I've met through this client through discord server as I've noticed that he was looking for animators and decided to work with him. Everything was going great as the client was providing me with references and etc. The commission was a walking bouncy boob cycle and the second option was my choice which was the shaking butt animation... What I didn't know and it was something that he told me last minute after putting all of details and working on the second animation was that he wanted it as a sequence all together which I've declined because that was over the budget limit that we agreed on.
Until the client kept demanding for me to work on their project which I've declined till they paid me amount I've asked (which is half upfront and the other for when the project was completed) for which eventually the client did cover the first half of the payment.
During the process the client demanding as they kept asking for constant changes to the project which wasn't the part that made this person a bad client in my view. But the client requesting changes to where there's no end result.
Also, I've placed an hold on the client's project in order to work on a different project for a bit before going back to this one since I've had another commission to work on at the time before resuming the animation project. During the process he kept asking for animators including from me which I've gave him the name of another artist who was my business and romantic partner so that the client could chat with him. Everything was fine until I've noticed that the client was using my partner to replace me for a project the person already paid for and I was already in the process of working on (without consulting with me first).
Then things went downhill when the project was completed and all of a sudden the client couldn't afford it, so I had to cancel the project.
Before the fall out, this person was using their personal issues to gain sympathy from others. This client is still seeking artists to commission while advertising their condition and not having the funding to pay artists!
Beginning of commission:
Changes:
Asking to work on comm 3 days later:
Looking for other animators:
Request for donations in DMs:
Unable to send final payment.
Proof of first payment:
This is something I've put off writing for a while, but I figure it will never get out of my head if I don't write one of these.
At the end of 2017 I commissioned BadphometArt (now cowboyote) over twitter to redraw a tarot card in their style with two of my characters. At first communications went very well. Julius seemed kinda excited to work with the idea I had and was even throwing out their own ideas for the picture. They told me it probably wouldn't be finished until late January 2018, and I was perfectly fine with waiting that long. we agreed on a price of $75, but I felt like that was a little low and ended up tipping an additional $35; bringing the total amount paid for this commission up to $110
That was when the first break in communication happened. They had a trello, but did not send me a link to it until I asked, at which point they told me that they had somehow not added my commission to it. That was weird, but I figured it was just a simple mistake at the time. (You can see my card on the trello here.)
After that the only updates I got from them in general came from lurking their twitter. It seemed like they had a lot of personal things going on, but they also seemed to be actively working on commissions so I just waited patiently for a message from Julius. However, things became a little odd when my commission suddenly moved to the "finished" tab a month after the stated deadline while still having no image attached to it and not getting a single message from them this whole time.
The next time they talked to me was in April. This is after their accounts had been abandoned and it seemed like they left the furry community completely. To summarize what was said, they were overloaded on commissions and were starting to refund people. I was a little say to hear that I wouldn't miraculously get this art I haven't seen a single pixel of for months, but I wished them the best anyways.
Then I received a message a month later asking if I had gotten the refund. I hadn't.
Then another one 4 days later asking again. Still no.
Then a third message asking the same thing and also asking to confirm how much the refund was supposed to be. I wanted to see this over with and get some kind of refund so I just said the $75 and left the extra $35 as just a tip.
Apparently that was still too much money, though, as I never heard from them again or got any money back.
It was frustrating to have them tease me along for a few weeks before vanishing again. I figured that was the end of it until I was looking through old DMs and saw...
....I had been blocked and they rebranded as cowboyote. Looks like I'm not getting that refund now. And at this point, I'm not counting on it at all. There are things I could have done better. I should have pestered them a little more, and that's what I would recommend other people do too if they find themselves in a similar situation with Julian or any other artist. Having personal troubles is no excuse to ignore customers for weeks and lie about your intentions to give refunds. If they cannot afford to refund they can definitely afford to apologize to myself and all the other commissioners they failed to complete art/refunds for.
Twitter logs:
(omitting my description of what I wanted because it is very personal/vent-y)
Paid in full for 2 Hellboy commissions March 2012, with high level specs confirmed but no completion timeline.
Received jpeg of one prelim May 2013. Subsequent attempts to obtain status across multiple platforms have been ignored.
I have no hope that i will ever receive the commissions or a refund. Larry doesn't seem to be active in the commission market but in case he ever cones back, here is my experience.
On April 01, 2019, I began supporting the artist on their patreon, Highberryfur. The tier I had been subscribed as was to pay for a $160 commission, which was agreed upon with the artist, for context, the "Unit" in the conversation refers to a character within their closed universe, Mecha Musume. Throughout the course of the year, Highberry began to stop contacting their clients, myself included. It would usually take about two to three weeks to get a response from them, possibly more. This was a recurring situation with previous commissions as well, although not to the same extent. I have tried to contact the artist through different platforms: Discord, FurAffinity, Twitter, to no avail.
During the first attempt to contact, on July 28, 2019, due to waiting and the artist inactivity, I had tried to claim the Patreon rewards by themselves as sketches, with no direct response. They sent a previous commission, and didn't reply to my question.
Afterwards, I reattempted to contact the artist through FurAffinity on November 14, 2019, met with the same radio silence.
It has more than three months since I last had contact with the artist, and still they had not asked for the idea of the commission, even though I had pressed them to discuss the idea I had. I had believed the artist to be simply inactive due to personal reasons, but it seems they've been avoiding FurAffinity, my main method of communication with them, meanwhile still being very active on other platforms, which leads me to believe that they're avoiding answering, due to the messages having been marked as read.
Attached are the agreements and payments:
Around April I posted a thread on toyhouse asking if anyone could do a custom of my stardew valley character. Thyouo posted their art examples and seeing as I really liked what I saw, I reached out to them.
We discussed the details and I paid for the custom on April 21st 2019 as shown by the invoice down below.
However after three months of radio silence I was beginning to get worried, so sent I message asking for an update. At first we discussed me getting a refund, but at Thyouo's suggestion, I opted for them to finish my custom instead
That was the last I heard from Thyouo. I've tried reaching out by sending them a message on toyhouse and via email but I haven't got any response.
ive also tried contacting them on insta where theyre active but having gotten a response.
At this point there's nothing I can really do. I missed the window to do a paypal chargeback because it's been 7 months and it looks like Thyouo is dead on all of their accounts. All I can do is warn other people in case Thyouo pops up again.
Sen contacted me through telegram on December 2nd to claim a YCH slot.
The price was set to $15 for a slot, the last photo is the completed YCH.
I sent myself his reference sheet on December 2nd, and finished the art the same day.
He contacts me on December 4th for a second commission but this time its for him and his GF sona.
I sent myself both reference sheets and complete the commission on December 6th,
On the exact dates I completed the commissions he posts both onto his Instagram
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Chargebacks:
On December 24th 2019 I received an email for Paypal explaining that Sen has opened a dispute against both transactions that I eventually lost on January 12th, 2020.
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I contacted Sen multiple times explaining that he needs to cancel the disputes and that he was stealing from me, I also asked to delete the images from his IG. which he eventually did.
His Twitter: Senthefolf
His Instagram: sen.the.folf
His Telegram: sen_the_folf
His TikTok: sen.the.folf
I commissioned this artist on the 8th of July 2019, it was my birthday next month and i wanted to support an artist that i liked and I had just saw they were opening for comms which they usually only open for YCH.
So i message them on the submission then contacted them asking for an invoice instead of just paying straight to them, I was seeming to have issue with my paypal with another person so i wanted to make sure everything was working.
So payment was sent after a hiccup of wrong payment type
I knew it was going to take awhile cause they warn that in the original post, I didn't mind wait cause their work was so excellent. After a few months I didn't get any updates and i was just wondering where they were at so on 17th of October 2019 I sent them another message just asking for a general update.
After their reassurance i was satisfied and continued on with my life, I ended up forgetting about it for awhile cause life got busy and with Christmas approaching. I think around another couple months I remembered and I got a little worried because they had said they would finish it in October and before then send me a WIP which they didnt.
So on the 7th of January 2020 I sent a message asking for a refund, I didn't mind waiting but I no longer trusted them after they said they were going to finish it in October and then not delivering, plus the character I was getting commissioned of had changed in that time.
So I got a reply and now I am just waiting for a refund, but I just want to warn others or have proof for other people that may be waiting for art from them and be getting bad feelings in their gut.
I'll update when I get the refund.
On Oct. 5, I saw the artist's post on twitter advertising that their commissions were open:
I reached out to them over Twitter DMs to inquire and to work out the whole commission. You can see that I asked for the sketch with rough colour.
Cross referencing with their website, it states that it would look in quality and size as this. Therefore I was expecting a full body piece.
The artist sent the invoice that I paid for promptly.
You can see in the twitter DMs above but I will reattach again to explain: I reached out a few months later to ask about the status of the commission. I had understood that it would take a while to complete and was in no rush but wanted some form of an update. I stated as well that I did not mind if it took longer to do, I simply wanted information on the commission and its status to know if the artist still intended on working on it at all.
The artist finally sent an update. Here, the image sent is a knee-up. At this point, I understand that it should have been on me to confirm if it would have been full body but I (foolishly) assumed that it would be just like the examples on their website. A day after this update was sent, I received the image through email.
While I did receive the image in the end, the quality of the piece was much worse than the ones advertised and was not a full body.
This is what I received:
This is a better view of the images that were advertised on the artist's website under "SKETCH", also at $35 with +$5 for the rough colour. There is clearly a huge style, cleanliness, and detail discrepancy between the commission I received and the ones advertised.
Overall, I was incredibly disappointed with the end result and how both the quality and the type of commission did not match what was advertised and what I had paid for. I understood that the artist may have had to take longer on the piece (stated on their rules/ToS) but I wanted to reach out to get an update. I felt that I had waited a decent amount of time to warrant the messages (artist also states on their website that status updates are allowed to be asked for, just not daily) and I had complied and did not ask daily. I waited 2 months before contacting after the initial payment and then another week before sending the next message.
On January 5th, I had entered into an agreement for a custom texture/skin commission usable in Second Life for the amount of 19k L$ (Approx $75). This was to include a full body texture for both the male and female version of my silver fox character, of which references were provided. Additionally, this project was to include textures for two heads (Canis and Doggo), ears, legs, and implied related typical components. The estimated wait time that was given was 2 weeks.
The artist replied via discord on Jan 8th to mention various family-related problems and other issues that was pose a delay, but then contacted me on Jan 10th to tell me the project was "almost done." No WIPs were provided prior to this statement, and I'd seen no work whatsoever. WIPs were explicitly mentioned when we first discussed the project.
I was eventually provided some images while out on mobile where I tried to direct concerns about missing or erroneous markings and details. At no point through the process of edits did I approve a final version, as she had also indicated that the "blending" and fur "texture" would be added layer. Regardless, she delivered a "final product" while I was not available to comment or reply, and when asked about it, verified that she felt the project was complete.
Inspection of the delivered items showed no inclusion of the male version of the skin. Further, no applier was included for the Canis or Doggo heads. This is especially problematic as the Canis requires one unless a user can somehow manually apply the texture to every single possible animated state of the head one state at a time; simply dragging and dropping the texture on the head only applies it to the specific state it is. This makes the texture for the head largely unusable on its own. The colors of the delivered skin did not match expectations or references, nor did the markings and patterns, especially on the head (at least visible in the single, static 'frame' shown when the head is dropped on the ground). No textures for ears were included, nor were any for 3rd party legs or tail (nor did she even ask which of any of these I wanted to use). Genitals were crudely painted on the female body skin, which are entirely not necessary (and conflict) with the 3rd party body that I had stated I use; this was not a detail that was requested, nor were they shown on the few WIP images I did receive.
When confronted and asked whether this was supposed to be the final version, they replied with "yup" and a laughing face, then took insult when I attempted to express my dissatisfaction with the result or pointed out missing components, including making a statement of "I don't cater to customers who insult my work." They claimed several times through the resulting conversation that I "approved" her work, but after repeatedly disagreeing with her on that, she went the route of implying that my lack of immediate response or not telling her to stop was considered by her as approval. The notion that a customer can be busy at work, driving their car, or otherwise being physically unavailable to comment and have that used as a substitute for explicit approval should be cause for alarm for any potential customer.
A refund was requested, even partial, to which the artist immediately stated "in my tos it states once a product is done I don't offer refunds." This notion is in dispute as I did not accept or approve of a finished state of the project, nor did we ever agree to any "terms of service" anywhere in our conversation. The user has blocked my communications with them on SL, Discord, and Twitter, refusing any possibility for further contact.
I have deleted the items from my inventory, as well as any items they were applied to as part of my own agreement regarding this issue. A fraud report has been filed with Linden Labs.
Screenshots:
The client appeared in one of my Picarto livestreams and was impressed by my work. The client asked about my commission prices which I told the client to private message me on discord so that we could talk about it. The client messaged me and I've submitted my link and this person asked if I do logo designs of which I've told the client "Yes I do but the prices vary depending on the complexity" They gave me ideas of what they wanted and I've worked on the idea via Picarto stream since I requested that I could work on the idea live.
During the process, the client did make inappropriate signals that I've brushed off as my main focus was to get the job done. Once the project was completed, I've showed the client the final results of which they've approved it.
I've asked for payment and that's when things got ugly as the client made tons of excuses as to why they couldn't pay off the full amount. I asked that they could put down 50% of what I asked for and another amount the next time the person got paid..... They've only sent 25% of what was asked for then disappeared until recently of 2020 when the client bragged about their new office setup. So once I've spoke up the, client made another excuse of why they couldn't pay off the amount asked.
