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Be aware of fraudulent clients.

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jams0988:
I hate when artists ask for half up front, and it might even scare me away from some of them. I've heard way more horror stories of clients getting ripped off by artists than the other way around, which makes sense: if the artist gets the money up front, they have all of the leverage at that point. Unless you give all the art to a client instead of just a watermarked preview or whatever, they have absolutely no reason not to pay you, except for if they suddenly go broke or if your work ends up not meeting their expectations at all.

I dunno. I bristle whenever I'm asked for money up front. If I'm commissioning work, it's because I want it. There's no logical reason for me not to pay for it a week or two later when it's delivered.

Sorry you got scammed, though. I wouldn't deliver finished, unwatermarked art to clients without getting paid first. I think it's a good idea to do work in small batches too, like you mentioned. This kind of stuff is why I'd never do commission work, and barely ever commission anything. Tough situations. Good luck to you!

Kiana:
The main difference here is that a client can dispute a payment which has been made and get their money back easily (perhaps too easily, as wrongful chargebacks are an issue artists have to face sometimes) if the artist turns out to have been a scammer, whereas an artist cannot get back any time wasted if they have been scammed. The amount of risk with no downpayment is very unequal. A case can perhaps be made that the artwork can be resold, but usually it isn’t “general” enough or expansive enough to make back the lost time/money.

You argue that a client would have absolutely no reason not to pay you except in cases like emergencies, and while that would be true for legitimate clients, there are people who intend to get artwork, sketches, concepts, ideas, etc. for free if they can. Even if a piece is sent watermarked and at low resolution, some people are only after the pose, composition, color scheme, concept, design, or the fact that it’s artwork of a particular character/subject, etc.

The safest way to have a freelance transaction without a downpayment is to have a contract signed by both parties with explicitly defined expectations (such as art delivered by x date, y pay due by z date), but many artists feel this is overkill if it’s a one-off commission, and if one party breaks the contract it may be time consuming and not worth it to go through small claims court depending on how much money it is. No contract and no downpayment is not something I would recommend to any artist since it leaves you very open to unrecoverable losses.

Now, if the client is one you have worked with many times before or is generally trustworthy, you might choose to be more lax about when you ask to be paid (instead of upfront, maybe it’s in a few weeks). All of this is risk management, and it’s better to be safe than sorry if you’re doing business with someone you don’t know much about.

eishiya:

--- Quote from: jams0988 ---I've heard way more horror stories of clients getting ripped off by artists than the other way around
--- End quote ---
Artists have entire communities devoted to sharing horror stories of unpaying clients, so from the artist's perspective, scammy clients are far more common xP It's all about the people you deal with - artists usually hire other artists from a trusted network, so they don't get to meet scammy artists as much, and art clients don't usually have art clients of their own, so they don't get to meet the scammy clients. There are bad (or at least incompetent) people on all sides.

Partial upfront payment is the only way to be safe when dealing with a client you don't know, even with a contract. Contracts are important, but the costs of enforcing them are often much greater than even the full payment would've been. It's true that artists gain more from this arrangement than clients since clients would have nothing to lose to a scammy artist if there was no downpayment, but as Kiana said, clients have the luxury of disputing a payment, while artists cannot file a dispute on their wasted time.

If you want work without upfront payment, then hire people who already trust you. If there aren't any, then you'll need to built trust with them, via respecting their payment terms.

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