Hello everyone, I need your advice. I will not say names now as I hope to resolve this with the artist.
I have paid for a very expensive commission (3 digit amount), and the artist has been giving me various excuses for not being able to work on it for over half a year. I now have no use for the picture anymore and I am thinking of asking for a refund. The artist has done some work on it but only with a lot of nagging, and it is giving me a lot of stress because it is a very large amount of money. The artist is also difficult to communicate with and sometimes unpleasant.
Is it appropriate to ask for a full refund in this situation, and how should I approach the artist about it?
I will provide more information if necessary. Thanks in advance.
I have paid for a very expensive commission (3 digit amount), and the artist has been giving me various excuses for not being able to work on it for over half a year. I now have no use for the picture anymore and I am thinking of asking for a refund. The artist has done some work on it but only with a lot of nagging, and it is giving me a lot of stress because it is a very large amount of money. The artist is also difficult to communicate with and sometimes unpleasant.
Is it appropriate to ask for a full refund in this situation, and how should I approach the artist about it?
I will provide more information if necessary. Thanks in advance.
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No need to explain anything, just quick and simple and to the point.
While if a commissioner just changes their mind, yes, the artist should DEFINITELY be paid for the work they did. However, it seems like this is a case where may be a cancelation by default, when the artist is taking a largely unreasonable amount of time. In that case, I think that the customer is entitle to either work done or a full refund.
Anything else is treating the customer unfairly or stringing them along unfairly. In a case like that, the artist is at fault and the one that should be out if there's going to be a party that gets the short end of the stick. That means that customer shouldn't be stuck with a sketch they can't use and be out their money. However, this does mean the artist is the one in control of the sketch and can reuse or resell it. On the other hand, the customer might rather have the sketch and pay for it and those two options should alway be available to the "wronged' party.
I've had to wait 2 years for a lineart commission, and in that situation it was hell to even get a PARTIAL refund out of them, I honestly felt entitled to a full refund but I didn't want to deal with them anymore. Left me with quite a bitter taste in my mouth.
Secondly: are you willing to let them sell the sketch to someone else, reuse it, etc.? If the answer is no, pay for the sketch and get a refund of the rest.
This was an artist I really liked and something I really wanted, but the art is still far from being done. I would not ask for a refund if the artist intends get it done soon, but it doesn't seem to be the case. I don't even think she is trying because she ignored my last email 3 weeks ago although she is active on DA. The commission was for a fully painted digital piece, right now most of the sketch is finished but the character's clothes is still incomplete.
I will wait 2 more weeks for the artist to respond. If she still ignores me, I would try to make a beware post. Thanks again for the advice!