I'm sorry you got scammed but I'm glad you're finally able to recognize this. I've ALWAYS required payment up front, or work via payment plan. It's worked so far and I haven't gotten screwed yet!

Trades on the other hand...are a little harder. A lot of people have the "don't do mine until I do yours or else I'll forget" which is great of them....but if both parties have that problem, someone's gotta go first and it's usually me. And then they forget. :/

I'm sorry about that. I almost always do a routine like, you get the commissioner and you show them a super basic bare-bones sketch, then you get paid in complete before you start working on it. Or you can do half and half, post a small lower quality image when you get paid the first half and then when they send the rest of the money you send them the higher quality stuff. It seems to work out- also invoicing through paypal is super handy.

I don't do trades unless I trust the person and I'm friends with them, because then I know what their work habits are like and I'm not super bothered if they don't get around to it, either.

Hope you have better luck though. :c

:brohug of eager trader who got happily swindled more than once:

Yes, this is very good advice. Specially the getting paid upfront or half now/ half to handle the final work.

That is so unfortunate to say. I had a few people take off in a trade, but the last straw was from those who I thought were my friends. I think that prepared me for taking payment upfront in commissions so I guess it's not all bad. Lesson learned I guess.

I'm sorry you were taken advantage of like that ): I really like the idea of having the initiator do their half first though - I could use that when I get notes asking for trades haha (I'm sure it'd weed out the scammers anyways).

This is why I'm listed as closed for everything. Hell I've even had "friends" I paid for commissions and not received art from. But they aren't my friends anymore lol.

I feel your pain but for me, I'm not spending a cent on the fandom again. I've got more important things to pay for and the expendable income I used to have isn't there anymore haha

As someone who's paid for multiple commissions and am still waiting on them years later, and as an initiator of an accepted trade that has many trades still owed me, I've found that it's best to just not commission or trade if you wanna get other people to hold up their end. And taking money up front for commissions for me makes me feel very pressured and it actually gives me art block, and then I feel like shit because I have money and I don't know if my art will ever come around for me, so I only take very small commissions($5-$10) so that I can take the money after I finish them. I've never had anyone flake on them, but I wouldn't be heartbroken about $5-$10. For bigger things, I put nice big ugly watermarks all over things when I send them to clients until the money hits my paypal. And you really have to make them big, ugly watermarks too. Nothing able to be cropped out or mixed in.

I think most artists go through this at first. I did, too. It is a good feeling to finally figure out the better way to do these things, but even better when you share what you learned, like you did here! So, good! Don't be like your past self and you should do a lot better~ I want to smack my younger self. xD;;

Your work is beautiful and you definitely deserve compensation for it, whether that's a trade or a commission. It can be hard to stick up for yourself, especially if you feel like you're a bother. I can totally be the same way, haha. c:

I have a good friend Houndbound here on Weasyl that runs secret-santa type themed art exchanges. She's been too busy with work IRL lately to run one I think, but when she hosts it there's a guarantee that if your artist either can't or doesn't submit, they get blacklisted from the next round until the piece is finished and an artist volunteers to make sure you're compensated for your time and effort. c: Usually there's a summer exchange, maybe if she doesn't do it I'll give it a try.

This kind of swings both ways. If I was to ever commence a trade, my terms would essentially be, I'll only work as fast as the other person. Of course, this would fly hand in hand with the fact trades would only be with close friends or such.

i'm waiting on a trade for roughly 4 isn months or more now from a friend of mine and my half was completed like that night :/ i've asked her about it once and she gave me th ei've been really busy spiel which she has but then i see her taking new trades and ignoring mine and its just kinda like ummm wtf.