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Hi there! My auction listings state in the website's refund policy "no refunds," I already have a warning in all caps at the beginning of the descriptions of my auctions about this sort of thing. I have been selling fursuits for 10 years. This is the first time I have had someone attempt something like this on a pre-made item (6 years ago on a previous beware, a commission). It's not that frequent. People typically know better. It is an unfortunate learning experience, but it is impossible to outright avoid people with shady intentions. As per my TOS I only conduct business for commissions over email, although this is not a commission the client initially contacted me through Telegram about buying the suit but refused to do business over email claiming Telegram (as you can tell that was a lie). There really is not much I can do about it in this situation, it is in the past, and I have already started drilling this into current client's heads since some people claim they don't receive emails or prefer Telegram or Twitter.

I felt the need to re-clarify some things from Lenny, Those of which can be viewed in the IMGUR link provided in the original AB post that I made. 1 - Yes, I blocked Lenny but only AFTER a full refund had been provided as I no longer wished to work with them, The re-commissioning happened via Lenny spotting an advertisement I had posted on FA which then resulted in them noting me apologizing and asking if it was ok to re-commission me, Due to the time of year (nearly Christmas) I accepted and unblocked them on discord in order to communicate with them easier. A second uncomfortable work experience happened with them so upon completing their mod, I blocked them once more and to this day they are still blocked. 2 - The discussion about buttstuff was indeed cleared up however there is multiple counts of Lenny directly asking for "butt stuff" even though I had speficially stated "I'd prefer not, I don't texture that kindo stuff sorry! ><" Even after I had stated this Lenny continued the conversation about "butt stuff" which made me extremely uncomfortable and did not end until I again stated I was not comfortable with providing these kinds of textures. Shortly after this the ripping of textures was mentioned, this entire section of the situation was not sitting well with me at all and I was considering refunding, a three hour time gap passed and I had decided I was providing a full refund regardless of how much work I had already completed, The issue with the "ripping" was not clarified until I had already provided a refund which can be seen at this time stamp in the imgur link provided in the original post - 3-Dec-19 05:18 PM. 3 - That one specfically might not have been however due to the timing I feel like it was not an outrageous assumption to make, I did however state in the original post that this was strictly an assumption on my behalf. However there were several call-out posts written about numerous creators by-name on FA. Including this one posted last month that did indeed include my name.: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/604401869086785539/734805053029744720/unknown.png?width=863&height=486 (I did my best to censor it and double check) 4 - I was not and to this day am not aware of any of "group/s" of artist's attempting to banish Lenny from groups or communities, I personally have only ever discussed my full encounter with Lenny with one other secondlife modder that has been modding for many more years than I have and this was strictly to ask for opinions on the matter due to never experiencing this kind of interaction before. 5 - The only communication I have ever had with Lenny on Secondlife consisted of the initial message a friend request, and an additional commission request on the following three dates December 4th 2019, December 12th 2019 and again at a later date however I don't have the specific date only a timestamp but I believe it was after I had completed the second commission so if I recall it would have been sometime in January. Lenny did not attempt contact me on Secondlife to ask for a fix to their mod however they contacted me to ask if they could commission me for additional parts which I swiftly declined due to the problems we had previously with the other commissions. This can be seen in the original AB post. I at no point rushed the mod I created, Due to Lenny having an unclear vision of his character and how difficult it had been with communication in the first commission instance, I sat down with him and created a flat coloured referece image for free before creating the mod, my aim was to work swiftly in order to complete his mod in a timely manor as I try to do with all my commissions. After creating this reference that Lenny themself had approved, I worked diligently to complete the mod to be greeted with more complaints. Meshes and Secondlife bodies warp things to the point even the most beautiful of textures can look horrendous when not properly edited. Some of what was being asked for was impossible to do within SL's parameters or not already on the ref that we had recently created, some of it was just minor repeated things (Like moving a spot 2 centimeters over to the left, as an example.) It required constant communication that just isn't typically necessary for this type of commission. One or two things is fine, 3-4 is even kind of normal, but -every- marking needing moved or edited is not normal. The secondlife body template is split up into two parts and then sliced into many different sections, Part 1 consists of Front and back torso + front and back arms/hands and Part 2 consists of a front and back lower body and top/bottom of the feet, not including any of the additional mesh parts such as the head, tail and ears. I created my own body texture from scratch and I work very hard to ensure all of my textures are as seamless as possible. You can't simply slap spots down everywhere and be done with the texture, you have to put time, effort and extreme precision into every marking and detail, ensuring that every pixel is in the exact place it needs to be in order to have a seamless mod. You have to repeat this for every single aspect of the mod in order to make everything look perfect.

the only reason the second commission was accepted because they like, needed the money and it was emergency comms so lol Yo, what's up! FIrst thing's first, I'd like to say that I was (at the time) being actively suppressed by 6 different artists within the community and being lied about. (I did make a full-length video, it's up right now for clarification.) Here's what I gotta say: 1. You blocked me on Discord twice during the commission-process. I only blocked you after you blocked me via Discord. 2. The discussion of "butt stuff" was cleared up as quickly as it began, and I informed you that it was copy/trans/mod-able . 3. The FA post I made was NOT in-regards to you but in-fact another artist that I will not name here, that scammed me out of $60 USD for a mod made up of Marketplace-bought assets with little effort. Conclusive thoughts: You were very quick to assume that by "texture-ripping" was in-fact copybotting and I did in-fact tell you this during the commission and I am assuming that you did not understand. The only REASON, I behaved so immaturely during the commission process because; you and a group of artists were attempting to banish me from groups and communities simply because I am black; and I have a bad taste in memes because I'm not a Facebook mom, thank you. I'm sleepy, we don't have muskets in America; and like.. don't pull up with one.. please. i'm super sleepy sorry lol

Just as a final update on the matter (hopefully): ex-client stopped harassing us with new accounts and so far we didn’t receive any extra updates on their stories (seems like they set it to private and that’s totally fine by us; in their safe space with the people they trust they can share anything they want. Our problem was with the open-public harassment they were doing). For future reference, as for this specific situation we had never terminated a commission on this stage of development before. We try our best to provide a good experience for our clients, but we’re very strict with our TOS. Since the beginning this negotiation was walking the line of us being too soft with our own terms (trying to be sensible with the client and at the moment thinking the project would be good portfolio material so it was worth being more flexible), and in the end we got the raw side of the deal. Since we’re a new studio not much can be found of us online at the moment, sadly. As the brand our opinions on the matter might be taken less earnestly by people who do’t know us or our service, and for that we welcome anyone to ask our clients directly how the experience of working with us was. Most of them are tagged on our IG posts (of course, respecting their privacy and space). We thank you all for your time and attention on this matter and from this entire situation we plan on changing a few things on our TOS and procedures from Artistic Liberty in the future to prevent this kind of stuff from happening again [we’ll share here so other makers can have this testimonial to refer to if they want]: ▫️We’ll add a more detailed clause on cancellations // terminations on these designs made by us to prevent further claim discussions about this. ▫️The cancellation from our side will be more explained since for us Artistic Liberty slots are pick with the main objective of being a fun project and a good portfolio material. If during negotiations the client requests changes that make the project less interesting from production we’ll reserve ourselves to terminate the quote. We’ll also make it clear that on Regular Commissions the client has all the freedom in the world to request any changes desired, to request a character to be created from 0 and pay for that kind of service accordingly (our Artist Liberty services are way cheaper than regular commissions for that reason, and we plan on letting this more clear on the TOS too). ▫️We’ll stop being way too reasonable with clients that send a quote request for this kind of project without having the money to pay upfront the initial nonrefundable 30% of the commission price. Most of the cases of clients that stole our art were from people who didn’t have the money upfront to pay but wanted to move forward with the commission anyway, under their word of paying us in the future. We trust our clients until being scammed, and for that reason we plan on protecting ourselves more from that kind of situation. ▫️We will request an ID from now on after the quote is analyzed and approved. Working overseas might making check those IDs more difficult but it’s better than having this kind of headache again in the future. ▫️Clarify even more that designs created during quote or during commission process are property of the studio until payment is complete and no designs can be claimed on cancellations // terminations. We’ll be stricter with also the use of unpaid claimed designs to be made into fursuits by other makers (that didn’t happen before, but better safe than sorry). ▫️Making sure to attach a PDF version of our TOS in the quote confirmation email and ask the client to read and confirm agreement again before sending the invoice for the project. ▫️Proofreading all the TOS with English native speakers to make the terms as clear as possible for future clients (as it is right now it was only proofread by Brazilian translators). We welcome you and thank you in advance in helping us with your suggestions on this TOS changes, and we plan on posting a more detailed text on the forums, but feel free to PM/email us suggestions or corrections, we don’t want to flood this beware with further replies that are not direct related to the subject.

Update: After SnS hasn't been responding to me, I decided to make a tweet about her, which called out her business (I used her real name in the second tweet about her, so the "blur" in the fifth photo was from the original tweet). She FINALLY responds to me. She decided to send me a partial refund for the troubles. She said that she wasn't able to go to her studio because her leasing manager wouldn't allow her to go back and pick up the suit (due to the stay at home order). She had to make an "appointment" to pick up the suit. I found this weird, because I sent stuff to studio, and it was just an apartment (or it could really be a studio, but I doubt it because she had pictures of her boyfriend in the studio with her, and I'm under the impression that he doesn't contribute to fursuits because she never mentioned him helping with suits). I'm not going to make assumptions, but I just thought that it was a little fishy that she was "kicked out" and had to make an appointment for a (non-essential) business necessity. She was able to pick it up on May 8th, but wasn't able to get it shipped that day. She sent it the next day, but never gave me the tracking number. I asked for the tracking information, and she said that she sent it out a couple days ago. She took an image of the postage for me, and got me a tracking link, but never sent it to me until AFTER I asked her if she shipped it out. She still didn't send a refund. I received the suit, made a video unboxing it, and I noticed issues with the suit. First issue: She acknowledged that she was going to line up the colors with the head and the bodysuit, but they didn't line up (luckily, the colors matched). It's almost as if she didn't know how far that the colors were supposed to go down because it looks like they would've lined up if the head's fabric would've went down further along my chest. However, I suppose that it just kind of looks like "extra chest fluff". It's like an illusion, almost (if that makes sense). It's no big deal, because people will probably not notice it. Second issue: The tail was crooked. She made a free tail for me, and I never knew about it until I unboxed the suit. It skews to the left when it goes down towards the tip. For the third issue, the hand paws have a "black outline" that wraps around the forearm. This is mainly meant to prevent it from sliding. However, this is fur on top of fur. It's going to slide no matter what. She used black instead of white, and because of this, it makes it VERY visible to see whenever the paws are not being tucked in. This is a poor image, but you can still see it: For the fourth, and final issue, I feel like this is the biggest issue of them all. The fabric on the bodysuit as a weird "flap" which looks like it's supposed to cover the feet. I can see why she wanted to do this, but it's poorly executed. When I was wearing this suit for the first time, I thought that there was supposed to be a zipper on the back to "close a gap" behind the legs so that this wouldn't be visible. There's not. Because of this, depending on how I stand or position myself, the flaps around the feet can get bunched up and look really bad for photos (like the previous photo). It looks fine in this picture: But in this picture... You can see that the feet got bunched up. It even looks like a plantigrade suit in this picture. The padding for the digitigrade suit is sewn-in, so that means it will be MUCH harder to clean when I wash it someday. You can even see that "black" part of hand paw in my left arm in the previous picture. She finally sent me the refund, about a week after I received the bodysuit. I am going to be spending the refund money on repairs with the suit. So I will likely end up spending $150-$200 on these repairs and fixes. There was one other minor edit which I needed to the bodysuit, which was extending the midtone colors further behind the suit (the colors between the blue and white on the arms and legs). However, It's such a minor detail that almost every artist misses this detail when I order a commission. Therefore, that is the end of me having to deal with SnS fursuits.

There are plenty of bewares on Twitter pointing to this person owing thousands of dollars in various art forms, mostly fursuits, and then they have the gall to police other artists on their work ethics. Stay aware of when your PayPal claims window runs out, I have a feeling your piece might never be finished.

the person in question used the name spacemuttt on most services http://web.archive.org/web/20181124015225/https://www.furaffinity.net/user/spacemuttt/ Their account is deactivated so all that's left is the archive from 2018, you can see they at one point advertised fursuits on FA They also had a Deviantart, Twitter, Weasyl, Ink Bunny, and Instagram under the same name, some of those accounts no longer exist. But Spacemuttt was the name they used for accounts, not space meme. And most of those accounts appear abandoned.

Creeping out of the darkness here to comment: The modder's claim that they did the shading and fur texture has been refuted not only by my own knowledge and time spent modding in Second Life, but the maker of the Caboodle shading base, as this is that shading base. I compared the images from the Discord screencaps to work I've done on this base, as well as the Caboodle screenshots from the Second Life Marketplace, then asked the owner of Caboodle, and she confirmed that it was her base. Additionally, in talking with the owner of Caboodle to confirm that this was her base, it came up that this avatar did not purchase the base. It was either purchased on an alt, or obtained illegally. Regardless, the first line in the ToS for the shading base is "You DO NOT have permission to distribute the PSD Template to other people or alt accounts." So the Caboodle ToS has been broken, and the maker knows. OP, I'm sorry this was your experience. Having worked/fought with the LL UV as much as I have, yes, there are a lot of issues, but they're not as difficult to work with as the modder claims. Sure, it can be a pain in the butt to line up textures over the seams, but if that's what makes the mod work, then you do that. And unless you say, "yes, this looks great!" then you haven't accepted it. Editing to add: As it's been brought to my attention that it's easy to miss, this is where the modder claims that the shading/fur base work is theirs, and not the Caboodle base. When you compare the two directly to a mod I did myself (though I have some of the highlight layers turned off on the back), and to the screenshot on the Secondlife marketplace... It's pretty telling.

This whole thing has been a mess and an absolutely frustrating read. You need to inform your clients when you've worked on something if they've not heard from you. I find it suspect that the piece is suddenly ~mysteriously being worked on~ after 4 months of silence just to guilt you into rescinding your refund request. (and as far as I can tell, no proof of such work was ever shown to the client) The only work done at all was after the commission was changed to stickers. As for the sticker work itself, I think the work is on par with the rest of the artist's work, I don't really get the impression it was rushed so much. As for the hugs sticker, I think it's less that it was rushed and more that the artist just wasn't skilled in foreshortening like that. But I think the fingers still could have been adjusted slightly to look more conical instead of rounded. None of the changes you requested were unreasonable, and I find it really odd that they were so reluctant to add any sort of boarder themselves and instead shame you for requesting such a border. Did they just expect you to use the stickers with the solid color background? That's not typical telegram sticker format and it's really just not great looking for that. Like geeze I'd just add the border for the client myself. You had been completely reasonable and polite the whole way through, this didn't have to turn out the way it did. Either refunding from the very beginning or just doing the minor adjustments on the stickers. There was nothing about your conduct that there was to be a 'beware' about, and the refund and public release of the stickers is incredibly petty. That's a 100+ deep queue, along with 2 fursuits and it's not even small things, a lot of those are ref sheets, full bodies, an 'art slave' commission which typically I find those are a lot of work. I also find a policy of only 75% refund when it's been less than 6 months, even if no work has been done at all, completely inappropriate when the queue is that bad. That's a policy you have for fursuits because of supply purchases, not for illustrations and waiting on something that already is going to have an absurd wait time. As if their conduct here wasn't bad enough, that queue alone would stop me from doing business with them. 😕

Until something is done to protect people who pay for fursuits, this will always happen. There is too much power in the hands of the suit makers and this just opens the way up to scammers. Paying over 3000$ upfront for something and having a no-refund policy slammed in your face is disgusting. I get that this person didn't nessaserily have a no-refund policy, but you never really got a refund anyway. This is why from now on I'll be paying the whole amount at once through goods and services, and if progress isn't made within the PayPal deadline for a refund, I'll be making a claim. Been scammed way to often by fursuit makers, and something needs to be done. Cost of the materials up front, payment on completion. That's how it should be. I'm sorry you had so much trouble. Some Fursuit makers, new and old, seem to be getting way too greedy and taking way more orders than they can handle. Because fursuits take way to long to make after payment, PayPal will not cover the refund because "too much time has passed" this really has to be addressed somehow.

@Lemonbrat This is... Insane. If you were uncomfortable making the suit without a DTD, you should've cancelled the commission. Several things needed to be reworked because they were done incorrectly in the first place. The head was CLEARLY A MOUSE. This character is a cat. The first tail was way too thick for a cat. You have made tons of cat fursuits. None of their tails look like that first one you provided. The final product has atrocious sewing. Forget the wrinkles. Look at the seams. The tail attachment IS messed up. Those are the marks of someone who didn't know what they were doing and tried to over-correct when they should've just started over. I've made those same mistakes. You do make good suits. You make tons of feline suits even. This suit is nothing like those previous suits, and even if the customer isn't blameless, this suit is absolutely not worth what OP paid. Someone(s) on your team messed up, and you should have had some sort of oversight to prevent giving photos of this "finalized" suit. Even if the commissioner was a total [newbie], this fursuit should've never seen the light of day in this condition. I can't believe you're doubling down on it. It is absolutely nothing like the quality you usually offer.

I misread the messages and was thinking "Well yeah thats a VERY good rodent base I wonder what the problem is" then I realized that somehow it was supposed to be a cat...wtf. As someone who's seen their fursuits in person at furcon this is CLEARLY not even close to the quality they're able to put out. my partner was considering purchasing one of their premades last furcon and was going to check out their booth with me this year if they had one again. I'll let them know to not give them any business and look elsewhere. The quality is absolutely appalling and you deserve much better. I wish you the best of luck at getting the money back or what you paid for. Though I'd assume a person would prefer their money back so they could pay someone who actually knows what they're doing and respects their customers instead. thanks for taking the time to post this beware

First, the no refund policy absolutely doesn't hold up and them trying to enforce that is ridiculous. Secondly, that is clearly a rodent head. I can't believe they were actually doubling down that the rodent head would magically look like a cat head once furred. I don't see that working at all, the muzzle and cheeks are the wrong shape and the ears are very round. There's a reason foam bases are used and it's because they affect what the final shape looks like. Just a really weird beware As for the tail, curved tails like that are often made so they don't drag on the ground, most fursuits have curved tails like that regardless of the character unless they're floor draggers. It keeps them from getting dirty.

This behavior is rather normal for Mr. Hoyt. Having worked with Inkedfur myself in the past, I experienced similar issues regarding undocumented sales and his lack of professionalism. I left IF about three years ago and have spoken about my experiences in the past, but I want to give a brief overview again as I feel Artist beware is a fitting place to comment on it. Back when Inkedfur was a brand new company, I applied to join and was quickly accepted. From day one, I had issues with the lack of professionalism in small ways that I overlooked at the time. Mostly how James addresses his artists and tries to be a bit too friendly and casual in what is meant to be a business relationship. I don’t personally approve of casual approaches to business because I take my own very seriously. Immediately after joining I noticed my sales were not lining up with customers claims of purchases and some even sent me visual proof of purchases that were never reflected in my sales figures in the artist portal. I again, gave it a pass because “it’s a new company and these are growing pains”. James and I did not have a great relationship at any point because I often would tell him I disapproved of his choices at times, such as using the company twitter to make and participate in call out posts, getting involved in fandom drama, etc. I politely told him that such things are best suited for his personal Twitter because he was effectively speaking on behalf of all of his artists when he did this and his response was very vitriolic and aggressive. He then proceeded to tell me I made him cry to guilt me into backing off; he did this on many occassions and I always found it to be manipulative. We constantly butt heads on these issues and between the failure to accurately report my sales for a YEAR and his attitude and demeanor, I was very close to leaving. One evening, in a telegram group chat in which many of IFs artists were present, there was a discussion about tags and content on the site. He and I specially were discussing a tag when he dropped that IF was selling cub artwork. This made many of us in the chat suddenly focus on this as we were unaware that CP was being sold along side our work and the fact it was never mentioned in the TOS and was not present on the site when we had joined. I personally had pressed the issue because it was extremely alarming to me and I did not want my work associated with that content. James blew up, accused me of calling him a pedophile, then posted a picture of a destroyed office insisting that I pushed him to damage his office. James ghosted for a while that evening and If staff were having private conversations with me to try and fix things. Meanwhile, James was threatening his own employees saying that if they spoke to me, they would be fired. I was also trying to speak with James myself, however he was being very avoidant and ended the evening with cutting me from the site, locking me out of my account and freezing any further pay outs to me. The interesting thing to note is that I was sent an email that said I was terminated from the company because of “insubordination” as if I were his employee. The notion that he views artists as his workers when his entire business is built on their backs rubs me the wrong way until this day. I planned on resigning from the company anyways after that debacle so in the end I was fine with the choice, however two years later, I was still never sent a final payout nor have I been given access to the account for sales figures ever again. Because of my butting head’s with him, the next day CP was formally removed from the site (however there is still questionable art on the site to this day such as pornographic art of characters who are canonlogically tweens such as inklings from the Splatoon series ). Upon leaving, James told me that he would either send me the remaining products or destroy them. I agreed that destroying them would be best (I did not want someone this unhinged having my address) and he stated it would be done. I also explicitly forbid any further sales of my work. I’d also like to add that, because of me, James would later add a rule retroactively for artists that states if they leave, they need to buy their remaining stock or forfeit it to Inkedfur to sell; a very entrapping rule for those who may not be able to afford a departure and given another large scandal relating to James criminal history with soliciting minors, this was stressful for many trying to leave. On top of that, James never gave any visual confirmation of stock in hand so it’s highly believable that he would continue to print new copies and claim it was old stock or demand more money from artists for stock that he’d make after he gave a false number to make leaving the company harder/more expensive out of spite. Fast forward to the next con and a client of mine sends me a photo of IF’s table with one of my prints for sale. I immediately issued a Cease and Desist letter to Inkedfur and threatened legal action ; that was the last time I contacted them. I am not the only artist who had had this happen, as others who have left (and even bought out their stock) have had issues with James continuing to sell their products without permission. I have heard many horror stories from artists who have worked with this company, however their stories are not mine to tell and I hope they come forward to this thread to share. I’d also like to mention that I have visual documentation of everything mentioned here and have securely held onto it for the full three years since I departed from the company and would be alright sharing it if necessary. James Hoyt is a dangerous, unstable individual who is a threat to minors and mistreats his artists severely. I won’t go too far into his criminal past here as it’s not entirely relevant, however when it became known, many artists tried to leave and he did his best to spite them and make the transition as painful as possible. I’d also like to mention that James has ties to Alt Right groups that came out en masse to attack me when I spoke against his business and criminal past on twitter and also want to caution people to tread lightly if they have to deal with him. From sending me threatening pictures of a destroyed office to gathering alt right groups to attack me, I can say that I am glad to be away from him and I am so sorry others have had to suffer under him as well.

http://fursuitreview.com/blog/2016/01/24/no-langurhali-partial-by-blue-fox-fursuits/ Apparently they've been having communication problems and missing deadlines for many, many years.

I am so sorry this happened to you, OP. And this is why I'm terrified of commissioning fursuits. I cannot stand how irresponsible this person was. Yes, life gets in the way, yes, accidents happen, yes, mental illness kicks all of our tails. However, using those as excuses to not work, is never acceptable. If it doesn't fly in an office building, it doesn't fly in the artist's/fandom's world either. Also, using mental illness as an excuse feels like a personal attack on the rest of us. Being mentally handicapped (depression, anxiety, what have you) is not a free ticket from work. You offered a service and you didn't deliver. Simple as that.

I am just. appalled. I mean. I have so many things I could say. But I guess I just want this down for the record: Just because it's common place, doesn't make it right. And that's in reference to the ridiculously long wait times/queues for fursuits and fursuit makers being unable to manage money correctly. It's commonplace. But is is not right. Of course she brought up other excuses, but that one in particular I wanted to comment on. Thank you for writing this beware.