commision pet peeves?

I... I just...

Don’t.. take a slot then ghost me.

I wait a week then try contacting you, then you get mad at me for not doing your commission?

I always make sure to clearly state in my TOS that I ONLY take payment upfront, due to really bad anxiety and fear of being scammed. While sometimes I may make an exception if I’m way too excited to start and they’ve already proven that they’re trustworthy, it’s not that huge of an amount of money, etc. But if you’re the one who I haven’t made much contact with and are just there to grab a quick sketch or an icon, don’t get pissed off if I wait for payment then not do it or take you off because of lack of communication. If you’re making my other clients wait, then your bad, you can just claim a slot next time I open.

Another peeve of mine is when I see people put up threads then make the examples impossible to find in a sea of text and links, then turn around and complain that people aren’t buying the art. I’m sorry but I’m not going to read through your monologue about how you need a new laptop before quickly scrolling down to look at examples. If I actually have to make an effort to search, only to come up with something I wouldn’t be comfortable commissioning, I feel like it’s a waste of time.

Also, when people have some kind of lack of communication in general. Just.. is it that hard just to say you’ve been a bit busy and you’ll get to work as soon as you have time? Hell, I might not even ask for a WIP, because as a buyer I feel the need to honor and respect you, and believe you. If you choose to disrespect me and lie, then not only do you have your trust broken with your customers ( causing none to return), you bet your ass I’m going to be pissed as hell, even if I don’t say it to your face.

Chicken Smoothie-related thing.

When people accept the trade for payment before art is done. Though this is standard for other sites, on CS you don't have immediately recieve payment, you get the payment in a trade so you can accept it at any time, usually when the art is done. The only reason I get upset when the trade is immediately accepted is because I almost always get scammed when it happens. It's gotten to a point where I say on my LF art thread to not offer comms to me unless you're okay with waiting until your piece is sent to accept the trade. Tired of reporting players.

I hate when the artists ignore potential customers. Ignoring notes/comments/questions.

It's a-okay if you don't want to draw my stupid character. And you have a right to decline any request for any reason without any explanation. Not a big deal.

I'm not upset because I didn't get a slot.

I'm upset because I got ignored.

Rude and unprofessional.

Is it so difficult to type a simple "no, sorry, bla-bla-bla, but thanks for your interest."?

It especially pisses me off when such artists post journals and statuses like : "oh im trying to organize my stuff and be soooo professional, and all for you my guys uwu <333"

Yeah sure. When literally a couple days ago I was ignored, but the comments/questions right below and abowe mine were answered.

(My comment was absolutely normal. Just a standart commission request with a link to the character refs.)

/mi iz very sad.

When a client is asking me to pick the exact colors as the references all the way to the shading. I mean didn't you want to commission me because you want to see your character in MY style including my color choice? I'm okay with them asking me to color pick the base only but man I'm definitely not going to color pick the shading.

Also when an artist do not state that they do not send ANY wip in the commission sheet and then I suddenly got my commission done. Good if they did it correctly but once or twice it happened to have a big mistake and uuuh am I allowed to complain now that they already finished the piece? Sighs

Please never insult the characters you draw like if you agreed to draw them it's not your place to complain about their design or insult them! Not only is it cruel but also extremely unprofessional, and I have passed several skilled artists simply because I don't want to support people who go around talking shit about their clients' characters in public places, like their twitter or stream. I know not every character you draw is necessarily your favourite, but it's not good business practice or good manners to start insulting them. It has never happened to me as far as I'm aware but I see it happen a lot in art circles as a whole and it's a real bummer. 

And on the topic of streams, I know it's often hard to control the chat but I think it's only fair if other people are talking badly of the commissioned character or are literally using slurs to refer them, the stream holder should move those people from the chat :'/ It's extra disheartening to see the artist allow people do the shittalking about their client and even though no law is telling them to hide or ban those comments it doesn't sit right with me personally either. 

Thankfully this hasn’t really happened to me, but I really enjoy artistic freedom to do what I want. It’s kind of why I like being my own boss the most lol. Most people who commission me never bother to ask for anything super specific (outside of maybe like a mood or something general if they feel like it or of course if it’s for a reference then feel free to be picky af if need be) and I am actually grateful for that because sometimes my artistic vision for how I see something comes on really strong and I think it would make me feel disappointed if I had to draw something super locked in and specific versus the cool thing I saw in my mind. So...that would probably be one of my peeves if it actually occurred lmao. Like no, it’s not terrible and I would do it but I would probably be unsatisfied with the end product. (Also I don’t mean completely changing a character or their features around or anything just like posing and stuff aaa) 

I’ve got the supremely unlucky streak of constantly managing to commission people who go from looking reliable to suddenly having zero work ethic for no discernible reason. (Like it wasn’t an emergency, still active or possibly not active, just for like no apparent reason have stopped producing at even a fraction of the rate they were before with not even any sort of update at all). And ultimately it always results with me having to try and get refunded after like 6 months because they don’t answer and they don’t show any initiative for a plan or a timeline or anything to do the work. Like I am extremely patient because I like people to be patient with me but man I hate that because it’s a waste of my time. It really drives me away from commissioning just because of how much time is wasted and my money essentially being unusable until it’s returned. :/

I think as a commissioner it’s also extremely aggravating to run into people who inadvertently snowball into becoming scammers because they’re trying extremely hard to make art their only source of income when you can clearly see they are not ready to do that really. I have seen numerous popular artists who end up taking on like obscene amounts of work and continue to keep on taking on more and more work because their important bills like rent are clearly exceeding the amount a comfortable work load would bring in. And sure, maybe one or two months of tight scheduling and a tight budget is survivable but if day in and day out you’re like oh no!!! taking on like 60 commissions and making your waitlist like completely ridiculous, you might want to consider finding a part time job to sustain yourself. Because it really ends up making you look so bad and irresponsible and incredibly scammy and also creates a vicious cycle of trying to refund people by getting more people to commission you to pay the refunds. Customers are NOT your personal short term loan!!! Like people would have a better time if they would just admit it’s okay to not be completely sustained by making art alone versus completely burying themselves in borderline cyclical financial ruin. Many artists who are successful also actually have their hands in a lot of pies to create different revenue streams so that the burden doesn’t rest on commissions alone and that’s honestly something more of these struggling artists should keep in mind I think. 

Another peeve of mine is I always see a lot of journals that are like Do I owe you something? Let me know! but if you look there’s no kept list or anything to cross reference with or they even outright complain that they should have kept a list and it’s honestly like hello???? You couldn’t even be bothered to write down a list of people who gave you their money??? I get not being an organizational god or having memory issues or being anxious about forgetting something but there’s really no excuse to be so dysfunctional with the advent of online organization systems that make it very easy to manage your shit. Or even just original methods like writing it down on a post it note and slapping it on your computer?? I’m not even trying to be mean with this one but if you’re going to be taking money for work then you need to treat it like work and figure out how to organize and manage it so you’re not making these unprofessional journals every other day. :/

When people ghost you. It happened to me 4 times already, and it's always after I show the sketch. I mean, if you changed your mind about commissioning then ok, no problem, but at least let me know?? Don't just leave me on read, god. Two times was because they didn't have paypal ready, and the other two they just disappeared after the first sketch (at times like this I'm glad I only show a very messy sketch before payment), but instead of telling me they just left me read. Why is it so hard to say "hey, do you mind waiting bit?/ hey, I changed my mind, sorry."
About not wanting to go on with the commission I can understand why the ghost, maybe they feel like the artist will be mad or they feel like they wasted their time but, really, a response is ALWAYS better than just not knowing about you anymore.

Secondly, when I have complete freedom. I rather work with a client that knows what they want. I've had people tell me "just draw whatever you want" and I'm ??? no?? why?? Tell me what you want, you're paying for this after all. When people just go and tell me "draw my OC please" it's like... ok, but tell me stuff please? Pose? Expression? Mood? Anything? I have troble with this because 1. I feel like I'm not creative with poses, and 2. I'm afraid of getting the OC wrong. Like, just with one general idea for the pose I'm good, but I can't work with nothing.
On another note, no, I don't need 5 paragraphs of your character's story, just tell me what I need to know for the art you want.

Third, but it might be me thing... When I'm doing an OC and the commissioner doesn't ask for changes. I try to draw it following the reference as close as possible but you can't get it right always, right? I don't know, I feel like if there's something they want to change they won't say it because they think it'll annoy the artist? Everytime I send a wip I ask if everything is ok, if they want to change anything, and most people don't so it makes me kinda anxious... It's most likely that they actually think it doesn't need any changes, but what if something is wrong and they won't say it?? Besides it's better ask for changes before lineart I think, but it also depends on how messy the sketch is.

That's what's at the top of my head lol maybe I'll come back with more, who knows

As a commissioner, it really bothers me when I don’t get any WIPs to point out anything that needs to be fixed. ESPECIALLY when it was written in the description that there would be WIPS shown. If you’re not going to show anything, don’t make the promise of it. And when you don’t show anything, don’t get upset at me when I point out all the things that are wrong. ESPECIALLY if you’re gonna give me something like “you should’ve pointed that out before”—YOU SHOULD’VE SHOWN ME THE PROGRESS SO I COULD SAVE YOU FROM FINALIZING THOSE MISTAKES!!

Also, apparently “hair” is the biggest struggle I find in the artists I commission. Stylization be stylization, but when it comes to hair, the basic shape shouldn’t be compromised. Bangs, parting, body, etc. I don’t expect you to get every single curl and hairstrand down, but if my oc has curly hair and sideswept bangs, why did you give her straight hair and chop off her bangs? Especially if that’s the only detail you got wrong, but drew everything else just fine?

That’s a very minor thing to complain about. And I don’t like bringing it up to commissioners because I feel like it makes me sound really nit-picky. I don’t mind style, but...basic shape? Isn’t part of the style, I don’t think?

People who make commission journals but don't include any examples of their art? I've seen this quite a lot while searching around DA for people to commission, and I don't get it. The only reasoning I can think of is that they're insecure/unhappy with their art level and are trying to get people to commission them without seeing their art first, which comes off as a bit scammy to me.

This one has probably been said a hundred times already in this thread - but if I commission you, please don't disappear for weeks/months on end without saying anything. It's very unprofessional and always makes me afraid that I'm not going to get the art I paid for. I know that art takes time, but the least you could do is send me a few updates/WIPS if you know it's going to take a long while.

(I mentioned this in the unpopular opinions thread, but I don't like it when someone has a pile of commissions to do but keeps posting personal art instead of working on them. I understand posting some personal stuff in between commissioned pieces, but not that much. It just makes it seem like you're ignoring your commissioners and don't care that they paid you money to draw for them.)

as a buyer : when the artist doesn't read/take into consideration personality even if added into the commission request itself (which i always do because not all artists have time to read OC bios). the drawing of the design will be accurate and the art will be lovely but it won't be fitting at all because it isnt how the character really acts. In addition, minor but it really gives me an icky feeling when artists give deadlines they end up not sticking to. Life gets in the way, i understand and do my best to be forgiving and understanding it happens to all of us, but when it's clear its just irresponsibility and it happens repeatedly after multiple messages and reminders it really gets on the nerves o(-(

as an artist : uhhhhh messy/unorganized forms or character information! when i get notes from commissioners with info and its really hard to follow everything thats being said because its messy, unclear or hard to follow it really increases the chances of me missing something. i often have to copy paste the information into my sticky notes and then reorganize and reword it so i can have an easier time and a better time working on the piece without missing anything or getting anything wrong!

When I commission someone, wait months upon months, hoping for something great, thinking they just needed their time......... And then they shit out my commission in 2 seconds to get over it :)

Nice to know they value my money and business, not. I'm an artist as well, so I understand what its like, but I try to give all my commissioners they quality they expect, not some crappy doodle that barely looks like what they ordered in the first place.