WARNING! LONG RANT! LONG RANT! READ AT YOU'RE OWN RISK!!!



ALSO, IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, PLEASE READ THE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS SINCE THEY ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT!!!!!




Okay, so I am about ready to completely swear off paying for commissions forever! I am not happy, not happy. Ask me why.

Okay, I'll tell you. See, when you are looking around at the booths in the artist alley, you see a lot of very very good looking art. Naturally, you want to see if the artist does commissions so you can have your very own pretty drawing. Since you don't really have a lot of money, you decide that all you can afford is a full body sketch of two of your favorite characters for $30. You're pretty sure you mentioned that you wanted it to be done in pencil. You also pay half the price up front, which is perfectly fine. You tell the artist to please take as much time as they need on the drawing and go on about your business. About 6 hours later you return to see how the drawing is coming. Happily the artist says that it is done, and brings out your commission.

The first thing you notice is that it is sketched in pen.......-____-......
The second thing you notice is that it looks as though he spent all of 10-15 minutes drawing this picture. And then there's that awkward silence. You don't want to offend the artist by telling him that if you saw this on the internet you wouldn't take a second glance at it, and might possibly make some snide remark since it essentially looks like a rushed piece of garbage. Of course he's looking at you like, "There's no way you're getting your money back buddy."

So you try and find at least one thing you can tolerate about the drawing, all while trying to convince him that he needs to redo it in pencil since that's what you wanted in the first place. In the end, you realize that either you have to leave the art with him and keep $15 or take the art, not offend the guy, and lose $15 dollars. In the end, I decided that one of the characters faces was kind of cute so I kept it since he started going on about how much time he'd spent working on it, when I know full well it couldn't have been more than 30 minutes.

On the other hand, I did have one decent experience. I had a girl a different table, who also had very impressive artwork do a commission for me. I asked for the same things, 2 person full body sketch, in pencil. The only difference was that it was two different characters. I said the same thing to her, to please take as much time as she needed and to please not feel rushed and those kind of things. After checking back toward the end of the day, about 6 hours, she had finished the commission.

It is absolutely wonderful, and only cost me $10. There's a lot of motion, the characters look cute, and it certainly doesn't look like something that was hurriedly drawn in 15 minutes.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention was that for the first guy, I had him draw one of my original characters. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Well of course he's going to have a tough time drawing your character you numbnuts!" The only thing is, and I'll post the drawing when I get it back from the guy and get to my scanner, I spent a good 1 1/2 to 2 hours drawing that picture for a reference for the guy. I'm not usually one to boast, but this was seriously almost a professional level character drawing. It was full body with plenty of detail.

The only other possible excuse that either could have had, is that when they asked what I wanted them to be doing, I told them that I'd just like them to be in just some sort of cute pose. The guy actually suggested something that I said would work out well, so he already had an idea and had my approval, so once again, it's not like I didn't give him pretty much everything he needed in order to do a good job.

The really sad thing is that I have done commissions that looked a lot better than what he gave me, and I did it for free. I swear, if I can go to Anime Expo next year, I'm going to get a booth in the artist alley and do commissions for much cheaper than everyone else, and at a much higher quality.

Anyway, since I know that the girl I went to can actually do some nice work for her commissions, I'm more than likely going to go back to her tomorrow with the two characters I asked the guy to draw and have her try them. I may even see if she'd be willing to do it in color, since I'm more than willing to pay for good art. I really hate, however, paying for art that I wouldn't even want if they were going to give it to me for free.

Anyway, sorry about the long rant. The rest of the convention has been completely awesome! There's this one shop in the exhibit hall called Desu-Nation, that has a really cool set up going on. Pretty much, when you buy anything from them, you get to do this little raffle/random drawing thing. You'll get a number on a piece of paper, and the closer the number is to 1, the better a prize you'll get. I got a 2, and got this adorable little charm of Kogami Akira from Lucky Channel that I put on my black backpack, so if you see a guy with really short dark hair (military hair cut), a black backpack, and a little anime character on the back with pink hair, that's me.

For Saturday, I'm planning on doing the Otaku Self Defense thing, Photoshop, Copic Coloring, AX Idol, Voice Acting Workshop, and probably the Vocaloid thing. I'll also be staying all night at the convention so if you can find me, I'll specially do a drawing for you for free!!!!!