Just giving you a heads up that you might want to grab back-up screenshots of those stash links as Ceginus can and will most likely delete/hide them to cover their tracks. Just so you don't lose information!
Disclaimer: This post is not meant to harass or witch hunt the user in question. This is simply a warning to others to be wary and/or not to do business with said user in terms of art commissions. If you have had an encounter with this user please feel free to leave a comment sharing your experience or DM me if you wish to remain anonymous.
WHO: ceginus on TH
DeviantArt: Ceg1nus
Alt DeviantArt: welpschmerz
Discord: unknown
WHAT: selling traced imaged as commissions & adopts
To start off, i posted an ad in the Design marketplace looking to order a custom for myself. I got a comment (now deleted) from ceginus showing me their prices and examples./ (archived) (caution: NSFW examples as the bottom on the linked post) After taking a look, I noticed that one of their examples was a traced image from a popular 18+ artist.
(original image) (traced image)
(Overlay)
I originally didn't want to make this PSA public until i had more evidence as i feared this would be written off as a one time occurrence. However, due to some actions that i find to be suspicious, i've decided to take action now as to hopefully prevent others from being scammed in the future.
This suspicion came when i made a comment on The General PSA thread.
Being unable to find more then one example of tracing, i decided to ask for assistance in locating the original source of the art. (not naming Ceginus or publicly showing said art) What came as a surprise to me was that a few hours after posting in the thread, Ceginus’s comment from my marketplace ad had suddenly disappeared. Thankfully, i screenshotted the comment the day before (Link). And then Ceginus @’s me in the PSA thread inquiring about who it is im talking about (Link). This further cements in my mind that they know that im talking about them, and that i know they’re tracing and scamming people.
What caught my eye when looking for proof is the fact that their art drastically changed in style and skill over a short amount of time.
(date posted: May/9/18)
(LINK)(reuploaded to TH)
(date posted: April/19/20)
(LINK)
(date posted: April/20/20)
(LINK)
(date posted: May/23/20)
(LINK)
(date posted: July/14/20)
(LINK)
(date posted: July/17/20)
(LINK)
(date posted: July/28/20)
(LINK)
(date posted: November/28/20)
(LINK)
I’ve been looking for the source of the other art with the assistance of some friends but have had no luck. The images looked familiar to us but we could not pin point the exact source just yet. We believe the images are either from doujins or manga as it’s hard to locate a single image to analyze. Even with the assistance, this task was much more difficult then i expected.
If anyone recognizes the source of the traced works please let me know. We’re still actively looking for more proof but hopefully this will be enough to convince those of you who are reading that this is without a shadow of a doubt a flat out scam.
I wish no ill will towards Ceginus as i’m mostly making this PSA to protect others from being scammed. They’re still young but are still an adult who should know better then to sell traced works as commissions.
TyrianCallows
Yeah i was afraid of that as well so i archived their DA sta.sh link yesterday just in case if that happens. Lemme know if the link works just in case~^^
(LINK)
Update:
Ceginus is selling all their character on their account, i can only hope those are for refunds. I'll keep this post up and if anyone has art for Ceginus i'd inquire if they are genuine or not.
ALSO!
Unsure if their To-Do list is up to date but they're deleted the owed work section:
(link)
Hello. I’d like to add something to this PSA.
While I did not receive traced art from Ceginus (to my knowledge), what I did receive was a lower quality than the examples they had present at the time of my purchasing from them. Right away I’d like to state I am not mentioning this for a refund or otherwise, but simply to express some frustration and disappointment. I had no trouble working with Ceginus one on one for the art as well, so this is not in relation to their behavior towards clients.
When I first purchased the art from Ceginus, there was only one example available for a custom piece - this particular one (here is a screenshot) in case the piece in question has been taken down). What I received was this (here is a screenshot of the wip in case the piece has been removed). I did receive what I asked for and Ceginus and I did go back and forth like one would expect between a commissioner and artist, so again this is in no way me saying Ceginus handled anything poorly in that regard.
I simply feel that the quality between the two pieces is questionable. I feel as if I was misled as to what the expected quality would be, possibly due to the original available examples (Back in June) at the time being possibly traced. I have no qualms with accepting the piece I was given, and do not desire a refund or anything else. I simply wished to mention this in case there are others who have had similar experiences.