PSA: ceeony [Update Feb.28, 2024]

Posted 2 years, 7 months ago (Edited 2 months, 2 days ago) by Emy

September 9, 2021 Update: Corrected ceeony's twitter handle.
September 16, 2021 Update: Added some additional evidence of ceeony's recent online activity. Also corrected some minor grammatical errors and an incorrect date. In addition, this PSA has been cross-posted to Twitter here.
September 22, 2021 Update: ceeony has issued a general apology in the comments of this thread. Those who are still awaiting commissions from them should take a look at their post here.
September 25, 2021 Update: ceeony has resolved a transaction with one of the commenters on this PSA and is currently working towards completing my commission. Communication between us has been very good; I am pretty optimistic. 
September 19, 2022 Update: ceeony is still working on my commission, with help from another artist. I have seen enough WIPs of this collab to agree that it is almost finished. A commenter on this PSA remarked that they are still waiting on an order from March 2021. 
January 30, 2023 Update: Communications have been moved to discord. I am still optimistic.  
November 20, 2023 Update: Five year anniversary coming up, folks!
February 28, 2024 Update: I have not heard from ceeony since March 29, 2023. I have not completely given up hope but I have decided that I might as well post the unfinished commission to my character profiles (authorized users only, sorry!). I mean, I did pay upfront and it has been over five years so. 

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I really did not want to do this but after nearly three years of waiting, I have received absolutely no proof of progress from this artist. Their name is ceeony on Toyhou.se, deviantArt, and Instagram (though their instagram is private). They are also ceeony_art on Twitter. I was hesitant to confront this person at all or let people know what had happened because I know that they have been having lots of stressful personal issues to deal with. However, it seems like whenever I looked, they were always dealing with something.

I have to note beforehand that ceeony has always seemed apologetic and polite in our interactions. They really seemed earnest in their promises, so it's extremely frustrating that I never received anything to show for it.

I initially commissioned ceeony on December 22, 2018. When I asked for an estimate on how long a single commission would take, they gave an answer of about three weeks maximum. In the end, I ended up ordering three commissions:

2 Sibling Pair Busts
1 Single Character Bust
1 Single Character Fullbody

The total was 180 USD, which I paid that day via invoice. 

Here is the link to the original commission thread: LINK

Image of the three week estimate:
Il1uYgv.png?1
Image of the agreed total:
xYts9Gx.png


Image of the paid invoice receipt:

dUGkKA5.png

In addition, some time after I placed the order, ceeony put up a dA journal / status asking for core in exchange for art. I admittedly have no record of her journal / status since it has been long since deleted but I do still have the dA receipt for it.

Image of the dA core gift receipt:
N7WzzkF.png


In short, this means that ceeony owes me 230 USD worth of art (or 180 USD since I cannot find the journal / status assuring art in trade for dA core).

I have to admit that I was also very poor at communication at this time. I was experiencing a pretty deep period of depression and to be perfectly honest, sometimes I couldn't even remember who I had commissioned. Once I did remember, I felt awkward about contracting ceeony in particular because it had been such a long period of time with no contact with them. They themself never contacted me. I was the one who had to initiate it every time.

I at last contacted this artist on May 9, 2020. This was the first time we had communicated since I gifted them core on January 1, 2019.

Image of May 9, 2020 contact:
Nzb4cST.png

Ceeony responded the next day that they had forgotten about my order. They were very apologetic and they did in fact offer a refund if I wanted it, as well as an upgrade in the commission type if I wanted to continue with my order.

Image of May 10, 2020 contact:
H8YzfMs.png

We communicated for a few more messages. Ceeony offered upgrades on my order, which I declined. We eventually settled on just four busts.

Images of continued communication. These messages are in standard dA note reply format (most recent message is at the top of the first image).
8Nt6F8Y.pngYG9jGuZ.png

This was the last contact I had with ceeony in 2020. I received no WIPs, though they promised to work on my order that weekend. As before, I was very anxious about following up because I didn't want to stress them out. I actually gave up on my order because it had taken so long. After getting into a better mental space, however, being made to wait so long frustrated me enough that I contacted ceeony again on July 14, 2021. Since their dA was mostly inactive, I moved to twitter (which is also mostly inactive but still more active than their dA). Just in case, I also followed up via email.

Image of July 14, 2021 contact:
zau2WQm.png

After a few days of waiting, ceeony messaged me back on twitter on July 20, 2021. Again, they offered me a refund, which I again declined because I didn't want to exacerbate whatever issues they were dealing with offline.

Image of July 20, 2021 contact:
c1BBom8.png

I sent my new references in. This time, we agreed on a single fullbody couple as the entire order.

Image of new order agreement on July 20, 2021:
6qeRZQ8.png

We communicated only for a short while longer about commission details. Afterwards, I never heard from ceeony again. I contacted them another three more times on August 21, August 27, and September 6 with no response.

Image of failed contact:
q4hBuYj.png

Admittedly, I contacted ceeony on August 21 both because it was exactly 1 month since our last contact and also their birthday was the day before on August 20. That was also the date of their last twitter post.

Image of ceeony's last twitter post:
kbeBqhA.png

Since their last liked post on twitter was made on August 25, I feel like they've probably seen my message and just didn't feel like responding? If not, then, well. I don't know. It seems strange.
GMMTp9p.png

I'm still a little uncertain if posting this PSA is the right thing to do. It really seems like they've been going through things and I really want to like them. But after almost three years, I'm just tired and wondering why I never got even the tiniest WIP.

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I wasn't sure at first if this was important but I'll add it anyways. ceeony has been active on Toyhou.se extremely recently, having edited a sales thread on September 13. If they are well enough to entertain only tentative offers on an OC, there is no reason why they can't take a minute to respond to my messages. Personally, I think it's pretty telling how low money is prioritized in their expected offers.

Image of ceeony's sales thread:
Ik3ZdYl.png

Image of the timestamp on ceeony's sales thread:
MtsJ9AU.jpg

SlayerOfDucks

I don’t know if this has been mentioned but it seems she’s still active on Th at the moment anyway as she’s been posting art the most recent one being on the 11th of September https://toyhou.se/ceeony/art#39638900 so just a few days ago. Perhaps if you haven’t blocked her on Th you can attempt to contact her there in the more recent times and see if she’ll respond or not? Maybe with the PSA posted it’ll change things? 

just thought to mention (can delete the comment if this has already been brought up) 

Emy

SlayerOfDucks I think that's actually somebody just crediting art to ceeony. Individual pieces (but not characters) don't require artist approval for the credits to go through. Was a good idea, though, I was kind of excited for a moment q.q

SlayerOfDucks

Oh damn yeah I forgot that was possible whoops sorry about that! There was also a bit of art uploaded to her own character back in June 2021 by her as well https://toyhou.se/ceeony/art#36039477 - a little while ago now though 

She also uploaded some art by someone else back in August https://toyhou.se/5459804.-sama/gallery#38883033 but apart from that I can’t see anything else 

edit: swapped to tablet to add links 

adopt post https://toyhou.se/~forums/5866.design-marketplace/199946.-open-deviantart-adoptable-auction-moon-bride (shows up in her Da acc as well - was posted 6 months ago tho)

and her post looking to accept bust commissions https://toyhou.se/~forums/71.art-marketplace/197157.sketch-busts-only-15 (Posted 6 months ago) but this shows she’s working on other stuff 

she was also active at least once in the last month and 28 days so she is still around a little bit. Kinda? She faved this post https://toyhou.se/11933952.fav-if-i-can-draw-yours-oc-s // https://toyhou.se/ceeony/favorites (First one in her favs) 

so maybe it might still be worth trying to message her anyway since she does seem to have logged in now and then 

Emy

SlayerOfDucks Actually, I just realized... They were active just the other day. If you look on one of their old threads, they've edited it within the last day and a half...

Link to thread: LINK

Image of Ceeony's thread edited on September 13, 2021:

0WgTrMl.png


CARAMELONE

Hi, ceeony here.

I want to quickly address the PSA before I go on and deal with everyone affected in a private manner, as I should've done a long time ago. 

Beginning with "I am sorry" is probably an understatement and something everyone has heard from me multiple times over the course of years. Of course, I am. I see that it's really nobody to blame but myself for my awful work ethic (taking on more than I can handle at a time, taking more when I'm in financial need instead of looking for other means and/or finishing the ones I have already accepted and just being... lazy. I don't really want to excuse myself with my personal situation. It does play a huge factor but I feel like people by now know what my home situation is like and I should have learned to manage my business despite what's going on around me, especially since this isn't a feeble amount of money we are talking about.

In truth, I truly don't think I am able to work off my commission list. Unfortunately, it is long, which can be attributed to the reasons listed above. There are some that have progress, some are even almost finished and I'd like to finish those, seeing as this PSA is a huge wake-up call for me to stop finding excuses not to work. The ones that I have not started or have minimal progress will be refunded as soon as I am able to. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to work, but even if it may take selling my characters, so be it. I dug this hole for myself, after all.

Emy

ceeony Thank you for responding. Much of this is the same as what you have DMed me so I will leave that there for now. I hope you continue to reach out to the other people who are still waiting on orders from you. 

Emy

RyverWren Some of the above might be of interest to you. 

CARAMELONE

Thank you for the consideration. I will reach out to Ryver in person very soon - not me putting it off, I just had a lot on my plate today but I plan on getting to it first thing tomorrow. I figured addressing it under here and responding to your message would be the best for immediate action. I'm in a different timezone than I think both of you, just to clear that up straight off the bat in case it becomes an issue during communication.

CARAMELONE

@ryverwren Actually, I just found this collab commission in my dA storage. I'm absolutely not sure if this is one of the two you spoke of in your post earlier or if there were three in total, though. Might have to check Discord for it.

edit: alright, false alarm! It was three in total, I checked Discord for it.


Emy

RyverWren Glad to hear it! Ceeony and I are also in the process of resolving things. It will hopefully be soonish.

Emy

damgohanon Ah, yeah. It does seem to be a trend with Ceeony, unfortunately. I still do not have my finished commission but I have seen enough progress to agree with the artist that it is in fact almost finished. 

To be honest, I've found that being very insistent and frequent with checking in on them works (to some extent, I suppose. I can't really say it works out completely until I have the finished product at last). I normally check in around once a month, which is my standard for all artists. You might need to try a bit more frequently if you're still willing to wait for the art and not request a refund instead. A few times, I hadn't received answers to my check-ins but as of September 12, 2022, we are still are still in contact.