I am both a commission artist and someone who buys commissions, so I have several peeves for both:
When selling art:
- People who order a commission, give me their paypal, I send an invoice... and then nothing. They don't pay their invoice, weeks pass, they don't say anything and don't respond to me when I message them. This has happened many times, especially recently with my last batch of icon sales, and I don't know why. I guess maybe they didn't have the money on hand, then when they realized they couldn't pay they didn't want to get in trouble so they just pretended to not exist. Well, from a seller's point of view, "Sorry I can't afford this right now, my bad!" is a lot less annoying than total silence. The former I can understand - even though please don't order if you don't know you can pay - but the latter will make me not trust you and I will be unlikely to let you order again.
- When I say a commission will take a specified amount of time - for example 1 week+ for icons if I have a backlog - and I tell this upfront, but then the customer messages me later on the same day rudely asking; "Where is my commission?"
Bonus points if they threaten you if you don't complete it in a day. Bonus points if they then use the finished art without even saying "thank you" or crediting you. Yes, one person did all of these things together...
- People who refuse to pay until the work is done. I'm sorry, that's not how it works, and that's exactly how people scam commissioners to get free art. I always take payment first, and although I am willing to take partial payment on some occassions (usually for really big/complex pieces) I don't particularily like that either, because there's still a chance the buyer could take the art for half the price, and my art is already cheaper than I'd like it to be.
- People who try to haggle my prices... on art that already never exceeds $10. When I raised my pixel icon prices from $2 to $5, I got messages asking me if I would still be willing to sell for "the old price." I've also had people comment on $5-10 YCHs with "I love it, but I only have $3 right now..."
- When people fucking roleplay to order commissions. People have actually sent me messages like "H-hello! *smiles* Uhm... I would like to buy an icon from you... *wags tail*"
Why...? There's also the people who comment stuff like "*sobs* ;_; I love it but I have no money... *cries*" on my commissions, thinking that typing *cries* is going to make me give them something for free out of pity.... wtf
- People who ignore what I state I will and won't draw. I'm not very good at drawing masculine characters or feral animals, and I make that clear, but guess what kind of characters I always get asked to draw... lol. This also happens with people asking for wild NSFW stuff.
When buying art:
- When I give someone a character to draw with several clear pictures that show off the (simple) design, and they still somehow get it wrong. I don't personally like complicated designs so most of my characters, especially my sonas, are very simple. But I've had people totally use the wrong colours, give a blue-eyed character pink eyes... I just don't understand how that happens, it's like they glanced at my reference once for a second then did it from memory. Or perhaps they just do not care. One artist who did this actively shamed me on social media and kicked up drama when I asked her if she could fix the colours, because she and her friends said the piece "looked fine" and that the colours "didn't matter."
- Artists who re-sell base commissions on the same lines over and over, while doing a sloppy and rushed job. I have bought "base" commissions in the past, but in my experience they don't usually go well, so now I avoid buying any kind of base/cookie cutter commission. It's doubly shitty when an artist doesn't advertise a commission/YCH as a clone, but then goes and resells the lines anyway.
- Artists who totally ignore the simple, clear, "DON'Ts" on a character page/commission request. I specifically have an issue with "femboy" art for it's stereotypes, oversexualization and degradation. My main character/sona is androgynous. When buying commissions, especially from artists who have drawn "femboy" OCs in the past, I specifically ask them that they do not dress him in stereotypical "femboy" clothes (oversexualized lingerie that typically resembles baby clothes) or draw him with exaggerated, unrealistic massive curves on the hips/thighs. Despite this I have had multiple artists ignore this and put him in weird underwear or with big thighs anyway.
Uuhh... maybe you can tell I have been very frustrated when it comes to art. Art is truly suffering sometimes...
FoofyFaun
I agree with you so much on the body type thing. A lot of get mad if an artist draws a larger character thin, but apparently making a thin character curvy is okay and I'm too sensitive for complaining about it.
I have had several commissions where the artist drew my androgynous male character with comically large hips, buttocks and thighs, then claimed it was "just their style".
On "no gay" - artists have the right to choose what not to draw and in most cases people don't refuse to draw things just to be mean. For example I do not draw transgender characters simply because I am not transgender, and I do not want people swarming me because I accidentally drew such themes "wrong" or "offensive". People are sensitive about those kind of political topics and they are incredibly controversial, for that reason alone I steer away from drawing anything that could spark drama for my own sanity.
In my opinion "I just don't want to" is a valid reason. I used to draw furries, it's how I made any money from commissions, and although I am 100% capable of drawing furries, I don't enjoy it. So I feel like I have the right to say "Sorry, I don't want to draw furries with few exceptions". It's not because I hate them and want to exclude them and wish them harm, it's because I just find drawing something I'm not passionate about to be a chore.