Commissioned this artist in May of 2019 and didn't receive a response until I commented on one of their commissions posts.
After DMing and emailing with no response and seeing them continuing to open up commission slots I got a bad feeling so I commented on one of their posts directly. Immediately they messaged me, updating me and asking me to take my tweet down. They seemed extremely forthcoming/nice in the DMs and I thought things would be solved so I deleted my comment and told them to take their time (they offered free art in compensation for my time which I declined). At this point I didn't know how large their commission queue truly was (i thought they were just overwhelmed a bit) and it had only been a few months of waiting with them actively posting on their twitter.
Here are my invoices totaling $115 dollars. I have yet to receive a sketch or an update and as of March 12 2020 LunaofWater has been inactive on their accounts and has not contacted me back when I've DM'd them.
I had initially commissioned the artist with high hopes, due to previous commissions being finished within a rate of a couple weeks to a couple of months. When I had commissioned, there were no official terms of service, but as far I was concerned, I would able to refund with no issues if I ran into problems. However, since the terms have updated, the artist claims I am ineligible for a refund despite me waiting a year for my art with no signs of progress. This is how the chat/commission started out.
The artist shows examples to me. The character shown in the screenshot is her own. In addition, she has shown me more examples. So far, so good.
Seems very charismatic to begin with! I was very excited about my commission. More about this charisma later.
Still maintains charisma, even states she feels bad about the delay. I am a very forgiving person, so I had decided to continue waiting a bit longer. I was not in too big of a hurry for the commission to be completed.
Here I notice there wasn't as much of a friendly vibe as I had gotten with the artist before which made me a little concerned, like as if the artist was stressed. In addition, hasn't been as responsive to me.
I figured it was appropriate to file a dispute at this point because friends have been suggesting it to me. I tried to be understanding, and I waited 24 hours for a response on whether or not the artist was going to follow through with my commission. Read but no response, so I just decided to listen to my friends and file the claim. Unfortunately, PayPal has a strict 180 day rule so I was ineligible for a refund, yet the artist was still notified and blew up on me. I tried to explain as professionally as I could for my actions and why I think my dispute was reasonable.
Shown is the queue posted before the Terms of Service, in which I am listed. Also shown is the Terms of Service that were created after I had purchased my commission. In the second screenshot, you can see the update states "It will apply to all future commissions." This makes my commission exempt, in theory. And shown in the third screenshot above are the terms the artist created in terms of refunds. Although it is stated that refunds are not given after payments are made, that if a commission has not been started a refund could be discussed. My commission was never started and yet, my request for one was rejected right away.
I showed the artist the terms they had created and the artist had decided I will not receive my commission, I will be black listed, and I will not receive a refund. I am not the only one who has been waiting on a commission from this artist, but I have decided that these business practices were sketchy.
I went to commission a 40 dollar flat art piece from TankDragon and I waited 7 months for them to get back to me or at least update me on the commission but they never responded to me and never showed me any artwork even started.
I had commissioned Luna for a NSFW piece back in I believe November and she had completed it within a week or two with no issues at all! So I was very confident in commissioning her again. I had not seen her Trello, and if I knew how huge it was, I would've never commissioned her a 2nd time.
Luna failed to communicate with me and many other commissioners over the past 3+ months. I have tried messaging her on Discord, twitter, e-mail, and PayPal. I had opened a PayPal dispute about my 2nd commission and she did not even bother replying to it, so PayPal had to step in.
Here is our initial conversation on Discord about commissioning her:
Proof of payment from me:
I asked for updates on March 18th and did not get any response:
However, she was still accepting commissions in an art server we are both in:
PayPal case:
Luna is still to this day inactive on her social media which is extremely unprofessional. If she had taken the time to message me, I would've been okay with waiting longer.
Someone in her personal discord server (which is now closed) posted an update screenshot from Luna on Twitter:
However, I wish Luna posted this on Twitter herself instead of myself and many others having to search her username on Twitter to get any updates.
Here's Luna's current queue (which I am not on and it was last updated on Feb 27):
Link: https://trello.com/b/TzNe630i/lunaofwater-public-queue
I highly suggest to avoid commissioning her until she gets clears her current queue or at least gets it under control. She failed to communicate with me and I have very disappointed..
Good day to you all.
Small notice - As requested by moderation staff from the original post I have removed a number of screenshots with just plain conversation not quite pertaining to the topic of the commission. But showed a regular source of contact for some of this situation with the artist in question.
I am rather upset the situation has come to this. But here goes in as concise and explanatory a situation as possible.
This would be my second commission from QWERTYDRAGON aka Xubuntu. With my first having been a successful piece commissioned from them in January of 2019. They completed this commission on time and to a high degree of quality. Thus as you will see from the posted discord screenshots we had a conversation about a Mecha-Dragon version of the Red Dragon character of mine - Rakarth Cinderscorn. A price was agreed and set to be paid for. Months went by, with a initial sketch being provided by the artist as you will see in one of the screenshots. From then on, time went by with regular communication going on between myself and said artist. As it came to the later part of the year - I asked for deadlines that could be set for the art to be completed (With myself under the belief it was in progress and being worked on).
The first of these was around my Birthday in the July period, and the second was in the month involving Halloween. Both of these deadlines were missed and multiple attempts at communication were attempted. Not only via discord which was the preferred medium of contact. Multiple emails were sent to their direct business address which they confirmed they had received and yet hadn't answered because 'I just get lazy sometimes'.
I have attempted to contact Paypal for a resolution, which has been denied given the time-frame involved. This was an individual I believed I could trust, they do make quality artwork for sure. But their focus it seems had turned to completing other newer commissions and a Patreon of specified artwork which you can search based upon their name Xubuntu / Qwertydragon (Their artist alias, Real name is unknown and censored for site reasons).
I would like to make sure no one else ever has to go through such an experience with said artist, nor ends up waiting for inordinate amounts of time. Nor losing out on the costs of said artwork. For me the cost is the lesser of the two lossess here.
Sincerely recorded,
Rakarth
Hi, some people recommend me to come here to report a user, my english is kinda bad so I wanted some help, this user commission me weeks ago and they was satisfied with my service, last night they gave me a message wanting to commission a more complete job, I gave my prices as they are but the user was rude and decided to end the conversation. but this morning the user opened a claim in paypal for a forced refund of the commission that had already ended weeks before as I commented before only because of the discussion that night.
the commission they wanted refund was finished and recived by them that same date in the screenshot of the files. the user deteled the conversation where i send them the files in dropblox.
I would be gladly to get your help. Thank you so much. I hope other artist not deal with this user anymore. I'm still resolving the false refund.
Money request:
Original transaction:
I've commissioned this artist at the 30th of October 2019.
[Mod edit]: Original listing - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/33612846/
Sent her references of my feral only character [1] ("feral only" means, there IS NO anthro reference), and told her the pose I would like to be in [2].
2 months followed without a response. I received not a single note. I haven't seen a single WIP.
At 12th of December 2019, she made a submission on FA. A fully finished picture, portraying my feral character as an anthro [3]. I didn’t have any say in it. I didn’t ever gave consent to this.
I requested a change and Patrik agreed [4]. So far so good.
I received a fix proposal the same day. But it wasn't working for me, the arms had anatomical issues [5]. So I told her those arms need some fixing [6], and gave her a reference to work with [7].
Even though only the arms needed fixing, Patrik was insisting she had to change the entire picture. I pressured that this was not the case, the rest can stay as it is [8].
I didn't receive a response. I sent another note to make sure and I didn't receive a response there either [9].
So then days and weeks pass and new submissions were uploaded. In January I tried speaking to her on Telegram. 3 days later I get the response that I should remain patient.
2 weeks later I ask again. No response.
2 weeks later, again, I ask again. No response.
1 week later, I ask again. No response [10].
All while she was active on FA and Twitter, mind you. Uploading all the submissions, obviously working on art, obviously being available.
And finally, February 12th, the day she started uploading submissions for the SECOND batch, I lost my patience. Thus far she has managed to work on 20 other artworks, but not on the fix of mine. I complained about her business practices and stated my ultimatum that, if she wants to keep the money, I expect a proper fix.
Finally she was able to respond, within 40 minutes even. Told me she didn't have time to do it. And left it at that without another response for another week again [11].
So February 18th (meanwhile 5 more submission were made, AND she opened slots for the third batch [12]), I asked "Will you work on the fix once your entire queue is empty?" I asked if she could finally respond in a reasonable time to me.
She responded within a minute, and sent another fix proposal [13]. It was feral this time... but absolutely not the pose I had asked for [14].
I'll be honest here, I could've left it at that and said "you know what, it's fine", but I refused to accept this after how I was treated all this time. I gave very proper instructions, very proper references and I'm getting this thrown at my face like "that's what you get, be happy with it"? No. Just no.
So what followed was a discussion about the details I gave her. I gave her all the screenshots of the notes she didn't care to respond to, which explained exactly what I wanted. I was really frustrated at this point [15]. I spoke to her about her business practices, how she is treating me and leaving me completely behind. 25 artworks on top of mine, and that's when I get my fix? I should've gotten the fix right then and there.
All she said was that every other drawing had no errors (yeah, if you don't show your customers, they can hardly complain, can they?). She "didn't have time to fix the artwork". But she had time for 25 other artworks [16]?
The discussion went a little wild at this point, too much information to put it all together. I wanted to show her how I have been treated unfairly by her.[17][18][19]
But here's the real cream of it all, and I'll pull her quote directly: "It is also your fault that you did not write in the description in which form you want your character" [20]
It is my fault that she drew my feral only character, to which she had an entire album of feral references, as an anthro?
Apparently, ALL the customers (and I mean every single one of them) do state wether they want to be anthro or feral [21].
Yes, I did in fact not state wether or not I wanted to be feral, because I had the wild assumption, that it would be completely, unquestionably obvious, that if I send an entire album full of feral only references, that I would like to be feral.
So, if it was "my fault" that I didn't state if I wanted to be feral or anthro, if she was unsure and just had to decide on her own...
"Why didn't you ask me?", I questioned.
"no time"... [22]
...
So Patrik literally claims that she had "no time", sending a note with a single question, which would take one minute at most, within the span of 2 months, before the completion of the artwork.
This is what makes it shameful. This is why I am so angry, frustrated and appalled.
At the 29th of March I have told Patrik that she has time to finish the fix until April 26th, because that's when my PayPal's Buyer Protection for this transaction will expire.
I have also told her that I extracted everything and will make an Artist Beware post soon, wether or not she actually finishes the fix. At this point she still has the chance to make it the best it can be.
Additionally I requested the artwork to be removed from all sites it had been posted on.
This message was unresponded to until short before the expiration date.
Eventually I activated PayPal’s Buyer Protection service, wrote a Trouble Ticket to FA about the Situation (about wanting the submission removed) and informed Patrik about it [23].
The 11th of May, Patrik asked me to cancel the PayPal dispute, for whatever reason. I did not comply, as it would eradicate my right to ever receive my money again [24].
15th of May I got fully refunded and FA Staff removed the submission.
I thought we were done. But unfortunately, it doesn’t end here.
At the 1st of June, Patrik sent me another “fixed” artwork, fully finished [25]. I did never ask for this. She asked me if I wanted the drawing.
I replied that I don’t. It is a finished piece of the first fixing proposal [5], which I had already rejected before. How am I supposed to receive this, after all this hassle about her not following my instructions? Not only is there so much negativity associated with the artwork now, it is still not fixed! The anatomy is still wrong on there, in a way that I find unacceptable. And again, I rejected this exact thing before!
I did not want to receive a “gift” either, that wouldn’t feel right. I was willing to pay her again, if she would have corrected it. I told her how I feel about all of it [26].
I will be entirely honest here, I don’t know why she did that. Was it supposed to be a gift, a redemption, an apology? Whatever it was, she failed me because it was the exact same thing. It was the EXACT SAME GAME she played with me here.
She finished a picture without having me look at it.
She didn’t work on the fixes I requested.
She finished it only after the entire queue was done.
I did not consent to her doing that with my character.
I am sorry, but no. These are the exact things I complained about, and she did it again. This feels much less than a gift, but more than a stab with a knife.
Patrik proceeded to show me the differences between the two finished pieces [3][25], insisting that she did change it to feral. Which, yes it was feral, but anatomically unacceptable for me, as the forelegs of a feral canine don’t bend that way.
For some reason, she picked up that Feral vs Anthro argument up again. Which lit another discussion about her business practices [27].
She then went back to insisting that she did a fix. Which I denied, telling her exactly what is wrong, and which solution I proposed before, 4 months ago [28], reciting my message from February [15].
Patrik proclaimed the case as over. Saying that now I have my money, and art. (As a fair sidenote, I do not accept the art. I’ve never added it to my private gallery and I never will.)
I responded saying that it isn’t all about the money for me. It’s about how ignorant she is towards the fact that when people pay for something, they expect a proper result for their price.
She only replied saying that my money has been returned.
At this point I admit, I lost my cool. I was infuriated by her ignorance towards the actual issue I was trying to tell her all those months since our first interaction. Telling her that she was treating me disrespectfully. Telling her how other artists struggle to even get as far as selling their art for that money, which she takes for granted. A little bit of back and forth on the same old themes again [29].
Interestingly, she admitted that her life has been changing and that it has been hard. Admitting that she doesn’t have the time to do commissions [30]. But that’s the only thing she would openly admit to me, before we were talking about business again. I’m still pushing the point that her business model is not okay and customer unfriendly [31].
And this concludes the end of it [32].
My beware reads as follows:
If you commission PatrikTheDog,
don’t expect to see a result within any reasonable time.
Don’t expect her to respond to your questions or issues. Most of your messages will go by unread and unresponded to.
Don’t expect her to respect your requests of changes, and if there are any to be made, you will be put at the end of the current (or next) queue, before she will do it.
You will not receive a WIP and she will not ask for your consent before she uploads artwork of your character, which the final result you might have issues with, as it was in my case.
She treats her customers with no respect, taking it for granted that she is earning money from you.
She will blame you for her own mistakes.
You will only receive a refund if you force her to, for example by using PayPal’s Buyer Protection service. Which she will request you to cancel, for no reason at all.
You might be asking, what do I want at this stage?
Patrik is a wonderful artist, no doubt. I absolutely admire her style, which is very unique, clean and beautiful. I am truly saddened that I possibly can not ever commission her again, to have any valuable piece of her artworks.
But her business practices are the just absolutely infuriating and customer unfriendly. She doesn’t know how to treat her customers right, and just expects them to play along her game. You’re a good customer as long as you don’t have any complaints about her. But when you do, since you might be caring about the artwork that you’re commissioning, expect some backlash.
What I truly want from her is a sincere apology. I feel mistreated and disrespected. Not once did she show some humility to what has happened. It seems like that I was only annoying her, when really, I just wanted to be a customer and treated with, at the very least, casual respect and attention.
I want her to do better than this, revise her business practices and think about how she treats art again. It is a shame that a talented artist like herself is going such a shady and unhealthy way.
Now you know the full story. I hope I can help make a change.
Below are all the sources I marked by numbers in the text above:
(Some links contain NSFW)
[1] https://imgur.com/a/LHZBi
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7] https://img.thrfun.com/img/080/750/.....tanding_x1.jpg (Not the original I sent her, as it disappeared from the web. But a very similar one.)
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12] https://www.furaffinity.net/view/35115002/
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]
[31]
[32]
Mod edit: For anyone confused, the OP sold a character to the Bewaree/ Puppy. Instead of sending payment to the OP, Puppy sent it to Jury as payment for a character OP wished to purchase from Jury.
2 people in this have gotten scammed. me and jury. but this is mainly focused on what happened with me and alot happened through dms with this other user
Around when this happened, when the users toyhou.se was still active, they wanted to purchase a character from me. The character that is currently in their possession, is 🎮weasel🎮 (You are unable to see them now because of them being owned/stored in an account that is closed) After they claimed to have sent the money to jury(which was also a payment for a character i bought, https://toyhou.se/5828069.-darren- ), I of course transferred to character, unaware that this person has also scammed a few other people(searching for said people). Around May 12th of this year, I got a message from jury saying how that same user has filed a dispute against them, making it so the transaction was redacted. Since this happened they did not pay for the character
between the time periods of [12 May 2020, 3:05:07 pm] & [29 May 2020, 7:20:51 am] there has been no reply/activity in regards to the Puppyboy user.
But shortly after the character was transferred, the user's account was closed. (Approximately within that same week they were transferred assumingly?) But the account was closed rather early after the transfer was sent. Within that time. Listed above, I thought the situation was resolved, & the money had been paid back..... but then again what's the reason for closing your account if possibly resolved?
Puppyboy claimed that two people or possibly more have claimed they filed a chargeback. That was honestly odd, because if multiple people have claimed you filed a chargeback then it's likely you filed said chargeback and scammed something.
In the end the money got sent back to them, and they are now in possession of a scammed character any money used to pay off something. So then it would also make that character seem scammed, and not in my possession.
Just in case, here are examples of some of their art along with their up 2 date socials at the top - example | example | example | example | example
ok been 2 year i been deal with this kind give up i pay 200$ get body pillow done i got nothing back i keep ask or bug try not be rude to this person but been over this long for longest i have 2 year of chats him tell me gone get it done over and over have back logs pay his rent and every thing. i pay him for body pillow i was think he was a good friend to me did lot commission in the pass for me. i been in the dark for all most 2 year
that drawing all i got in all most 2 year what i got he even tell me make up to me give me more art work for lost of time i never got any thing but from that
i took it to point try get my money back with pay pal and this what they tell me more like well i got rob cuz give me that just say watch out this person he does art he did this on Patron too when had his own discord group took every one money when try to move not getting any one work done but has not done that late as i know just piss me off trust some one and just rob me
My fiance commissioned a shop on Etsy to draw some outfits for her character. She gave the artist a reference sheet of her character that I drew for her earlier this year. The shop traced the artwork and made two edits (The face was edited to look different, and one hand pose was changed very slightly) and if you lay the image over my artwork you can see that the lines match 90% I tried to censor the posts as much as possible and I apologize if there's any 'lewdness' to them, as you can see parts of the character's genital anatomy despite my best efforts to censor it while maintaining the integrity of the images (to best show how closely they matched the lines, down to nearly exact shapes and curves)
I confronted the artist and they denied that the artwork was traced. They offered to redraw the commission for my partner but our big fear is that they may be tracing other artists as well.
For the record the commission in question was incredibly cheap, under $15. The issue really isn't the money, for me, it's the theft of intellectual property for financial gain.
Etsy removed the listing but has not removed the shop from their website.
