Odd... I've had no issues dealing with you when you commissioned me. It's likely the people you've been wanting to commission took a peek at your gallery/faves and had a general idea what to expect to be asked from you and went with someone who may want something more normal or easy to work on...
As for those who take the money and run, I'm not really sure what to say on that, it's always a risk when you do business with anyone and send payment up front... likewise with artists who take the money after the work is done as the commissioner may not pay, wasting the artist's time. It's risky either way.

Really, those artists' losses who choose to skip over you. Money is money and the material you ask for is pretty damn softcore compared to most other fetishes out there.

Thanks. :) It's reassuring to hear that I'm not too bad...I can get a bit obsessively picky with details at times, I know. But I'm honest and I pay. I mean, it's a business transaction, and an artist is (or should be) a professional entering into a binding legal contract. No different from paying someone to paint your house or ordering at a restaurant.

Yeah, the "underground" nature of furry art purchases makes the system ripe for abuse by dishonest people. There's no way to get the money back through Paypal and not much I can do other than look into state and federal fraud laws, but, again, I'd have to prove things and maybe go to court (I'm pretty closeted IRL so that's not gonna happen, I wonder if people who know that take advantage on purpose?)

And yeah, I know my fetishes are weird from a mainstream perspective, but no more bizarre than inflation or vore really. So, IDK. Glad that you didn't have any trouble with me though. :)

Pickiness can be a little annoying if it's excessively frequent. It's best to be 100% sure of what you want as the drawing is in the sketch phase, it's an immense pain in the ass to add things when in the middle of inking or worse, coloring phase.

What I usually do when commissioning people for the first time, I ask for something simple at their cheapest rate, like a sketch or an inked drawing just to test the waters and see if they're trustworthy for my real ideas... if they disappear on me, then the loss is minimal. If it's a popular artist who has a good track record delivering commissions, you may have better luck but risk paying a bit more depending on their popularity.

That seems like a good approach :) thanks for the advice. Trouble is I tend not to even go for a commission unless I have a super specific idea in mind (like I see an artist's portfolio and get a picture in my head of how my idea would look in their style...)

I can't remember you being that difficult to work with though I've never done anything large for you. That being said, I've worked with significantly harder people to please so maybe it's just those artist.

As for the ones running off with the money, well, I'm going to guess they aren't very trustworthy in the first place if they'd do that.

It's true, we've never collaborated on anything big (but we should!) I think I'm comparatively easy to please honestly, I just...get picky about how my OCs are portrayed. It might just be the artists though, as you say.

And yeah I think I learned that lesson all too late. >.<

Thanks for the kind words. *hug!*

No problem :) *hugs*