This is sticky. I suppose it's possible they didn't deliberately ignore your telling them you weren't interested, but if they did see it they shouldn't have ignored it.

Unfortunately, you more or less sealed the deal by accepting the sketch. Now that the work is done, it would reflect poorly on you to not pay. You should have stood your ground about canceling.

I think if you didnt want it anymore then you shouldn't have played along since that sounds..very confusing. If you cancel it i'd say to at least pay for the current progress. you losing interest is sad but it's not on the artist to know that if you weren't firm.

I can't think of any way to say it besides just being straightforward and offering to pay for what was already completed.

You accepted it and asked for a small change, thus agreeing to it. Even if they didn't understand your note (ignore is quite a harsh word when you continued the transaction) you still went along with it.

Ask them if you can pay for the sketch instead of getting an entire image, and make it clear that's as far as you want to take it.

Also IO see that you mentioned you agreed to pay for the complete work - so I think this situation has played out. Definitely don't play along and agree or ask for edits if you don't want the image.

Basically what the others are saying, you should pay them for the finished work you accepted.

Honestly, just reading this I would never have known that you had backed out and cancelled that "person 2" commission. You told them it was "okay" that there was a delay, this means that you don't mind waiting for your commission. If you told them "it's okay if you can't finish this commission" then they probably tried even harder to complete it for you, to deliver and please their client. Honestly, you should pay them for the work they did, they can't read your mind and I don't know the exact words you used to cancel the commission. You really let the commission go on for too long, so you should at the very least pay partially for the art.

*Edit To add, I know that sticker designs aren't a "heavy" commission request, but waiting less than 1 month is not a "long time". I'm wondering if the wait time added to you wanting to cancel this commission? Every artist is different, but if I had a client expect the art in less than 1 month without upfront discussing a deadline, I'd be a little frustrated, too. At least this is a learning experience :)

Edited at 2016-03-02 04:52 pm (UTC)

Once you approved the sketch, you're stuck. Pay them, as not paying would make you look bad. Be firm with cancelling a commission next time :/

Update, they've agreed to cancel it due to school (which was why they were slow) but won't let me pay them for the work they've already done. Soooo, how do I go about nicely asking to tip them now?

This seems like it was a tough situation, even more so after the comments here which, I will agree are mostly correct if even a little harsh!

In terms of why you accepted their work, I can understand. It's hard to be polite yet firm and not wanting to hurt feelings or disappoint someone can be a hard line to dance. In this situation, it seems like you accepted their work because of just that. It's hard, but sometimes you just have to politely tell people no; in the long run it can cause less trouble. That doesn't make it easy though, I can tell you from experience, but hopefully this is a situation you can learn from in that regard!

As far as the current state of things; from what I'm gathering, it seems the artist has agreed to cancel the commission and stated they did not want compensation? If that is the case, I'm going to disagree with many comments here and say I don't recommend trying to force a tip on them. Typically when someone walks away and doesn't want to be paid, they are trying to wash their hands of a transaction or simply just don't want to deal with it anymore. I would say it would be okay to send one final contact where you thank them for their efforts and offer a tip for the services rendered so far, but if they still decline then don't press it further.

As far as the community goes, while I think that some folks have been a little harsh, I don't think you should be trying to say they pressured you into any decision! You asked for advice and it was given, but it did not obligate you to do anything beyond what you already decided and it's not fair to pass any decisions made on your part off on the community. Overall, the community has good intentions and they're just trying to help out on a situation; we're not here to paint you as a bad guy or anything like that and I hope you don't think I'll of us collectively for it!

Hopefully you and the artist can get this sorted out and move on!

I've been in similar situations before, where an artist I commissioned was taking longer than expected (since while 1 month is a long time, they did from what you said promise it that evening), then wishing to cancel it later on, but feeling nervous or guilty about cancelled once work had already been done on it.

If the artist said that they didn't need compensation, then you're fine. I've been on that end too -- as artists, we are the ones who choose to dictate our income, and in some situations we can be okay with technically "losing" money if it's in everyone's best interest. I've done free work for commissioners before after I've taken much longer than expected with their commission and such.

So I think with the situation as it stands now, you're fine. Try not to stress about it. It happens.

Edited at 2016-03-03 06:39 am (UTC)