I (16M) do art commissions as a side thing. I’m not a professional or anything, but I’ve gotten pretty good and people pay me sometimes to draw their characters.
A few weeks ago, someone messaged me asking for a full-body drawing of their OC. We agreed on a price and they paid half upfront, half after. Everything was fine at first.
I sent the sketch, and they asked for a couple changes. No problem. Then after I fixed that, they asked for more changes. Then more. And more. Each time they said it was “just a small tweak,” but it kept adding up. They changed the hairstyle, the outfit, the pose, and even the character’s body type.
At some point it didn’t even look like the same character anymore.
I kept doing it because I didn’t want to be rude, but after like the 9th revision, I told them I couldn’t keep changing everything and that I’d need extra payment for more revisions.
They got mad and said revisions should be included and that I was being lazy and unprofessional. They refused to pay more but still demanded I finish it exactly how they wanted.
So I refunded the upfront payment and told them I wasn’t going to continue.
I feel bad because maybe I should have just finished it, but I also feel like they were taking advantage of me.
Not to mention I dont believe I was even being unjust with asking for a little bit more of pay because I spent so much time on the revisions it wasnt worth the price
EDITED TO ADD:
Those of you who say OP should not have returned the deposit are right, and I was wrong.
NTA. You did the right thing in refunding them. They were absolutely taking advantage of your time and effort. The amount you charged them initially was based on you knowing how long it would take to complete the drawing without nine+ revisions.
He didn’t do the right thing by returning the deposit. The deposit literally is supposed to cover the time he put into the project so far.
He does need to clarify in his contract going forward that he will make edits within reason. (2-3 chances, and as long as they stay within the original guidelines)
I’m a graphic designer and work with illustrators all the time. 1-3 revisions is standard. 9 revisions and to the extent you’re describing is taking advantage of you.
NTA, but I’m not sure I would have returned the up front payment. They got at least that much service from you. You earned it.
Whether you are content that you refunded the money, or later decide you didn’t need to – either way, you dropped a client that needed to be dropped.
And you learned a good business lesson about setting parameters or limits to your services. (e.g., that your *fee includes up to X hours of revision after the first draft, as needed. If more revisions are requested beyond that an additional fee of $X/hour will kick in OR the customer can take the art in its current state for the original agreed upon price*.)
It’s good to put in a little extra effort to keep a customer; it’s also good to know the value of your time and talent and not let a customer take too much advantage of either.
NTA. Doing that kind of creative work, you are always going to run into those kinds of people.
From a business standpoint, you are setting a price that accounts for “x” amount of labor. One of the skills that you as the artist have to develop is the ability to accurately estimate the amount of time it will take to execute a certain job. And include some extra time for revisions. But there is a limit, and after that, there are extra charges.
And then you have a written contract that spells all of this out and is signed before starting the job. Every self-employed professional has to learn how to develop and negotiate pricing, estimates, billing, etc.
You are at the beginning of this process and you will learn these things as you go. But you showed a lot of character in returning the money, because, quite frankly, you really weren’t obligated to do so.
NTA,
You also should not have refunded them. The deposit is FOR the upfront work, and the sketches and editing.
It sounds like they were trying to get multiple sketches from you for the price of one. Probably so they could put them in an AI after they finally got the completed version and ask the AInto make all the other sketches in the same style as your completed. That way, they could got a whole bunch of characters in your style, but I let pay for one.
Going forward, add it into your context that people get 2-3 edits of the sketch max. You can also put into the contract that the deposit is forfeit once you have put a certain amount of hours/work into a piece.
nta nyou shouldn’t have refunded them. you did a lot of work and deserved compensation for it.
NTA, they were taking advantage and if I were you I wouldn’t have refunded them.
NTA at all- you’re too nice tbh
Thank you 😭
NTA, especially as you refunded them, which you didn’t have to do.
Next time, include “X revisions” as part of the contract!
NTA
Make sure going forward that you include 1/2 revisions in your pricing. And having pricing ready for any further requests for changes. It’s not unprofessional to know your worth.
NTA. NINE revisions? 1-2 is fine. 3 is kinda pushing it. 9 is utterly insane. Next time, once you hit 3 revisions, finish the piece and hand it over for the original price. Trying to get additional payments out of a client when they have a mountain of unreasonable revisions is basically impossible. They’re the type that thinks once they pay you, they own you, and you should do ANY amount of work for them for that original payment.