Summary: Paid artist Hi-Ku for a $50 sketch commission on 22DEC2019. After over a year she has supplied exactly one update asking to change the sketch type and has ceased communicating on FA. Her Twitter, Deviantart, and Tumblr have all been deleted.
On 22DEC2019, this transaction took place where I paid Hi-Ku for a sketch commission of a character I had previously purchased from her:
Here is the PayPal record of the original payment:
The next dialogue between us was on 27FEB2020, when she apologized for the delay and asked to change the sketch type due to burnout:
Since then I have received no answers to requests for updates on FA or Twitter. She has ceased posting on both her FA and VK accounts, and has deleted her DeviantArt and Tumblr accounts. She seems determined to disappear entirely. Her 'to-do' list has remained unchanged since she updated it after our communication in February 2020:
- Original agreement:
AB a YCH from them here: https://ych.commishes.com/auction/show/MORT/-sleeping-pony-/
Bought for $25USD on the 2nd of January.
- Proof of payment:
Correspondance/Updates:
Product was delivered on January 5th, (deleted correspondence on Instagram), however finished piece was found to be traced from INowISeel on DeviantArt. (source: https://www.deviantart.com/inowiseei/art/Minuette-823399989)
Found on the 20th of January. Paypal charge back has been filed, seller agreed to refund only after privatizing their insta and twitter, currently awaiting payment from Paypal.
Original agreement:
Tropical YCH, 2 versions; one SFW and one NSFW version. AB an auction at $200; Paid $212 total for a 6% fee to cover PayPal fees as dictated by the artist. YCH was paid for on July 19, 2020. Please see screencap for PayPal payment, along with confirmation in chat.
My experience with NikaInfinity began July 17, 2020, when I purchased a YCH from her on FurAffinity. Everything seemed to proceed smoothly at first, with great communication and helping to pick out references. I asked for an invoice as one had not been tendered until the 19th, at which point I had immediately paid the invoice. Sketch was tendered on the 20th, and everything was well.
No communication for a few weeks, which was shocking considering the good upfront communication. I tried to check in on Aug 4th and again on the 8th; I got confirmation that she was okay on the 9th but no update to the commission.
Contact was again attempted on Aug 30th, with no reply until Sept 14th apologizing for the delay and promising updates for Sept 18th. I was polite, and waited until Oct 3 to ask her about it, giving her two weeks of grace for the promised date of the 18th. I did not get a reply until Oct 12th, promising lines "this week". I asked her to keep communication, as that was the biggest issue I was having with the process.
Not waiting as long, I asked again an update on Oct 17th - I got an update with lines on Oct 18th! I was really happy at this point because despite the complete and utter lack of communication, it at least appeared I would get my commission. Because of this, I eased up a bit on questioning and let things go until Dec 2nd.
As you may have guessed, I did not get any updates, so I asked if she was well on Dec 2nd. No reply. Jan 9th rolls around, and a journal was posted on FA saying that she had lost all of everyone's commission info - I was not initially on the list, so I asked her about it. There was no reply or confirmation, although I did see that it was added to the list *STILL* at the 30% it was at months ago.
Jan 12th, and I got a message saying she was working on the lines, and I assured her I would be patient. This is around when Spectacle197 posted their beware about Nika / requested the refund, and Nika posted the journal that they referenced about her becoming "homeless", which was a big red flag for me and an understanding that it was not likely that I was going to get my commission finished. I asked her on the 13th for a timeframe, and I was assured I would be "next".
"Next" may or may not be fair, as I do not know the order for the other 40+ people on her commission list. She said that she was working on my piece, but the link she posted for the WIP updates (Jan10th, bottom right) was exactly the same as the one she posted months ago (Oct 20th, middle). It was at this point where I stressed that waiting 6 months was taking its toll, and I don't think the lack of communication was fair - especially as her TOS states that she will communicate.
I have everything to lose from posting this beware, if the artist decide's not to finish the commission as retaliation; I am too far out to request a PayPal refund, and quite frankly, I was too nice through this whole process because I didn't want to butt heads and did not want to lose my commission. I, unfortunately, have little hope of seeing it finished at this point - which is a shame, because the artist is obviously very talented, and I am still just as excited to receive my piece today as I was 6 months ago. The artist vanishes for months at a time from all platforms, makes promises to work and takes new commissions, and then vanishes again for months at a time.
Judging by the insane amount of clients she currently has, I would not suggest this artist as a client, and I am now out $212. Lesson learned - still hoping like a fool to see the finished piece.
I purchased a commission from Galactirad on etsy that was never fulfilled by the artist. I attempted to contact them twice on etsy about it and recieved no answers. Unfortunately Etsy said I had missed the window on opening a case against Galactirad which means I never recieved my commission or a refund from etsy or the artist.
For a long time I was unable to reach Galactirad through etsy or Instagram. For a long time they went silent on social media until recently they announced they would be moving to another Instagram account under the name Strawberrydecayy. I politley contacted them again to see if they would resolve the issue, instead they blocked me.
I've noticed their etsy shop is now closed, but they are still accepting commissions through PayPal.
- We originally agreed I would provide references and payment and they would draw me a full body colored image of my character.
I've tried to provide adequate proof in chronological order for the event in question. This includes messages and proof of payment.
So I’m not too sure if this goes under a Beware or a Caution but here this goes.
In the middle of July 2020, I won an auction for a ych piece and had waited for Nika to contact me. Since i did not receive any messages or comment saying I won, I went and sent them a message which they did not reply to for approximately another month. It was definitely a red flag. We add each other on discord and begin to discuss the commission there, references, payment, etc. So I sent the payment on September 17, 2020 and within the span of about 4 months, I only hear from them once more time in October, then silence after that.
In January 2021, I told them that I will be refunding the payment from PayPal if I don’t hear from them and so I did exactly that. A week or so later I started a resolution/dispute on PayPal. Within the same hour of having started the dispute, she texts me saying she is working on the commissions she has in line and if I can wait. I tell her my limit to wait has been reached and I wanted my payment refunded. She starts to guilt trip me by saying she will be homeless if I refund the payment. She also stated that it was against her terms of service to refund the payment when progress has started.
So I go back to look at the terms stated in the post (which has since been deleted) and it says “NO REFUND after I started to work on ych.” I look for my name in the list of the commissions in progress she has. She has 44 commissions in progress at the time of writing this, another red flag. I finally find my name buried in there and it says 0% pre sketching, meaning that she hasn’t begun. I clearly have not broken the TOS but she insists that I have and now she will not send me the refund.
I want to make this to warn anyone who wants a commission from her because she may try and bait you out until the point where you cannot refund on PayPal.
As of December 1st, 2017 I came across an advertisement listed on Furaffinity's home page for a fursuit head sold by blueraccoon23 for a flat price of 400 dollars plus shipping. I promptly messaged her about it and showed immediate interest to her and a payment arrangement was quickly made within a couple days.
The conversation continued and we agreed to a payment plan of 50/50 through paypal. The first paypal request was on December 6th, 2017 (Sent from her through goods and services) for the amount of 215 dollars. (200 for half the commission and 15 for shipping through USPS) And was paid by me on the date below (December 8th, 2017)
After the first payment, commission details were discussed. Including possible additional pricing for other items on the fursuit head. Originally the extra price was going to be included in the second paypal request. But she had the materials on hand to do it a different way so it wasn't in the second payment of 200 dollars through paypal goods and services.
She requested the money through a Furaffinity note message on March 17th 2018 for the amount of 200 dollars. And I denied it at the time.
In retrospect this should have been the first indication that something was wrong when she was asking me for money out of the blue, when there was no date set for either transaction and she made multiple mentions that there was no problem with the delay of transaction.
The above date is when the invoice was sent on April 3rd, 2018. And it was paid by me to the amount of 200 dollars on May 9th, 2018.
During the entire month of May, a string of messages from me went unanswered by her for over a month. Ending with her last communication via furaffinity note message on June 2nd, 2018.
(The length of the screen captures show text from previous messages to keep consistency between posts)
Inbox messages, showing the long gap between her responses.
Outbox messages, showing the unanswered messages from me to her.
I sent one more note on July 31st, 2020 that went unanswered. No more communications between us occurred on furaffinity.
By October 3rd, 2018 I messaged her on her business email account. Found on her Instagram, website, and also through paypal. From that date until October 16th, 2020, she only replied once and 7 messages went without reply.
(Again, screen captures are kept long to keep consistency. These are gmail messages in PDF printer format. Bottom of the page indicates 1/1 pages on all screen captures to show no replies are missing or falsified)
During all of these emails, on May 23rd, 2019 I found her telegram account by using the same name, Blueraccoon23 and messaged her, she replied in roughly 1 hour. Over the course of 17 minutes she sends 5 messages and then never responds again through Telegram.
The email attempts continue on September 15th, with only one message sent in the thread.
Finally I ask for a refund on October 16th, 2020 with the details of the transaction included.
She mentioned in her one email response to check her Trello account, because that's where she updates her commission queue. She never added my name, and the names that are in her queue currently have been on there for well over a year. Her Trello can be found here: https://trello.com/b/H0ZXIlhr/bluecoons-creations
Her last update was May 10th, 2019)
Her Instagram is: https://www.instagram.com/blueraccoon23/ and at the time of this post, the website listed on her Instagram is no longer a valid web domain: www.bluecoonscreations.com and that was the only place that I know of where her Trello account was even listed in the first place.
[removed by staff for proxy: Remember, posts should only talk about your issues with an artist. Not other people.]
So in short, if you ever see blueraccon23 (Jasper on Instagram) Don't commission her. There is a high likely-hood that you will never see your name on the queue, that she won't ever respond to you, with possible lost money and lost time.
So, I just found someone that took a commission doing a copy/paste of my art, removing my watermarks, without permission and without crediting me.
Original art links
I had a customer order 4 YCHs off of me on the same base and used discord to discuss it with me and the options.
They sent me through the forms and I did a little clarification and then went ahead and sent WIPS of the product before colouring, got the all clear and completed them. I then sent through one which didn't look right and asked if they found a flat version of the pattern on google as this one was textured. I agreed to fix anything they would want as their form was very descriptive. They then proceeded to say this art wasn't as good as the other I have done even though its to the same par. They then decided to just cancel the whole commission even though it was completed and just wanted colour changes. I informed them that I don't do refunds to people who already have their YCHs done, especially when I have sent them the files, to which they explained the YCH doesn't even have shading which I never offered on that base as not all my bases have shading included.
Then after all this they decided to threaten me if I didn't refund them and called it trash and junk.
In August 2017, I contacted Noben about a commission and it was agreed upon. $150 was paid on August 23rd, 2017.
All of her business was handled through someone else at the time, and they are no longer working with her. I had also messaged about a refund last May, and it was agreed upon through their secretary that it would be done, with no guarantee on when I would get my money back.
Fast forward to November 2020, and that secretary no longer handles their business. I emailed Noben as it said to on her Furaffinity, and as of today on January 1st, 2021, I have gotten no reply.
I'm generally very patient with artists if they communicate, but this is just exploiting my patience at this point.
PayPal Invoice
Trello card (Current)
Agreement to refund (I am BigHoot)
Email to Noben with no answer
I did a commission for the guy, I talked to him very normally, and the verbal agreement was done.
I started his commission sent him 2 progress reports, after the second progress report was sent, the next day he blocked me.
I'm not going to harass him or anything but just be careful he seems just fine with stealing.
Funny thing it was still a wip...
