Beware - @/K1NGL3ON

My apologies in advance for posting this as a caution, first time post and I'm not sure if my situation exactly qualifies as defining it a "Beware", so I went with the lesser of the two, just to be safe.

On or around late February 15th/ Early February 16th, 2020, The Artist @K1NGL3ON put up a public tweet offering up sketch commissions to those who wanted them in the replies. I threw my hat into the ring because the artist genuinely does good work, and I wanted something of one of my OCs. I was then contacted by the Artist via DMs, where we began to converse regarding the details of my commission.

It was at this point that the Artist then requested payment and sent an invoice to my paypal address. Total Paid was $30 ($20 for the sketch commission, and an additional $10 Tip).

Following payment, some light banter about the large response the Artist had received in the thread offering the sketch commissions.

Following this point was the first absence of communication. About a month had passed since initial payment, so I reached out requesting an update. I was given a response back that personal things came up and that they need some time to recover. I responded back that it's okay and they go ahead and take the time that they need to recover. I reach back out again a bit over a month later, in May 2020, checking in, seeing how they were and if there were any updates on my commission. I received a small message of "working on comms" in response. At the time of writing this post, this was the last time I had received any communication back from the Artist.

I then proceeded to reach out in somewhat frequent intervals, from around 2 weeks in May, to 1 month/month and a half gaps, with my latest message to them on October 30th, 2020. No response.

At this point I'm well past the deadline to file a dispute on my commission with PayPal, so that is on me. I wanted to share this to bring awareness about the situation that I'm experiencing. At the end of the day, I'm someone who can afford the loss on the commission I am referencing here. For me, $30 is a negligible chunk of change that I can afford to lose. My main purpose for writing this is moreso on the principle of the situation.

I get that life happens, and things come up that throw us for a loop. Hell, for a time, I was an artist doing my own thing before I got a full-time career, so at least to some degree, Yeah, I get how things can be sometimes. At the same time though, I'm at least expecting some minimum level of effort. At this point, I've waited for months and even over a year and some change for some commissions, be it something still actively worked on, or me still being in a queue (post payment) or whatever. For those situations, it was, and still is, fine for me. In my mind, it's both understandable and justifiable BECAUSE, at the very least, the Artist communicated their current status properly via some method so that I was at least in the loop. I, at least, had a basic understanding of how things were going on their end. Like, if you just communicate, then cool. I legitimately do not care about how long it takes, so long as I at least have an idea of where things are at. When the communication stops, that's when the frustration and the worry and confusion starts.

I hope that this post helps some people in the future, because things like this shouldn't happen.