewdtime after I posted the details.
This last screenshot is the several months of update requests in which I attempted to make contact with them. I also tried contacting them on Twitter since they are mostly active on there. I also received no replies. At this point I had asked for a refund on Twitter and discord which had received no replies.
Today I was able to get in contact with them, but I believe it was only due to the fact that I told them that if I received no reply that I would make a post on Twitter warning users to not commission them. They quickly replied and I was able to receive a full refund. Of course I am still posting this here because I have already seen one other post on this site with the same situation as mine. I do not have the messages from today anymore as I blocked them on every site after confirming the refund, but it was simply them requesting my PayPal address to refund the money to and then confirming that I received it. So please beware of this artist especially if you try the fanbox tier pledges since you cannot force a refund as easily as your typical direct PayPal transaction.
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Chronology below. Time stamped in Discord and Deviantart Chat is GMT+7.
- The artist contacted me through Deviantart Chat on 24/01/22, offering commission service. We agreed to continue the conversation through Discord DM.
- The artist and I discussed the details of the commission through Discord DM on 25/01/22. I agreed to commission a Low-grade Pin Up commission and paid for the commission through Patreon on 25/01/22. Artist confirmed that payment had been accepted on 25/01/22.
- I contacted the artist on 01/03/22 to ask for update on the commission. The artist replied on 02/03/22, citing delay due to bereavement.
- I contacted the artist on 08/05/22 to ask for update on the commission. The artist replied on the same day, citing delay due to real-life issues.
- I contacted the artist on 12/07/22 to ask for update on the commission. The artist replied on 16/07/22, claiming that they had a WIP of the commission ready. I requested the WIP as proof of progress, but WIP was not provided.
- I contacted the artist on 25/08/22 to ask for update on the commission. The artist replied on the same day, citing delay due to health issues.
- I contacted the artist on 24/10/22 to ask for update on the commission and possibility of refund due to lack of communication initiated by the artist. The artist replied on the same day with a long, unclear response. I reiterated my firm request for updates and consistent communication from their end in regards for any delays.
- The artist provided the WIP of the character I commissioned on 26/10/22 and I confirmed on the same day that the WIP had been accepted and I was satisfied with the progress.
- I contacted the artist on 12/11/22, 17/12/22, 27/12/22, 04/01/23, and 22/01/23. As of 10/02/23, the artist has yet to respond since their last correspondence on 26/10/22.
- beware
- artist
- commission
- uswithoutwings
- copycatz
- copycatz360
- monstereater
- omgcopycatz
- catzcandy
- bohemianfall
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This is a beware that involves somebody that was once a friend of mine. For that reason, this is quite a tough one for me to write. I have tried to limit the amount of personal information to what is required for anyone to be able to follow this beware.
It all started over a year ago. The artist posted in a discord server that she had an unexpected bill for her new house. As a friend, I wanted to help her out, so I originally offered to let her borrow some of my money for free. She raised the idea of a commision instead. The screencap below is my response in PM to the post she made on the discord server.
After this reply we had some chit-chat about trading cards that I have not included here. Afterwards, I asked what she could do for 250 pounds. Besides a plushie that was currently not a good option, she could do at least two “standard colour pictures”. What I knew of this type of artwork is that they were of just the character's face.
She asked for screenshots of one of the characters, Truun, which I provided a while later. After that I asked her where I should send the money to. It was recommended to use paypal with friends and family. She also mentioned that normally she only asks people to send the money after the work is completed. However, given she had this emergency bill, I decided to pay right away. After mentioning the paypal that sent the money, she confirmed the payment.
At the end of all this, the strongest I would say that we agreed to here is 250 pounds for 2 and a half standard color images. These are the type where I knew they were just the face.
A few months went by without any progress. Besides the regular chatter, occasionally we would be in a group voice chat in a WoW guild discord with multiple people casually talking about all sorts of things. During those she would often on the side mention how she was sorry that she still had not started yet with the art and would start soon (which she then never would).
After one group voice chat I started having my doubts about the “2 and a half image” agreement when she would mention that she would start on my 'one' character soon. So I asked for clarity on that after the voice chat. She ‘confirmed’ that it was indeed just one character. I agreed to that, under the assumption that it would then not be a standard color image given those were 100 pounds each. If we look here at a learning moment, I should have pushed at that moment for more clarity. Though I found it difficult to do with her being a friend. However, I do also believe that the artist has to do their part in asking questions and being clear when there appears to be doubts.
Many months went by. During that time we still had our usual conversations and she would continue to occasionally mention how she felt bad that she had still not started yet.
At one point I sent her a message to ask her to double check with me before she gets started. This commission was for a roleplaying character and a lot of character development had taken place between the first transaction and then. This would affect the work. I did not get a response to this one.
Around two weeks after this message our friendship reached a breaking point. This was not due to the art commision itself, but a long buildup caused by painful interactions over time. I decided the best thing to do was to take distance from her and also leave the WoW guild discord she was part of. A lot can be written about how this friendship broke down, but I prefer to keep this private. Around three weeks later I decided to ask for a full refund for the commision. It had been over a year where no progress was shown. I decided to present the situation to two artists first before requesting the refund and they both mentioned that this would be fair. I hoped that after a whole year of having the money for free and having no progress, and me having done this to help her as a friend, she would understand and would have agreed to the full refund so that we could both leave this commision and everything attached to it behind us peacefully. At this point, I was not convinced this commission would ever still be finished and even if it would, I felt the work would only remind of the painful experiences that I tried to leave behind. I would not be able to seperate the art from how it came to be.
She was not willing to offer the full refund even though it had been over a year. The reasoning being that she had started working on the commission since the moment I took distance. However, between me notifying her that I was taking distance and requesting the refund, there had been no contact from her what so ever. Also from what you can see from a previous image, I asked her to double check with me before she would start.
I was not willing to accept this. I was also very skeptical whether she had actually already started at this point when she mentioned she could only show me progress the day after. After some pushing, and with a bit of time passing, she actually managed to show me the sketch that represented the progress she had made so far. I was skeptical about whether this sketch had not been done during the time I asked for the refund and when she posted it. She tried to convince me that was not the case and then went on to ask about details for the sketch itself. She also mentioned that I have had information along the way, but this has been mostly limited to the voice chats I mentioned earlier where she would apologize for it still not being done. There was never any progress shared or any questions asked regarding how the art should be.
So she showed me a sketch of just the face of the character. As this seemed to be heading towards being one of those standard images that I originally would get 2 and a half of, I asked if it would indeed be just the face.
I got the answer back that this was indeed the case. At this point out of good will she was willing to do a sketch of another one of my characters.
As you can see above, she mentions that I agreed on this single image in voice chat. Though I asked her after the voice chat for clarity about how many characters were going to be done, and I did agree to just one (see an earlier image) , I never agreed to it being just the face.
I offered besides the full refund that she could refund me 150 pounds and just finish the one image as a way to accomodate.
She refused both offers and pointed at what her regular commisions are, which are indeed only faces, but these are the "standard color images" that I would originally get 2 and a half for. In the same response she grudgingly offered to do a full body instead for the full amount.
At this point, I took some time to think about what to do next. At this point, I would not be able to separate the art from how it was produced and looking at it would mostly just give me painful memories to this exchange and all the things that ultimately made it better for me to take distance from her. A few days later I made the final offer. I would give her 50 pounds for the work she had already done (the sketch), without asking anything in return for it. She would be allowed to pay back the 200 pounds in installments of 50 pounds per month.
She also refused this offer and this is where I have left it at.
While this beware was pending, she came back to me to offer me 125 pounds without offering any art with the argument that it is 'common to do 50/50 with these large commissions'. However, this would still not be fair. We never agreed to this split up front and all the way at the start, she even mentioned that she commonly let people pay afterwards (see an earlier screen cap). So this is a pretty weak argument. A standard color image is 100 pounds, all the progress she has is the sketch of the same size. This would mean she is letting me pay 25 pounds more for less (or actually none as I won’t get any work for it).
Ideally, I would have preferred not to have had to make this beware. I had hoped that after all this time she would have agreed to the full refund and we could have both left this peacefully behind us. Even after she refused that offer, I tried to accomdate in multiple ways. I feel my offers have been more than fair. At this point, I will only still accept the 200 pounds refund.
This was the first art commission I ever tried and it has been the only one so far. It feels as if my friendship has been taken advantage of. Though this has been a rather painful experience that makes me somewhat hesistant to commission art in the future, I have learned two important things. One is that I should have pushed for a very strict written agreement even though we were friends. Another is to never do these types of transactions using “friends and family” for paypal.
I hope with now having written this all down I can start leaving this behind me and have been able to warn others and perhaps tell a cautionary tale.
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I commissioned Hollewdz back in April of 2022 for a size art that amounted to $160.
After this I followed my usual rule of 1 month between check ins just to give leeway to the artist. Everything was fine for about a month or so until in June, when I stopped receiving responses. I blocked out one word as, even though she was open about it, it is a personal issue of hers I don't feel right saying myself. As for the supposed methods of attaining a refund, I later realized that I had misunderstood Paypal's policy and that I was well passed a grace period.
Throughout this I did attempt to communicate by other means, messaging her on Patreon and via email. She does not have her email posted, but it was the email through which she sent out the invoice.
This has been a disappointing experience. I hope that it can still be resolved someday, but I wanted to make others aware of this sort of possibility when commissioning this artist. My friend made me aware of this site as a polite means of doing so.
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The original agreement was a commission for $35 involving two characters. This was for an emergency commission post they had made in August.
I sent the payment to them through CashApp, that was their preference and they asked for payment in advance.
Everything was confirmed and they had let me know that they would give me updates as the week goes by. This has not happened at all.
I have not heard anything about my commission so I sent them a message on January 1, 2023. Throughout the entire month of January, I have not heard back even after bumping the message multiple times. Eventually, I request for a refund which has not happened and at this point, I don't think it will happen considering the lack of communication that has happened with my messages. They are active on Twitter and have been posting art and tweets throughout the month so it appears that they are ignoring these messages. Currently my refund request is pending on CashApp and there is not much I can do but hope that they refund me.
Below is proof of payment and the refund request that ended up expiring eventually. Fortunately, I was able to recover the lost funds through my bank.
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I contacted Lady Bullfinch on December 11, 2021. I had found her on twitter and commissioned her for a pixel pagedoll.
I was added to her queue (_qphelia, due feb. 12) and thought nothing of it.
She specifically informed me that turnaround would be about two months - absolutely no problem. Payment is sent.
I told her okay, informed her that I found her through the pagedoll tag on twitter, and we agreed on the commission. February 17 comes, I shoot her a dm asking about it, no pressure, she says she hurt her hand over the new year. I say no worries, take your time, no rush. She also offers a discount on future commissions.
March, May, and June come, and I dm her to check in on things. It is one month later, in july, that she gets back to me. She says she has health issues, I ask if she can do the commission or if she wants to just refund me. She says no, she can't refund me, since paypal is broken in her country. We go ahead with the commission as planned.
Between then and now, nearly six months later, there's been nothing. No contact, no updates, nothing. She liked some posts on twitter in october, but did not respond to my message.
A PSA was crossposted to toyhouse but neither I, nor the people in the comments of said PSA, have received any update.
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In short, I paid Lewdtime for thee commissioned pictures and only received one.
The full story: on 7/14/22 I subscibed to Lewdtime's Pixiv Fanbox, which works very similarly to Patreon in that the user pays a certain fee every month in exchange for terms set by the artist. This complaint deals exclusively with the monthly colored sketch and so I have omitted information on the lower tier's terms, which this tier also receives.
Lewdtime has since replaced this tier with one that has an identical description but an increased price.
Pixiv Fanbox records a user's payment history like this:
At the end of September I decided to cancel my subscription so this represents the entire relevent payment history. I have censored mention of another artist I support on Fanbox as they are not related to this complaint.
I communicated with Lewdtime through Discord.
I have since deleted the imgur gallery so the link was dead when I recently took these screencaps.
After ten days Lewdtime had not responded so I sent another message.
A few days later, a little late, Lewdtime gave me a first sketch and we briefly discussed some changes which resulted in an updated sketch.
At this point things were going well, but after this two more weeks went by with no word from Lewdtime so I contacted him again.
After another week with no further word, I was worried Lewdtime was getting badly behind on what was supposed to be a series of sketches completed monthly.
By the 1st of September I decided to accept the idea of a two-character piece replacing the one-character pieces for August and September, hoping that it would lead to Lewdtime catching up and that in the future sketches would not be late.
I have censored the descripition of the idea for perhaps being too lewd for this website.
More than two weeks later I had heard nothing and sent another message.
I have censored the sketch for the same reason as above.
When I had not heard back by the last day of September I decided not to allow my Fanbox subscription to renew for a fourth month. After I cancelled it, Lewdtime sent me one last message with a second WIP for the combined August/September picture, as well as, finally, a completed version of the July picture.
Details of the second request censored again.
I had cancelled my subscription but as I had already paid for the August/September picture and Lewdtme had produced some WIPs for it I attempted to communicate a further two times in October.
I received no reply.
Prior to making this post I tried one last time to contact Lewdtime, making clear my position on what I thought was fair.
I have received no reply at the time I submitted this post.
Pixiv Fanbox does not seem to offer subscribers any recourse when artists do not fulfill their end of the bargain so my money is simply lost.
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