I'm choosing to submit a beware on this artist in case they pop up again, I don't know if it's because of everything going on with Russia that they've disappeared, but I feel I've given them more than enough time to make things right.
On 16th August 2021 I saw their YCH of some cake ponies that I found super adorable so I decided to buy two slots that were sold together, I was told the files had gone missing so the YCH would take a little more time, which I'm fine with. I generally don't mind waiting for art. I paid for the YCH + tip and waited. Below is the YCH post, the comment chain and payment.
I didn't really contact the artist after this, figuring they needed a while. Eventually it slipped my mind with everything going on in the world, and I'll admit I could have pestered the artist for updates but as I mentioned, I don't mind waiting for art. I've learned from this though and try to keep up to date with artists nowadays. On May 5th 2022 I get a message on DeviantART from the artist, apologizing for being gone and promising to finish the art + extras. I replied with my refs as requested and waited. In June I followed up and again in July without any further reply from the artist. I gave the ultimatum in September that I'd be posting a beware, and I feel like I've given them enough time now to get back to me.
I don't think I'll ever get a refund or the art at this point, the last finished YCH is from Oct 2021.
So with this artist I previous commissioned them in the past. Originally I had 3 plus 2 new commissions that I paid for that I waited for. On several occasions I asked about progress on them but claimed he didn't like the idea even though he agreed to it. At first I offered to change the ideas on multiple occasions but everytime I brought it up he would seem to get mad saying it was months ago. At one point in November I asked him for the last time and asked if I could get a refund if he didn't like the idea. When I asked them about it they went off on a rant and saying they wasn't going to give me a refund or a commission and that's when they blocked me the first time. At that point I assumed they ran off with the money I paid for so I had to do a claim on PayPal for the comm. After I submitted the claim they messaged me again but this time going off on me for no reason and claiming I purposely scammed them out of money despite the fact that you claimed you wasn't doing them or giving a refund. After him going off on me he posted on his paged that I scammed him out of money without giving full proper context of the situation. I then had to make a video tweet that showed full context as a way to defend myself. After I posted my proof to defend myself I assumed he wanted nothing to do with backlash so he deleted most of the tweets and asked me to delete them too. After which he made a tweet video claiming procrastinating and not liking the idea.
Couple weeks later I tried to patch things up with him and offered to comm him again but this time something he's comfortable with so nothing in the past happened again. That's when he claimed that I was playing victim, still claimed I purposely scammed him outta money, and that I was the reason he wasn't doing commissions anymore. That's when he blocked me for the last time. After which I had to do chargeback for the last 2 other comms he didn't do which was a whisper animated gif and cartoon dog regular comm.
https://youtu.be/eP1bKBZSKbw
https://youtu.be/jnUMFoqDzEA
I first commissioned Nonsiito May 5th, 2022. He did my first 5 emotes, and finished them on May 19th.
On June 5th, he dmed me unprompted, trying to get more commissions, to which I declined, but I know he dmed other people in that time as well, as I discovered later on. This made me almost not commission him again, but I had a good experience, right?
I commissioned Non for a second set of 5 emotes on July 14th. This time his wait time was 1-2 months. That was fine, at least he was being honest. He quoted $70, but I paid $100 to be nice, as he was using comms to pay for college.
I didn't hear anything from him again until August 23rd, when I dmed him asking about the emotes. He claimed he was starting work, and that was that.
From then I waited until September 6th, and messaged him again. Nothing. I dmed him on twitter on the 8th, he responded that he "hasn't checked discord in awhile." Ok whatever. He said he was struggling on his twitter so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and gave him an extra month. That was my mistake.
October 3rd, this is when issues begin. I message him, he reads the messages, doesn't respond. Instead, puts a due date on my work for the 31st, and leaves me on read. I call him out and he responds saying he forgot to reply.
On the 14th, he then proceeds to advertise a wiggle chibi profile picture, to which I decline again, as I'm still waiting for my emotes.
November 4th, I dm him asking him about progress, as the work is long past the 1-2 month wait, plus past the due date of October 31st. He replies on the 6th with some rough sketches, to which I ask him to fix, he does once, then I ask him to fix another thing, and then get no response. He hasn't responded to me since the 6th now.
On the 14th I notice he's active, I message him on twitter and instagram, no response, still on sent. He's been active on instagram as well. On the 20th he marks my emotes as finished. I still have not received them. At this point he's ghosted me for 2 weeks. I proceed to email him, and dm him on twitter, instagram, and discord periodically, trying to get a response, or at least a read. Nothing. No response since the 6th of November.
Now I'm here. December 5th. I've heard nothing back from him since. I wanted to make people aware of his poor behavior, and his ghosting. That is all.
A commission turned abusive.
I was originally approached unsolicited via note on FA by this user (when they were not suspended) offering to make artwork for my characters that they 'adored' (see the FA note screenshot attached below).
After some back and forth I agreed to commisison them. The linework they did got back to me very quickly within 3 days of originally being approached. However on September 8th they said they'd begin coloring and I did not hear back from them until I reached out again on October 11th. I did recieve my finished work from them, but my correspondence with them felt overall abusive.
However they were very keen to get a second commission from me for another character of mine. I wasn't sure that I really wanted to get a second full detailed picture and instead asked if they did sketches for helping me concept a new design.
They said they didn't and I decided then that I wasn't going to get a second commission. This is when the abusive behavior was very apparent.
Below is my full correspondence on discord with this user.
I came across SpiritOfStars's YCH through someone else I Watch on DA and have commissioned before, I had a bit of extra money and it looked like a nice style so I commented on the YCH letting them know I'd be sending a note.
I sent the note that day, 20th of August 2021, and things progressed quickly after that. Note: All communication was via deviantart Notes, and the reading order is from bottom to top.
I was also added to her queue on the original post.
Things started off well; I received and paid the invoice on the 23rd/24th of August 2021 and at the same time I received a lined WIP.
A few months later, in December, I was organising my folders of commissioned art and realised I only had this WIP, I had it in my head that this was already finished so I went looking through my notes for the link, and upon finding none I sent a note asking after it. Spirit replied pretty quickly with an update on the progress. I apologised for my mistake and was happy with this update.
A bit over a month later on the 30th of January 2022, I decided to check in again. Once again I got a fast response, though this time I was advised that she had injured her finger, which had/would cause delays.
While I wish she had reached out about this herself rather than me having to ask, I wasn't too bothered and was happy to wait as so far she was really responsive whenever I reached out (something I mentioned to her). I requested a pic of the updated WIP though, as I had just discovered this site and thought it best to make sure I wasn't being fobbed off.
A couple days later I hadn't heard back yet so I sent another message just in case she had forgotten. A few days later I got a response with the new WIP.
I was really happy to get this response and this WIP, little did I know this was to be the last message I ever received from her. I sent my response thanking her for the update, but to this day it remains unread.
In March I sent a message checking in, but it was not responded to, though it shows as Read.
I followed up again in April, this note was Read as well, asking if she preferred a different contact method, since I figured maybe she just wasn't logging in to dA much anymore (I had not noticed that the Notes were Read until prepping for this Beware).
I didn't send another Note until this month (September 2022), but in the mean time I continued to see artists I follow posting Patreon rewards for SpiritOfStars, meaning she was clearly active online in some capacity, which made me feel ignored and was very frustrating. (I am not including screenshots because these artist's do not deserve their names associated with a Beware in any way).
My next Note I decided to send a more harsh message conveying my frustration and requesting a response. This of course remains Unread.
With no communication and it being over a year since the original commission, I sent one last message an hour ago (1/10/2022) letting them know I was making this Beware, and then set to work on it.
I'm really sad that I had to do this, as again since it wasn't THAT expensive (even if I do always get fucked by the conversion rate to USD) I don't mind waiting if someone is having trouble, but all I ask is for is to be TOLD about delays and have my messages responded to.
Quick note: The early parts are my fault as I forgot about the comm for a little while and so did not follow up for some time, and thus missed the PayPal chargeback window. That said I probably wouldn't have used it or threatened it as I don't want to cause that kind of harm to the artist. I even held off on this beware for a long time because I really wanted to resolve things, as this artist is clearly a Patreon of a lot of artists I know and I didn't want to make things awkward with them. That said, enough is enough.
This commission was initiated via Toyhouse, as such, some screenshots may need to be read from bottom to top with the way the PM system works with this site.
In mid-September 2021, I reached out to DaziKidoT to create a reference sheet for a Final Fantasy XIV character of mine.
After discussing the additions required for my piece, I provided their form and they took payment after presenting base sketches for the character's pose.
After agreeing to one of the poses, they sent me an invoice and it was paid the same day.
I received my first drafts of potential design concepts 10 days later, I selected the concept I preferred the most and confirmed that I was fine with giving them artistic liberties when it came down to the overall color scheme/design work of the clothing.
This is the sketch draft I approved to move forward.
I did not hear from them until October, where they informed of personal matters that cropped up.
This was not a bother at all, up to this point DaziKidoT had been very commutative with me, and it's only been a month since we initiated the process.
After this, I did not hear from them until November, another personal matter happened, but they delivered colored concepts for the design up to this point.
I selected which elements I wished to move forward with, and later that day I received a WIP with the final draft of the design elements I wanted to keep.
All work that has been shown has been of the front-facing portion of the reference, I had not received a WIP of the back-view, nor the unclothed reference which was to show my character's body scars, etc.
A few days later, I received bad news regarding the commission overall. Everything was lost due to hardware issues.
Admittedly, this was gutting to hear, because of how well things had gone up to this point. However, DaziKidoT was still being transparent and communicative with me that I genuinely was willing to wait things out for them to complete the work.
At this point, I had no reason to believe we would run into communication issues, so I declined the offer of the partial refund.
I did not hear from them until January. There was no additional progress to show, but I inquired on January 11th if it was possible to make modifications to the original concept, as things needed to restart from square one regardless.
We did come to an agreement for the design updates for when they were able to resume working.
Another month passed and I had heard nothing from them. I was starting to get mildly concerned about their ability to remain in contact, especially as I was nearing my window for a claim via Paypal. Toyhouse experienced site-wide outage some time before I reached out to them in February, and wanted to have another way to contact them in the event the site went down.
We agreed to swap discord handles. However, I did not hear from them after we mutually added each other, I reached out to them in April to see if there were any updates, and I was informed of another personal matter, and due to limitations with accessing the site, I was willing to try and help them with at least getting the word out regarding the delay as I was not the only individual waiting for work from Dazi.
This is what I posted in their thread, I have since revised my message as I have not had contact with the artist since April.
On April 10th, I received a WIP of the anatomical revisions I was requesting.
We agreed to little details and April 11th was the last time I ever heard from Dazi.
I reached out to them in May to check in, but I received no response.
At this point, I am far beyond my window with claims via Paypal, and I have no options left for recourse.
I provided them an ultimatum, and later delivered the same message to them on Toyhouse in August, it has gone unread.
Only this time being firmer in stating that I do not wish to continue if they do end up returning.
A follow-up was sent in October to be transparent about my side of things, there has still been no response.
As of September 2022, I have reached a full year of waiting for this piece, and I have not heard from them in nearly six months.
In hindsight, I should have taken the partial refund offer when I initially received it.
Started on the 21st of July 2021 when I claimed an YCH from the artist.
Delay for the completion was two months at max, with the artist promising a sketch in-between
One month after, no sketch was provided and I sent the artist a message on FA that remained unread
Waited more months until contacting the artist through their e-mail adress ; Received an answer clarifying supposed health problems and a Discord handle.
Artist was added but never accepted friend request, then did not answer to another mail sent a month later, then deactivated their FurAffinity account.
My communication with Skellri began on the 17th of August 2021. I commissioned her for three headshots.
I sent them my paypal address and then tipped them, as I thought that 30$ for a single headshot at her skill level was too low.
Some days went past and I realised that I hadn't asked for an estimate on when the commissions would be done, so I approached the artist.
However, I did not hear from her at the time they had stated, and then had to approach them twice before they replied. I got a new date for an estimate delivery on the commissions.
I did not hear from them on the 9th of October, and waited until December to contact them again. They answered over a month later in January 2022.
The next day, they did post wips of the three headshots I had requested.
I've not received a message from them since. I approached them again in March, then months later now, in September, eventually telling them that I would have to take some action due to the lack of communication and delivered goods.
She has been promoting her commissions as recently as yesterday (19th of Sep 2022) on their Twitter profile, proving that she is active on Twitter.
Obviously it's far too late for me to get the money refunded through Paypal, and so it stands to this day that I've not received anything but mere WIPs for the 60$ + 20$ tip. I hope that by doing this other people will not go through the same.
update - 10/24/2022
Originally inquired about a commission for dakimakura designs, agreed to the price and splitting it into 2 orders and 2 payments. She never showed me any Terms of Service, I have tried to locate them on her dropbox or FA page but have found nothing.
All conversation was in polish, the screenshots contain my translations and the original messages, the dates are in MM/DD/YYYY.
The first order was put in on 10th of December 2020, the second was on 2nd January 2021, she did not contact me even once between putting in the first order and the second order.
She did not contact me even once between the first and the second order.
(admin note, this was the ref the OP supplied the artist with, the reference has since changed but it needs to be added to the post.)
After putting in the second order she did not contact me with any updates FOR ALMOST A YEAR, her trello had barely any progress happen on it, she did not make any announcements about any delaying events affecting the commissions.
After a brief talk about personal life in December (a year after the order) there was a 4 day silence, she said she will start my order before the year was over however that did not happen.
After another week of silence I sent my new ref sheet to her and received the first WiP.
After asking for a small change on the sketch she starts arguing to not do it and ignores my input on it.
After pointing out a few areas that I wanted a few more spots on (cheetahs have spots) she gave a sarcastic rude response.
After another few months of no progress updates I ask for one and get none.
After another 5 months I receive a another WiP with minimal progress.
It has been 3 months and I have received no further communication or updates, the second order has not even been started by her. She is active and draws but never any commissions from her trello.
At this point I have given up on these orders, I know she will never finish them, I have accepted this financial loss. It has been almost 2 years so PayPal wont help me about this.
First interaction was when Lundukeo claimed an YCH slot on Furaffinity.
DMs proceeded as follows:
(The message order in each screenshot goes from bottom and up)
YCH premade sketch after edited to fit their character:
New sketch after making the edits they wanted:
After Lundukeo approved of the second sketch, they stopped answering. I got worried as others were waiting for me to work on this YCH.
Invoice had been sent but was left unpaid.
I realized I wasn't going to get paid in a reasonable time so I re-opened their slot:
About a month later I got a reply from Lundukeo:
I made it clear that they were banned from working with me in the future, but decided not to block them. Afterwards I forgot about this situation and moved on, not planning on making a beware over this.
Fast forward to June 23rd 2022, I opened for a batch of commissions:
This is one of the forms that got sent in:
I accepted the commission as I loved their character. This is the reference they sent:
I was unable to contact them through their Twitter, as DMs was off, so I was suspicious if the Twitter user was the rightful owner, and contacted the character owner on Furaffinity:
Looking back I realize how much of a red flag this message is. The twitter profile was at the time and still is completely empty, with DMs off. Yet they proclaim to use it for "artists artwork, announcements, game stuff and a way to DM". I ignored the red flag and decided to work with them as the Furaffinity profile seemed legit and they had worked with other artists in the past.
I told them I would get back to them when their slot came up, and in the meantime they wrote me this:
The "mate of theirs" was the person with the blue deer who ghosted me in 2021. I accepted the commission anyway as I was under the understanding that ToughKumquats, a different person, would pay.
On August 17th I sent them a wip of their commission.
ToughKumquats was happy with the sketch but said they were unable to pay right away.
On September 8th, almost 3 weeks after the last message, invoice was still not paid.
I asked them if there were issues with paying, a message which was left unread.
At this point I put two and two together and believed Lundukeo and ToughKumquats was the same person. First of all because ToughKumquats wanted me to draw a character from a person who had been banned. Secondly because their profile had been made around the exact time they ghosted me in October of last year. Third because this pattern of being ghosted after getting a free sketch was similar to Lundukeo. And lastly because someone else on Furaffinity referred to both character owners as their boyfriend. (I will not name them as they have nothing to do with the situation.)
Being 99% sure I had been lied to, I sent this message to both ToughKumquats and Lundukeo:
30 minutes later, Lundukeo replied and my suspicion was proven correct
Admitting to lying and refusing to to pay for the work done for a second time. At this point I believe a beware is warranted.
Lundukeo admitted to ban evading by pretending to be someone else, and falling into the same pattern like last time. Honestly whether or not they planned to scam me doesn't matter, they purposefully lied to me to get around a ban and get me to work for them again.
