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Question about commission etiquette
12 years ago
Writings of Lobo the 'Roo
Ok, so you commission an artist for a small piece of work. There is no final deadline agreed on, but the artist's policy is that they try to get things done within 45 days of payment. It's not a complicated commission (in my case, it's actually one of the "Pick a pose" ones, so the basic outline was the artist's choice)
A month rolls by. Then another month. Definitely more than the 45 days. At the same time, you see the same artist continually taking new commissions - and I mean continually - some of them being commissions to be completed within 24 hours. So obviously not only are they taking on more work instead of finishing the things they owe people already, they'd taking on work that they plan to finish before all the people who are still waiting.
I mean, I get that art is something that takes inspiration and motivation and sometimes a picture just isn't coming together. In my case, though - it's an easy picture and one that the artist wanted to do and offered the certain poses she wanted to draw - so the idea was all hers. It seems like that would mean she wanted to draw it, right? It's been more than the 45 days she said would be the max time on it, and every week, more than once, I see journals about her opening for new commissions, a lot of them to be finished that day. I get that maybe she really needs the money, I do.
But it seems to me, that if you're going to make selling art your business, it should be...well, professional. It sucks because I really like her work, and have commissioned her before and gotten a picture I love, but I'm just getting tired of the run around. Am I being overly harsh?
When I contact her today, she responded that she was working on it off and on, and finishing smaller things in between and that she hopes it'll be done next week, which will be nice. What I'm wondering is that once I get this finished picture, should I make the point of telling her that I'm not going to be commissioning her again, and the reasons why? Not in an angry way, but just as basically feedback on my feelings on dealing with her on commissions.
A month rolls by. Then another month. Definitely more than the 45 days. At the same time, you see the same artist continually taking new commissions - and I mean continually - some of them being commissions to be completed within 24 hours. So obviously not only are they taking on more work instead of finishing the things they owe people already, they'd taking on work that they plan to finish before all the people who are still waiting.
I mean, I get that art is something that takes inspiration and motivation and sometimes a picture just isn't coming together. In my case, though - it's an easy picture and one that the artist wanted to do and offered the certain poses she wanted to draw - so the idea was all hers. It seems like that would mean she wanted to draw it, right? It's been more than the 45 days she said would be the max time on it, and every week, more than once, I see journals about her opening for new commissions, a lot of them to be finished that day. I get that maybe she really needs the money, I do.
But it seems to me, that if you're going to make selling art your business, it should be...well, professional. It sucks because I really like her work, and have commissioned her before and gotten a picture I love, but I'm just getting tired of the run around. Am I being overly harsh?
When I contact her today, she responded that she was working on it off and on, and finishing smaller things in between and that she hopes it'll be done next week, which will be nice. What I'm wondering is that once I get this finished picture, should I make the point of telling her that I'm not going to be commissioning her again, and the reasons why? Not in an angry way, but just as basically feedback on my feelings on dealing with her on commissions.
One of the reasons I've taken so long on opening commissions is because I still have requests to do, and i feel I need to finish most of those before I take on more art.
I mean, I'm not the kind of person to make a big dramatic to-do over it (not going to name the artists name, for instance) and I'm not looking to trash her reputation or call her out in public. It just seems like she should be aware of how the service feels on the customer end.
I had this one awesome artist who had a specific type of art for sell. It was like 10 bucks for a full body colored and I jumped on it. After a month I messaged her about it and she wrote back "It's just taking me some time. Please be patient like everyone else." and i was like whoa okay.
Luckily I asked her again about 2 months later and she was like "What I didn't send it to you? I'm so sorry!" and gave me the link but still
no reason to be rude :I
I understand, that actually puts you in a much better position than her right now owo'