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Do you feel enough protected as a customer when you buy a...
4 years ago
General
Tough question I got there since i'm going to talk about several subjects, have you ever encountered issues with an artist when commissioning him/her? If you are a regular commissionner then there are high chances that, yes, you actually met issues with certain artists regarding the following reasons:
- Artist is depressed and isn't in the mood to draw
- Artist is late on his/her schedule and increases delays, sometimes several times
- Artist does not want to finish your commission and considers to have worked enough for the price you've paid
- Artist does not update you anymore and seem to have disappeared, ignoring your messages
- Artist is delaying so much he/she actually forgot about you
- Artist is having issues irl and needs to prioritize more lucrative projects before a work you've already paid for
I could find even more cases but those are already enough, as a matter of fact, I know people who met all the issues above, including me, which led me to question myself about how much I am protected as a customer when I am buying art?
The answer is pretty simple: we are NOT protected. We may be, if we choose to commiss reference artists who managed to build up their own business, who wrote their own terms of service and all the conditions, who built themselves a working space and a working method to follow so the business is stable and efficient. But those are the successful artists you cannot often commission due to the extra budget it requires (for evident reasons) and popularity making it difficult to grab a slot. But for the wide majority of the community artists, they do NOT protect their customers. Most of the time buying art on FA just happens to be some small street deals without any conditions nor protection. And that is a huge problem in my opinion.
Why the artistic work should be considered differently from the other works?
Do you think it is normal in case of long (very long) delays to let the artist alone not to stress him/her? Aren't your superior(s) putting pressure on you at your work? Are you going to wait for your art forever?
How would you feel if the mailer of your amazon order suddently stopped updating the tracking and left you waiting for 6 months or just forgot about you?
What if you went to restaurant and you get only half your order because the chef was too lazy or depressed to cook all of it?
There are so many artists who expects to practice at a professionnal level, to live from it, but their obvious lack of professionalism and work method is going to stop them from reaching their goal, and the community is suffering of it because those who met problems with them will not likely throw more money to other artists who deserves their chance.
Artists are selling a product just like any other merch reseller (I am not reducing the value of art in that sentence, i'm just looking at things how they truely are), if they want to practice as professionnals, they MUST write their conditions, build a viable work schedule that gives manoeuve margin between work and personnal life, provide a good following and service, DEFINED delays! (just like any reseller shipping a product you have bought) and overall stop being lazy or moody and have a professionnal mindset and behavior! All of this so we, as customers, know what we are buying, why we are paying and know we are protected (delay expiration being a valid criteria for full refund towards the used financial structure to pay the artist in case of major issue) and be confident to have a good experience at commissioning the artist.
To all artist following a strict schedule and having solid methods, to all artists who truely protect their customers in the most professionnal way, big up to you!
- Artist is depressed and isn't in the mood to draw
- Artist is late on his/her schedule and increases delays, sometimes several times
- Artist does not want to finish your commission and considers to have worked enough for the price you've paid
- Artist does not update you anymore and seem to have disappeared, ignoring your messages
- Artist is delaying so much he/she actually forgot about you
- Artist is having issues irl and needs to prioritize more lucrative projects before a work you've already paid for
I could find even more cases but those are already enough, as a matter of fact, I know people who met all the issues above, including me, which led me to question myself about how much I am protected as a customer when I am buying art?
The answer is pretty simple: we are NOT protected. We may be, if we choose to commiss reference artists who managed to build up their own business, who wrote their own terms of service and all the conditions, who built themselves a working space and a working method to follow so the business is stable and efficient. But those are the successful artists you cannot often commission due to the extra budget it requires (for evident reasons) and popularity making it difficult to grab a slot. But for the wide majority of the community artists, they do NOT protect their customers. Most of the time buying art on FA just happens to be some small street deals without any conditions nor protection. And that is a huge problem in my opinion.
Why the artistic work should be considered differently from the other works?
Do you think it is normal in case of long (very long) delays to let the artist alone not to stress him/her? Aren't your superior(s) putting pressure on you at your work? Are you going to wait for your art forever?
How would you feel if the mailer of your amazon order suddently stopped updating the tracking and left you waiting for 6 months or just forgot about you?
What if you went to restaurant and you get only half your order because the chef was too lazy or depressed to cook all of it?
There are so many artists who expects to practice at a professionnal level, to live from it, but their obvious lack of professionalism and work method is going to stop them from reaching their goal, and the community is suffering of it because those who met problems with them will not likely throw more money to other artists who deserves their chance.
Artists are selling a product just like any other merch reseller (I am not reducing the value of art in that sentence, i'm just looking at things how they truely are), if they want to practice as professionnals, they MUST write their conditions, build a viable work schedule that gives manoeuve margin between work and personnal life, provide a good following and service, DEFINED delays! (just like any reseller shipping a product you have bought) and overall stop being lazy or moody and have a professionnal mindset and behavior! All of this so we, as customers, know what we are buying, why we are paying and know we are protected (delay expiration being a valid criteria for full refund towards the used financial structure to pay the artist in case of major issue) and be confident to have a good experience at commissioning the artist.
To all artist following a strict schedule and having solid methods, to all artists who truely protect their customers in the most professionnal way, big up to you!
Tho for some it seems like once they get popular enough seems like they go. ":O hey i'm big enough so i don't need to do every work im paid for just thoses i really feel like doing". And just end up doing a never ending cycle of open up for commissions do one or two an screw all the others cause it like. "oh you paid to get chance at commissioning me ;p heheh better luck next time.
Then are artists that are sweating that gonna be couple days late on estimated time an end up making the commissioner feel bad as couple days late isn't too much of a big deal an want the artist to calm down as they are gonna give themselves a mental breakdown.
You just had one issue and everything went well at the end, because you actually cared about it, fact is plenty other doesn't give a single shit about the experience their customers get when they commission them, and it's completely counter productive for them because once everyone knows, people will stop buying art from htem - if they don't end up on Artist Beware