commision pet peeves?

nyctovoid (hope ya don´t mind the ping) ugh I feel the low-quality issue so badly. it´s a general issue I have with almost anything. also trades, or gifts etc. but it´s especially frustrating with commissions and I also ask for a better quality every time. I´m not going to sit on a pixel mess portrait I paid 40 for. And it´s kinda confusing why most artists send jpegs and not pngs... png is the bigger/better resolution. And then there´s me, douple checking and sending the biggest files possible lmao. no but seriously low and compressed image files are the worst. ;w;

Skykristal lol im glad i'm not the only one with this problem. I've debated sharing how i fix artifacts and pixelation before, but the root problem is just ppl either not knowing or not caring to send high quality files

I have completely stopped commissioning people who have no black, asian and/or indigenous (poc in general but these three r the big ones for me) examples in their commissions. Everytime I do, they draw their features completely wrong (take a shot everyime I have to ask to broaden the nose lol) or will often whitewash their skin (I have COLOR REFERENCES man!!!). I've broken my limit already, I can't do this anymore.

Artists who seem to hate their commission pieces. I understand that everyone would rather be doing personal art and that commission art is work, so I don’t expect enthusiasm or friendliness, so long as there’s some professionalism. Once, I commissioned an artist on deviantart for 3 pieces and I was thrilled with each one because they were beautiful! However, when I was on Instagram later looking at their page, I found that their comments on my commission pieces they had uploaded were along the lines of “I hate this lmao” and “it’s so ugly,” (such comments were not present on their personal/fanart posts) and that really soured my feelings towards the artist and those pieces. Like... why would you deliver something that you’re not proud of and actively dislike to a customer?

I also dislike it when an artist sells a YCH illustration and doesn’t disclose that they will reuse it. It’s my own fault as well if they did not explicitly state it would be used once, but I do find myself a bit annoyed if I AB or bid at a high price only to find the same YCH sold again a few weeks later. 

I REALLY dislike watermarks on a commission piece, especially ones that are huge plain text. I think it’s hideous almost all the time. A handwritten signature or a small text of the artist’s name is perfectly fine, but I’ve gotten a piece where the watermark was the artists name in an “edgy” font. I asked the artist for a version without it and they told me unwatermarked art counted as “commercial use” and I’d have to pay for it. I felt scammed... and of course their public gallery displays the art with watermarks so you can’t really tell what you’re going to get when you are actually commissioning the art. >< I get that you don’t want your art to be stolen but that’s what crediting is for... I am also always willing to post the watermarked version online if I put up the full piece. Nowadays I usually just avoid artists who say that the delivered art will have a watermark that can’t be removed. 

CARLO Oh gods this happened to me once with a big(ger) artist on Twitter and like ?!?!? The examples I saw were??? SUCH a downgrade on what I got I was SO disappointed but I didn't know what to say. I later found out the same thing happened to my friend but her piece was even ?? worts than mine ??!??! We both paid a good penny for it too so it was like .. .damn okay 

As for both seller and buyer... These are my main pet peeves:

•  When they constantly ask me when it's going to be done/if I'm working on it.. Bruh I gave you an ETA SILENCE!
•  When they don't respond as quickly as I hope when I'm either asking for pay or asking for feedback 
• Ghosting of any kind
• Them not giving proper examples/refs or gives me a book to read   A simple mood board would go a long way or even a piccrew or crappy drawing. 
• when people miss things on my character (not very big peeve but it's up there) 

Whoo boy. So many but let me try and narrow it down.

-No updates for weeks only to get the final product. Like what if I wanted something changed or something you missed? 

-"Oh I can draw X type of character" annnnd proceeds to not be able to draw said character type and tries to pass it off anyway.

-"I don't draw yaoi or yuri" now this one irks me real good. LIKE do you mean that you don't draw NSFW of gay couples or just..I dunno. Just say same sex couples. I dunno it's just weird to me.

-long que only take on even MORE.

- when they try to get overly personal with you. i like to see commissions as a service and talking to the artist drawing your art so boldly is like trying to tell your life story to the cashier at the store lmao. it's fine if you get to know each other and wind up becoming friends but on the first meeting? no thank you
- coming from an artist's perspective, when the customer isn't completely honest with me throughout the approval stages. like... this is something you paid for, and i'm willing to change whatever you want, if there's something you don't like i WILL change it for you! as a customer you should be able to get your money's worth, imo. this one person wound up not liking the custom i made for them and vagued about not liking the finished product in spite of me continuously asking them for their approval/changes, it was very hurtful, especially when they were trying to sell it off :(

other than stuff ppl have said, i might say smth a little controversial ;0; i dislike it when i see artists undercharging. i know it isn't their fault ! it's hard to get commissions to sell so it makes sense to wanna lower your prices. however, i find that the best experiences ive had doing commissions are on servers where prices have a mandatory minimum and mods prod ppl to charge themselves minimum wage at least. 

i think u can rlly see the effects of undercharging in the adoptable community ;0; lots of ppl sell adoptables that took them hours for just 5-10 dollars which makes adoptables based on min wage seem far too expensive ;-;

it also makes me so sad bc u shouldnt have to devalue ur labor. for me it's less abt how u judge the "worth" of your art and more so how much time and effort it takes you to draw. 

pro tip: procreate has a way u can track how much time a piece takes u :) go thru ur past pieces and see what ur averages are and use that to inform ur commission prices. i bet it will be more time than u think!

^ I agree. Undercharging is a big problem because everything more pricey seems 'too expensive' for everyone now. I've had it happen already that people go like "ugh that's so expensive"or even "oh that high"? ((Just love it when people contact me and didn't even view my prices , something I still don't understand)) Mhm Well  if you regularly commission people who charge 10€ for a full body with background or buy 1€ adopts then everything else seem "omg expensive". 

Now don't get me wrong , artists can charge low if they want to, I won't stop them I did too at the beginning. Most did Im pretty sure. The only sad thing is that people low pretty hard often times because they can't find buyers. And if everything is too cheap , like I said, then art on the higher end seem unfair or too much. I have to say that I stopped commissioning these kind of artists a while a go. (Mostly because the cheaper art I see also often doesn't suit my taste) and rather pay a bit more to get a piece. Also because I felt like the cheaper artists often rush their work completely. Which could again, be a sign of overworking. I'm a big "quality over quantity" person too. Which brings us to my second thought. Multi slot YCH. I just don't like them. Their might be a few exceptions but for the most part I dislike seeing copies of something just with different colors. Whenever I decide to buy a YCH I make sure it's a one time only one. I want to have a unique piece of art and not a copy someone else also has. I'm probably a bit extra here but yea. 

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Adding something else:

When clients are super unclear with that they want and then want me to add many things they never mentioned before. I'm terribly sorry but I can't read your mind 🤕

People who think that they own the art they commission.

- this is from a commissioner or an artist perspective, but when they try to get a little *too* personal? like i understand being friendly, but responding to multiple of my stories is a bit odd to me. _{i have to say, though. one of the best people in my life did this to me, so i'll cut people who do this a little slack. but still, i returned the excitement. usually i do not but they continue} 

- no updates? yesterday i had to cancel a commission i bought from somebody because it had been 6 months with 2 updates, both i asked first. not to mention they sent me no images, and later said they didn't even start it. in conclusion, update your commissioners!

- this one goes with the last one, but when i'm left on read? for asking for an update on the commission that's already taken longer than they said it would? it's quite annoying

- when they don't look at the refrence of my fairly simply characters (i assume they think "i'll remember this") when in fact they do not remember. and then, 5 edits later, they say "i looked at the refrence this time. this should be correct" as if they weren't able to in the beginning? usually i wouldn't police them to change it as many times, but if i payed a lot i will lmao

aah, this seems very negative so i'm gonna be adding things i love about commissions behind a spoiler