artistsbeware2_archive | Issues: Mewsagi

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Issues: Mewsagi

I had browsed this community many moons ago and thought it was a neat idea. Never had I thought that I would have to post here about an artist or commissioner.

Now, before I begin, I will say that this is resolved for the most part.

So, back in December 2009, a popular Mew/Mewtwo artist by the name of Mewsagi (Mewsagi on deviantART, and I think she goes by the same name on FA) opened up for a bunch of $5 chibi commissions. She took several of them, managing to finish a few in a few weeks. She has beautiful art, so I couldn't pass up the chance to buy two chibis from her of some Organization XIII characters of mine.

Soon, she begins posting art she did for herself and some birthday gifts for friends. She posts 18 of her own pics before doing another commission. She posts another 17 pics for herself until she posted two badges she was paid for.

I really hate deviantART's date system, as I don't know when the hell 15 weeks and 1 day ago was. But when I noted her, I wasn't wondering about the progress of my commission, but rather if it was too late to change what I wanted. I think she assumed I was rushing her and blurted out with an excuse that her parents were both sick and that she wasn't feeling well either. I could understand her situation, since my dad is very ill with cancer and I would put everything on hold to care for him. I didn't think anything of it until today, when I noted her with:

Hello,

I'm noting you concerning my commission. I know you've been having IRL issues with your dad and being sick too. I know exactly how you feel, as my own father is very sick. It's very stressful.

I truly empathize with you, but you have been posting your personal artwork instead of commissions. While I and many others enjoy your work, I think people that commissioned you would be more than happy to receive the art that they paid for after they commissioned you more than 9 months ago.

If you are unable to go through with my commission for whatever reason, I would like a refund. I am willing to wait a little longer for the chibis, but in the future, please realize that your personal artwork comes second to artwork that people have bought from you.

Thanks.

To which she responds:

Yes i know, i would have finished at least a few before i disappeared two months ago, but i kept asking myself what's more important '' finishing the stuff i owe my commissioners '' or '' my father's life ''..

And trust me, i love my father very much and it hurts to see him what he's going through ever since this started in april.

The newest stuff that i have been posting was mean't to be posted before i left two month's ago, since they were sitting aside for week's, i tried to finish a few commissions, but the way my mind and body is right now, i just can't seem to think, i just keep thinking about my dad, i'm worried what's going to happen.

And since this is the 8th note i got similar to what you've just said, and i kept on telling my reason, my father is ill, why can't you guy's see that.. it seem's my message just goes right through them, they want to commission more, and ignore my father's illness..

Give me your e-mail adress, i'll refund your money.

She makes a journal about it telling all of her commissioners (that's 13 people on queue) that she'll refund money and saying that all people care about it art and that no one cared about what she was going through. I instantly feel guilty for noting her concerning my commissions, but she had 9 months to work on commissions instead of posting artwork she did for herself. This is advice to artist who take commissions: Artwork for yourself comes second to anything you've been paid to do. It's disrespectful and shows you don't care. I did care about Mewsagi's issues, though she claims I don't. I am practically in the same spot she is, but she decided to guilt trip me and possibly other customers.

I was refunded my money... in Canadian money instead of USD, turning $10 into $8, but I decided not to care because she's already stressed as it is. Mewsagi is a great artist, but if you want to commission her, realize that her stuff is going to come before yours.

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I have a bit of an issue with your point of:
"Artwork for yourself comes second to anything you've been paid to do. It's disrespectful and shows you don't care."

I work on my commissions for the majority of my day, but I also need to do personal art too. Sometimes its to vent, sometimes it's for a project and sometimes it's for fun. I will post personal art as I finish it just as I post my paid work.

I guess what I'm saying is that artists deserve their own time just as much as any other worker. If all someone does for months is personal art, that's unfair, but I think that statement is unfair.

But my statement still holds true. You say you work on your stuff between commissions. Your leisure came after work. :) I do often work on things inbetween commission work myself, but she was just putting it off and off and off, posting lots of personal work over a period of months with only one commission inbetween them.

I'd agree with what you said, that said personally whenever I have anything hanging over my head, it's downright difficult for me to draw anything because my conscience nags at me because I should be finishing the waiting work; that's just me though, I don't understand how artists can turn out piles of personal work while commissioners are waiting.

Once in a while I need to take a break and I draw mostly personal work for myself and requests (since I chose who I want to do out of inspiration).

But, I let my commissioners know and it's usually just a few days, a week at the most, and two only if I don't have a lot on my plate and at least do a bit of work.

So I think in that case it can be ok to just do lots of personal stuff, but the artist in this case was way beyond that.

Oh I can understand that, I just can't personally do that, to be honest, I have barely drawn anything personal when I have been able to draw in about a year because I have outstanding trades that I haven't finished yet because of serious medical issues (I'm only able to work on them here and there for short periods). Admittedly I have kept the other parties informed and they've not sent me their half and won't until my half of the trade is finished but I still feel so guilty about it that I can't even doodle currently.

Ya, I'm a bit half and half. It's why I just take short breaks. Enough so I still get to work fast, but enough for me to be relaxed again.

I think I tend to stress too much about things, I worry about if it's good enough, I worry if the other party will like it (thanks to an earlier trade gone wrong in which the other party apparently hated my work) I worry that I'm taking to long. Pile on medical issues, worrying about the quality of my artwork and the harassment issues I've had with a couple of artists recently and I'm wound tighter than a rubber band plane. >.>

I think it's fair to allow the artist to do some personal work, but it would look better on her if she wasn't uploading nearly twenty of them before she uploaded any commissions.

If you know you have commissions hanging, it probably looks better to a majority of people if you don't post PERIOD when something bad is happening.

Kind of encourages the whole "Wow, they're so busy with [insert stressful thing] here. That sucks."

I don't quite like how she's pretty much saying "Why can't you be patient, I have troublessss, baw". I mean, I understand having troubles, but 9 months is a long time.

Though I would like to say that, while I do agree commissions are more important then personal art, that doesn't mean you should do none while you have work to do. I'd go nuts and feel bad if I couldn't draw for myself in between commissions

But yes, more commission work then personal art on her part should be done.

"what's more important '' finishing the stuff i owe my commissioners '' or '' my father's life '"

Wait, so doing commissions would kill her father? But doing her own art doesn't hurt anything in such case? I don't even know how to process that.

On the other hand,
"Artwork for yourself comes second to anything you've been paid to do. It's disrespectful and shows you don't care."
While I agree, 15-17 finished illustrations for yourself between each small commission is ridiculous if you've taken on a good sized load. But it's equally ridiculous to expect an artist to draw nothing but what you paid them to after you've sent the money. Art doesn't work like that for most artists, and to expect such is setting yourself up for disappointment.

Typically that sort of mindset is what will end up shoving an artist into a rushed poor quality picture.

But you can't expect an artist to produce what you want them to the second you ask of them and nothing else, AND expect it to be their best quality. Artists need to draw little things for themselves too, and it's no disrespect to the commissioner if they're drawing their own stuff to get warmed up before a commission. In fact I typically prefer this because I find the happier and less rushed the artist, the better the quality.

I will repeat though, of course, 15+ illustrations between each single commission on top of a nearly year long wait time IS ridiculous.

THIS. :D

>I will repeat though, of course, 15+ illustrations between each single commission on top of a nearly year long wait time IS ridiculous.<

I'm pretty sure this is what the OP was getting at. Not "artists should never ever ever do anything for themselves while they have a que."
Because, really it is ridiculous and it doesn't cast a good light on the artist. If I was in this situation I'd be asking for a refund too because it's obvious that the artist isn't going to finish my work when they are so busy with their own projects.

This is exactly what I meant. xD I was wondering if I wasn't too clear or not.

Haha sorry about that, I think I actually misread a bit before diving in. This all seems perfectly clear now [:

(deleted comment)

She recently made a poll about "Who's your favorite Grim Adventures character? Mine's Nergal." Within the next few hours or so, she posts a picture of Nergal that she drew. I think that pretty much means that was recent art.

But I do get where you're coming from.

>The newest stuff that i have been posting was mean't to be posted before i left two month's ago, since they were sitting aside for week's, i tried to finish a few commissions, but the way my mind and body is right now, i just can't seem to think, i just keep thinking about my dad, i'm worried what's going to happen.<

All I see here is someone looking for ass-pats from the internet while shirking their commissions and potentially lying about or playing up their sick father. Again, even when I was taking care of my ill father (who got better thankfully) I still went to work, showed up on time and did what was expected of me.
Tell me why an artist should get special leeway when everyone else is expected to work (or take leave either on sick days or without pay and still faces the possibility of being fired). Regardless of when her new posts were made, a product is still not in the OP's hands though payment has been taken. In an other part of life we would call that stealing.

Wait, so doing commissions would kill her father? But doing her own art doesn't hurt anything in such case? I don't even know how to process that.

Holy crap I didn't even think about that aspect. Shiiiit that was super hypocritical of her...

I never intended to rush her though. It's just that it irked me that she kept doing art for herself and just kept on going. I really do wish the best for her though.

...also who made your avatar? It's adorable. ;O

Haha thank you, I did myself [:

And yeah I would say that right there flags her excuse she gave you as complete BS. I'm sorry your having to deal with such a pain in the butt as far as transactions go. I really wish I could offer more help to you than this though.

I won't lie, I understand people have real lives, and some times they just suck. But what happens in your life is not the commissioners responsibility. More artists would do better to know when to drop a commission and refund if they won't be able to complete it.

It's honestly for just this reason that I NEVER spend commission money until the piece is finished. Just as with any other transaction, until the goods have been delivered, the money isn't mine. I don't understand why this seems to be such a hard concept to grasp by so many people posted up here :[

Really it depends on how bad it is. My personal experience with someone who was VERY sick (my Nanna who had had a stroke.) The only time my Mum was not by her side was when she came home to eat and sleep; other than that she was right at her Mum's side; even if she couldn't do anything.

But I do understand where you are coming from too.

If her father was really at the base of this, I think that she'd simply refund people and be done with it so she could take the time to care for him while not having to worry about outstanding work.

The guilt trip is just unbelievable as well. Some people really need to learn that everyone has problems and that their problems are not any bigger than anyone elses, nor do they deserve endless amounts of time to sort out their obligations. People may well empathize with her about her father being sick but they're not required to do so.

Personally I don't believe that clients are obligated to be compassionate and understanding about an artist's life problems. As an artist, I certain appreciate that a lot are willing to be understanding, but I don't get people who take it for granted and expect it. Just because someone paid you to do something does not mean they're your friend and are required to have patience with you.

I think it's the same vice versa as well. I just don't get why so often people persist in treating transactions like friendships.

but i kept asking myself what's more important '' finishing the stuff i owe my commissioners '' or '' my father's life ''..

Pack your bags kids, we're goin' on a guilt trip! :D

This kind of thing is sickening. Yes, unforeseen circumstances come into play. Shit happens, shit gets side-tracked. HOWEVER, if she were so swamped with taking care of her father then she should be spending less time whining at her customers and more time apologizing and refunding them. End of story.

Also, refunding you in CAD is kind of a crap move. PayPal lets you pick which currency to use and converts it automatically. The least she could have done is checked what country you live in instead of short-changing you after the exchange. Lame!

Edit: Grammar and added stuff.

Edited 2010-08-13 21:50 (UTC)

As far as CAD goes... to be fair, I think the OP was exaggerating a tad. To the best of my recollection, the loonie hasn't gone as low as the OP describes in years. We're close to par now. I don't know when the OP was refunded, but if it were today (just as an example), he would have received $10 CAD = $9.60 USD. Not much of a difference.

Of course, it was still a crap move, I agree, but that $8 USD = $10 USD kind of made me double take. :P

True that, all the same it's not cool to refund someone a different currency than they paid. To me it seems thoughtless.

Absolutely, no argument there.

I was refunded yesterday and the transaction was made through Paypal. I don't know if Paypal had anything to do with any weird conversions, but I definitely did not recieve $9.60.

Was some of it taken by Paypal's fees? Because if that's the case, Mewsagi wouldn't have received the full $10 either...

But still, it's a moot point, she should have refunded you in the currency originally given.

That's what it looks like, I think. Took 69 cents off of $10 CAD, making it $9.31 CAD, so when it converted I got $8.71 USD.

I didn't think about whether or not she may have recieved the correct amount due to fees, but thinking about it now, I sent her USD when I originally commissioned her. She never really specified what currency to put it in (which is hilarious, since I whined about sending wrong currency earlier), so I think that made me luck out of a couple of cents and gave her more, but it's fine. This issue is pretty much resolved. :) I might be turned off from buying her work, but I just hope it's a lesson that she and I can both learn from.

I believe Paypal charges an exchange fee when switching between currencies, and this is taken out of the total. Also, for such a refund, the Paypal transaction fees would have been removed from the money the commissioner got as well.

Regarding her reply, I hope someday she realizes that an apostrophe is not punctuation for HOLY SHIT HERE COMES AN S. Or the last consonant in any arbitrary word.

/grammar Nazi

I get that some people have RL issues they have to deal with, anyone that's done enough commissions (including myself) will have something come up at some point or another that pushes other obligations to the back burner...and I get that everyone needs to do a little personal art now and then too. But in my opinion it's really unprofessional to make/post that much personal art when you have a queue, especially when you've got something like 13 (!) people waiting. Yikes. I also agree with

chronidu..."so doing commissions would kill her father?" It's one thing to have a legitimate sob story, it's another thing to play it for all the sympathy, leeway, and guilt you can get.

Glad she at least refunded your money, though, even if some of it was lost in conversion. :(

Regarding her reply, I hope someday she realizes that an apostrophe is not punctuation for HOLY SHIT HERE COMES AN S. Or the last consonant in any arbitrary word.

This made me laugh so hard. Also, agreed with your comment entirely.

I get what you're saying about artists doing work for themselves. Every artist needs that unwinding period. A solution that I employ is not posting up my personal artworks. I do what I need to do but I don't flaunt it. Or do a 1:1 ratio. One commission goes up, then a personal work. It's less frustrating to commissioners, especially when they are waiting patiently.

As for the 'my father's life' bit- you sound like a reasonable, compassionate person, but to the other people questioning the length of time, if they are the primary caregiver to their father, or even just 50% it can be mentally and emotionally draining or even physically.

What would probably be best for this person is just refunding their commissioners and wait until they're emotionally ready to deal.

Edited 2010-08-13 22:16 (UTC)

I'm sorry you had to put up with that. -hugs-

Really, her sick father has nothing to do with finishing commissions slowly. I took care of my dying father by myself for five years. During the first two years, I also had to care for my older sister during her battle with cancer and her teenage son. We beat it that time, she got better, sadly, right before daddy died it returned and this time, it took her from us. Now, I could not have a job away from home, so I settled with making silly little things, like tails for halloween or barbie dresses or I'd just plain root around in the attic and garage for random stuff. My daddy was such a packrat!

Main point is, my dad was so bad, he'd stop breathing three/four times an hour, his heart would stop beating multiple times a day and I had to move him around and such because he was too weak to do it himself and I still made time to do things like making stuff, hunting up anything worth something or digging about for scraps while caring for him. I had too because the state though dad was well enough to go and get another job. He wasn't bad enough for SSI! This was the only way we had food and money for things we needed.

I wasn't going to comment, but seeing that she was trying to guilt trip people makes me very disgusted. Just because I did other things as well as care for my dad, does that mean I love him any less because I knew we had to live off of something? -_-

You probably have the best response to this. I'm sorry you went through such a hard time with your dad and sister. *hug* I sympathize completely.

It seems like a time management thing, to me. My mom is very sick right now and my dad helps her around, but he also works from home as a project manager, so he's in the basement a lot. If he's got time to work, take meetings, do some errands, some other chores around the house (fixing things, mowing the lawn, etc.) and STILL help my mom when she needs it, he's managing his time really well.

If Mewsagi can't rearrange her schedule to care for her dad as well as take on commission work and doing whatever else she needs to do AND her personal art...? She's doing it wrong.

Thank you very much.

I hope your mother gets better, or at least isn't in so much pain.

It seems like she's reached a plateau, which is probably all we can expect anymore. I feel like she's never going to get better, but at least she's not getting worse, right? :)

Just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear of your father's illness and I wish him all the best in fight.

Thanks so much for your wishes :) -hugs-

Sorry you had to put up with this. I hate how she's obviously using her father's illness to try and guilt-trip you when you've obviously been very understanding and polite. That is ridiculous, and you should not feel guilty at all about asking her about the progress of your commission. She probably does need some sympathy but she needs to realize that it's incredibly immature of her to be going "why can't you understand what I'm going through none of you care about me bawwww" when you yourself were being completely polite and reasonable. :l

Echoing what others have said, if her dad's illness is really cramping her commissions she should be the first to offer refunds, so she has one less thing to worry about, not using it as an excuse to leave people hanging for months on end, try to get them to feel bad for asking for progress or refunds.
That's... kinda despicable really.

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Issues: Mewsagi

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