Carcata

I'm sorry to say this, but it's very likely you won't ever receive your art. Two and a half years is way too long of a wait, specially for a $20 comission and the artist has probably scammed you, since you said there were more messages besides yours asking for an update. Either you ask for a refund or just give up altogether to save yourself the emotional & mental work. You can still keep on asking for updates, of course, but your efforts will continue to fall on deaf ears. Nevertheless, posting this beware was the best thing you could have done, so that people may know the possible outcome if they comission this artist. Also, the "DO NOT SHOUT" message they sent you was highly unprofessional, since you're just a tired/worried client waiting for 2 years for a comission and did not deserve this rudeness.

I'm kind of bothered that the artist just showed you a rough sketch and then went straight for the final piece. When I show my clients the wip, I show them the sketch, lineart, colors, shadows and background, thus giving them a chance to change something during the process, so when I DO have to fix something, I don't have to change a minor detail on top of the finished piece (perhaps that's why the artist doesn't want to change the nose?). In this case it was the artist's fault, I guess