Commissioning Fanart

Demonique

Has anyone here ever commissioned fanart? How did you find the experience?

Note, I'm not talking about a favour an online friend did for you, commissions refer specifically to something you pay for.

The reason I ask if I commissioned a fanart about four months ago. The last I heard from the artist is three months ago and she hasn't answered any of my PMs since then.

Note, this person is not on boards.ie


What do you think about commissioned fanart in the first place?

Overheal

Ive never commissioned or been commissioned but those I hear from are frequently upset by the complete waste of their time when the fecker doesnt pay up. A lot of the lads worth watching on DeviantArt though work professionally with commissions on the side: with their impressive portfolios to back them up, they can insist on payment up front for a commission.

This commission here I believe, cost between $600-$800. It was done on a sheet of dyed paper using traditional media.



Then the cúnt that commissioned the piece had the balls to complain about the other bot in the picture: all he wanted was optimus. Eeejit. Last I heard the artist is still holding on to the piece.

http://markerguru.deviantart.com/art/commission-optimus-prime-98624045?offset=0#comments

Demonique

Holy ****, that's an awesome piece of TF art, much better than Pat 'Optimus haz bewbies' Lee.

I've heard of artists doing commissions and ending up not getting paid.

With me, it's the opposite. I paid for the commission upfront, haven't heard anything from the artist for over three months. She'll be going on the artists beware livejournal community if I don't hear anything from her.

I sorta got my own back on her. She posted a piece on DA that wasn't allowed by their rules (naked dude sporting a boner) and because I was POed with her, I reported it.

She's really trying my patience

Overheal

link to her?

DandareRastaban

Overheal wrote: »

link to her?

Are U going to kick her ass ^^?

If yes... may I join?

I really dislike people that don't pay or complain to much about work they receive but... the artist that even once was paid didn't made a commission?! Groose... such an artist is a dishonour to all artists! It's just unprofessional...

BTW: I'm glad that I'm still just a newbie and noone even want to buy my doodles XD

Demonique

I'm not going to link to her as of yet.

I'm going to try and sort this out some more before I move onto more drastic measures. I'll try and contact her via her Deviant Art account and if that fails I'll send a note to her fiance (he also has an account on the art site she most frequents).

The annoying thing is she's continuing to look for commissions, she seems to have no problem completing and uploading commissions that I didn't commission and she's quite a popular artist as well.

I think if things did turn out badly and I mentioned her in artists_beware, that other people in the fandom may turn on me

Overheal

if you paid her upfront theres no excuse. name and shame her. **** what her fanbase thinks. if you can prove it you have all the right in the world.

rejkin

Looks its been three months,name and shame her,im surprised you even held out this long,i would have been ringing her after a week of no contact,if you get a number for her and she still doesnt answer then publicly shame her on the beware livejournal and comment on her pics too,that will get her attention. Noone should be allowed take money from you and get away with it

Demonique

I sent her another PM, I'll give her a few days to reply and then I'll up the pressure and start commenting on her pics and journals.

rejkin

well when you do,post up her site on this so we can shame her too lol

Overheal

Demonique wrote: »

I sent her another PM, I'll give her a few days to reply and then I'll up the pressure and start commenting on her pics and journals.

youre making yourself far too easy to ignore on the issue to be honest. how much money are we talking about here.

Demonique

Overheal wrote: »

youre making yourself far too easy to ignore on the issue to be honest. how much money are we talking about here.

In what way am I making myself easy to ignore? I sent a PM to another person who asked about the status of a commission in one of her journals and they said they haven't heard anything from her either.


It was about US$50


I've just mentioned the issue in the commission section of the forum she frequents without mentioning her name. I said that she'll end up being mentioned on artist_beware if she doesn't respond

Demonique

Quel suprise, just over an hour that I posted in the forums, I get a PM from the artist which includes a photobucket link to a sketch of the commission

DandareRastaban

Demonique wrote: »

Quel suprise, just over an hour that I posted in the forums, I get a PM from the artist which includes a photobucket link to a sketch of the commission

Congrats!

It seems that You fought well for what You wanted and You'll receive it.

I must say that once it was well known artist (50 $ for work = mid-well-known) she(?) may had some delay. But after 3 month even I would get angry as a client and really ashamed as a creator... in such time U can make loads of works even if You're permanently busy (at least 1 per 2 weeks if You're extremely busy).

I guess this story had quite happy ending ^_^

I wish You good lusk with another tansactions

Overheal

Demonique wrote: »

Quel suprise, just over an hour that I posted in the forums, I get a PM from the artist which includes a photobucket link to a sketch of the commission

communication breakdown then? I assume the work had been finished then and the link was never posted.

Can we sees it? Im dying to know what the fuss was over.

Demonique

Overheal wrote: »

communication breakdown then? I assume the work had been finished then and the link was never posted.

Can we sees it? Im dying to know what the fuss was over.

I'm not sure it was a communication breakdown. The last time I spoke to her she said she had drawn it three times and wasn't happy with any of the drawings and that she was sorry it was taking so long. That had been at the end of August and she then didn't reply to any of my PMs or enquiries on her journal entries. I sent a PM to someone who had also commissoned art of her and they said they hadn't heard anything from her either.

But as soon as I threatened her anomynously in the forum with http://community.livejournal.com/artists_beware I had a PM from her very quickly saying she finally had a picture she was happy with.

I'm not sure I believe her about being happy with the picture. I think she got scared with the artists_beware threat and posted a link to one of the three pics she was unhappy with because she was worried about losing future income on commissions if I went public.
I wouldn't be happy with the picture if I was her, there's something wrong when a character's thigh is bigger than her waist. Luckily the artist has said she'll correct any mistakes.

I'm not sure about posting it to be honest. The commission is of Repton and Starling from Storm Hawks, there's nudity involved and some people are uncomfortable with non-human characters being with human characters (some people even had a problem with Aragorn and Arwen in Lord of the Rings and a big row started on a forum over the Dr Who episode which depicted a marriage between a humanoid cat (the actor was unrecognisable under the make-up until he opened his mouth and Ardal O'Hanlon's voice came out) and a human woman)

Thomas-G

I'd never pay for fanart tbh, this is the internet, chances are there's something up there somewhere.
Now if it was to get hentai...:P

Demonique

Only problem is there's hardly any fanart featuring Repton compared to other characters and no fanart of this pairing at all (even though its semi-popular in fanfics)

Thomas-G

Demonique wrote: »

Only problem is there's hardly any fanart featuring Repton compared to other characters and no fanart of this pairing at all (even though its semi-popular in fanfics)

Well that's fair enough I suppose, I've had trouble finding Claymore fanart in the past.

Overheal

Demonique wrote: »

Only problem is there's hardly any fanart featuring Repton Reptar compared to other characters and no fanart of this pairing at all (even though its semi-popular in fanfics)

FYP

Demonique

I eventually got the commission, but only after I posted a "beware" post on http://community.livejournal.com/artists_beware

Took her months to finish the commission, had to threaten her with artists_beware to get her to even respond to my PMs and finish the commission.

She had the commission for months before she shipped it, I had to actually resort to artists_beware to make her send it, she spent the shipping money on rent (she even expected her watchers to donate to her wedding fund and give donations when she dug herself into financial difficulty)

Not going to commission her again