If you do commissions for ANYTHING, I'm talking to you.

If you are taking money for a service, you are doing business. That means that however under the table you may or may not be running your business, you're still doing it. Now understand this: If you can't keep a deadline, DON'T AGREE TO IT AND TAKE PAYMENT.

I'm getting sick and tired of people taking money for things they for whatever reason can't complete.

I'm tired of getting things a year late.

I'm tired of trying to get in contact with people and failing.

Not going to name names, but we have a commission out that was supposed to be done by this past august. It's a VERY expensive commission, and the artist is very highly recommended. He does some very awesome work, and i must say I was excited about commissioning him. But No. He hasn't even started working on it yet. Contacting him? Pretty much impossible. He 'doesn't do email, messengers, notes, etc...' and the only way anyone ever hears from him is apparently posts on his forum, which are never directed at anyone, just general "hey, I'm still alive, here's my excuse...."

This is NOT how you run a business, which he does run. With that much money changing hands (over $1000 in one shot) and a 'no refund policy' you had better keep in touch with your customers and let them know how things are going. If you have to miss a deadline, you need to let them know that directly. If you have to put your business on hiatus for WHATEVER reason, you had better say so ahead of time, and offer the customer a chance to back out and get their work done elsewhere.

If you can't keep track of the work you're doing, you need to DO LESS. You're obviously overextending yourself. Learn how to organize, then maybe you can do more.

Also, opening commissions and doing work or others is fine.. however if someone has a commission way past due, we should not see other commissions being done quickly while we still wait. (We being any customer who is waiting.. and waiting.. and waiting) IMO: Open slots for the next set of work, but FINISH THE OLD ONES FIRST.

DO NOT get bitchy when a customer complains in a public forum. If they haven't even attempted to contact you, ok, be bitchy about it,. They should contact you privately first. HOWEVER if they've been TRYING to contact you and you have either blatantly ignored them, or bypassed them for whatever reason.. they have a right to review your work and warn others of their bad experience. Do yourself a favor.. make sure they don't have a bad experience.

And that's not to say the artist can't review a bad customer. We all know that happens too. But that's a rant for another day.