Bornes

I think even the "bad artists" don't intend to be bad. I can be sympathetic while still holding them accountable. There is a much wider problem among the general art community that if you're good at art, you should try to make money from it. Because "Why not" right? But the problem is, as soon as you start taking money for your art, you are a business. And businesses have certain rules they need to follow. Like having the liquidity to facilitate refunds or paying for necessary materials without leveraging them against future projects. But in the art community, almost nobody talks about the business aspect of it. A lot of artists have no idea what they're getting into when they start taking commissions. It's just a side gig. No reason to be all serious about it. Right? But then one single bad thing happening can turn into a snowball effect that results in many more commissioners getting screwed over. Let's take a rather common beware example. Customer orders something and pays the artist up front. Something out of control happens to the artist and they can't deliver the art. The artist doesn't have the funds to refund the customer. The customer eventually gets fed up and forces a refund to happen. The artist has a wait list, and the refund that the first customer just forced now takes away funds they were going to use for refunds for other people. So on and so forth, the debt grows and the artist tries to take new commissions to pay for the old refunds, but there's a huge chance they are (logistically) NEVER going to catch up. Don't get me wrong. There are bad faith artists out there. But by and large, the thing that tips the iceberg is something of no fault to the artist. Should the artist have been able to issue the refund? YES, OF COURSE, as a BUSINESS, you should never be spending funds you haven't accounted for yet. [i]But 99% of these artists don't treat it as a business.[/i] Or they simply never really knew what they were getting into. There is some personal accountability in this, yes. But it is also a much wider problem among how the community as a whole treats this. It's a multi-faceted problem that the community in general can be pretty hypocritical about. I can realize this and have this sympathy. Well, yeah, it's a sucky situation. I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm not going to broadcast to everyone that you're a crappy person, but unfortunately I paid you for a product. It was not a donation. So I will use my product if it was provided to me. I'm sorry for your business loss. I can have no faith in an artist's business without disparaging the artist as a person. Maybe I love the art they made. Maybe other people are willing to take the risk to get a piece of art from that same person because they love the art too... Heck, that happens all the time already- look at some of the popular artists with so many bewares and STILL have huge queues because people like that artist's art that much. Another piece of the artist community puzzle/problem is that sometimes customers treat artists as businesses and other times they don't. Of course, this all comes down to convenience. I paid for a product. I want the product. The artist didn't deliver. The artist is a business! Give me a refund! Convenient for me to treat them like a business. Inconvenient for the artist who is a person and who had no control over the fact they had to go to the hospital or something. But those same people don't want to pay business prices for art. A single illustration should not cost under $30. That is not a business price. That is a hobbyist not knowing anything about business price. But several people in the community are unwilling to pay prices higher than that, so how convenient it is that the artist isn't really a business in this case. Of course I'm not absolved from this either. I have already provided examples where I've been a hypocrite too. But in my defense, I'd like to think I'm different now, as like I said, that was 10+ years ago. I've largely stopped commissioning art for under 30 bucks. (and really 30 bucks is an arbitrary number. There is no convenient solid number price to point to for this situation. 30 is just my personal example of it.) Anyway, I don't want to write a book here, as this is a huge issue we as a whole kind of need to figure out eventually, and is separate from your thread's original question. But my point is, you can have sympathy for a person while still retaining your rights as a consumer.

Sorry for double post but this makes more sense as a separate post: The absolute worst dealings with artists are usually the cases where the artist just never delivers anything at all. In that case, you can't use something that doesn't exist. I've had quite a few of those, but they were either for digital goods or under 30 bucks. I just quietly file their name in my head to never do business with them again, but I've never actually written an official beware about them. 10+ years ago I commissioned some (human) art and paid up front in full. They delivered WIPs with WIP watermarks on them and then ghosted me. I am good with photoshop so removed the watermarks and use the art anyway. I know a lot of people will look down on me for doing that. I don't care. And I wouldn't fault anyone else for doing the same thing. I save all my WIPs because artists delivering WIPs then never the full art has happened to me multiple times. I don't go out of my way to ask an artist for WIPs but I 100% save all of them and will use the WIPs if I like them. Nobody has ever asked me to stop using them, but then again I don't parade them around every where I am online, either. I primarily commission human stuff and don't hang out in social circles with the same artists I commission. I imagine the climate would be a little different if you're in regular contact with artists you buy from. I don't consider artists my friends. They are a contractor I pay to get a good from, and that's where our relationship ends. If a friendship happens, it is entirely outside of the business transactions. I know the furry community general doesn't view it like that, and that's part of the culture of furries I don't like and don't engage with myself. I have original characters, and I like them because I made them, and I like the art of them because they're a "physical" manifestation of the thing I've pictured in my head and spent time creating. But they aren't PART OF ME, at least not like how I imagine having a fursona is, so the entire art commission process, for me at least, is not as personal. And it's 100% okay if it IS personal for you. People have different expectations and tastes, and no one is going to judge you for not using an art if you can't deal with the negative memories associated with it. But in the same vein, I'd hope that nobody judges me for using something I paid for. Sorry this turned into a bit of a vent. I hope this makes sense.

Yes, and I have done this before. Probably multiple times. This has never happened to me, but my answer would be "Because I paid for it." I've only had one instance where I had to get rid of the item because of the commission process, and it was for a fursuit head that had other problems. And even then, I tried to force myself to like it (and thus use it for a lot of things in the process) for over a year. Whether or not you choose to use something an artist you don't like/didn't work well with made is a personal decision, and everyone's answer is going to be different. If you're uncomfortable using the art/thing, then don't use it. But just because I had a crappy encounter doesn't mean I'm not going to try and get my money's worth out of the thing anyway. EDIT: My only stipulation would be if I got a 100% refund. In that case, I may not use the thing out of respect because I didn't have to pay for anything. I've never been 100% refunded for a commission gone awry though. I've been partially refunded, and I have used the art I got partially refunded for, but in that case I don't consider the commission process bad. I feel like our issue was resolved and it was handled amicably. I probably wouldn't say anything about my thoughts on the artist if someone asked me to get a commission from them. (But that is also moot because that artist doesn't take commissions anymore anyway).

It depends on the experience. Sometimes I still use it. Sometimes I will not post it publicly in galleries or anything but still might use it privately. Sometimes I just have such a bad experience, looking at it only brings back the bad memories so I sell it off, give it away, or don't use it.

This sort of thing seems sadly common among fursuit commissions. It's a large part of the reason I don't bother, and only get premades now. Sucky situation for everyone (including the maker) though.

Do they have a public queue list? Typically there is no communication necessary if your project is not currently being worked on. So I wouldn't get too worried unless they started your project already or you're in the first or second spot in the queue. However, if you are worried you won't want the fursuit by the time it gets done, or that you will never get a fursuit, now would be a good time to request a refund. So you might still be within the paypal claim window.

What a crappy customer.

I don't have access nor input to the queue so just take my opinion as a normal layman. I don't agree with the artist's response, but the TOS is quite clear that you need to have your requests to them within the first 7 days of each month. I (personally) don't see it as the artist's job to come after you every month. It's like any other subscription: you pay for it and sometimes you'll use it, sometimes you won't. Last month I decided to back an artist over patron who does a monthly personalized reward like this. They don't contact me for it and I don't expect them to. The reward is a courtesy for your donations to them. That is purely my personal opinion, though. Now if they never delivered your april sketch that next month, that's something else, but your post was a little vague about that to me. It seemed like you were wanting the artist to contact you every month to make sure you handed in your idea.

If it's been a month and you're already outside the window then cancel the order and/or get a refund and find someone else.

Were the claws pre-made and ready to ship? If so, cancel the order and find someone else. If the claws are made to order, was there some turnaround time estimation in their TOS, shop page, ordering information, or anything like that? If so, are you still within the time frame that is expected for such orders?

If you posted all the measurements then I would say they don't get anything. You did your due diligence. If it doesn't fit, that's not your problem. If you want to be nice I guess I'd compare the price of that fursuit with what the price would've been if it had had a static jaw, and just refund the difference. I definitely don't think they should get a full refund, especially since you'd still lose out due to shipping and the time involved with trying to resell and/or sanitize it. If the person has been problematic from the start, you may have to accept that they will be unhappy no matter what you do. I don't know what your selling listing was like, but perhaps you could rely on "no returns due to covid"? All this being said, I think returning the money excluding fees is technically within your right. As a customer I would feel a little jilted by that, though. Then again... As someone who has bought a few fursuit heads... I wouldn't be demanding a refund in this scenario either. So. I don't know.

If it's a paypal.me link you might be able to switch it to the goods and services option before you pay on your own. If you can't do that, contact the seller and ask them to send you an invoice so you can pay for it that way. If they refuse, say you're no longer interested.

They didn't have a price sheet. It was an irregular deal all around. I was asking to buy rights to use something they had, they said they were uncomfortable with that but were willing to draw something similar. I said that works, and listed off things I wanted quotes for. They came back with "what's your budget?" They said they worked hourly but didn't have an hourly rate listed anywhere I could find. I'd always worked with flat prices before. It was something I was willing to work with at the time, but it was definitely uncharted waters for me. Maybe I should've just dropped everything and straight up asked what their hourly rate was, but I thought it was already covered when the previous email I was asking for quotes... This particular experience is definitely out of the norm and doesn't really apply to my question at large. The project I wanted the art for ended up going in a different direction anyway so it's worked out for the best that I ended up not getting it. But the experience had me wondering what the general consensus would be for the debate at large.

You contact an artist asking for a quote. They come back with "What's your budget?" The truth is, you don't actually have a budget. Not in the "I want to pay zero" sense, but rather the "I could probably pay anything for this" sense. But in the same vein, you don't want to give the artist a blank check either. I just had a run-in with this, and having been commissioning art for over 20 years now, I decided to skip the back and forth and lowball a number I was willing to pay at that precise moment, but could easily get more at a later date (which I stated in my reply). Instead what actually happened was the artist never spoke to me again. So, I guess I lowballed too much. I want to know what others do or have done in this situation. Or what the "actual" response is that I should have given. The back and forth between this "quote me" - "no what's your budget" thing is really annoying, but I also had not encountered it for years. So I'm looking for advice in case it happens again.

For future reference, if they paid you with paypal, you can also go through your invoices or payments and send them a message through the email connected to their account as a last ditch connection method.