Man where do I start. Clients that do commission work for me to do for them. I ask them a full comprehensive battery of questions, size, color ranges, do I have artistic freedom of interpretation or not, profile shots, do you have a hi res photo of said subject matter. What do they do? Give a lo res shot of the subject so it's all grainy when I go in for the fine details, don't give feedback on my updates of their painting, or suddenly don't like the colors when it's nearly done. DUDE I gave you an update of progress of the painting every day I worked on it, you could clearly see I was using a lot of blue, now you don't like blue when it's 90% done?!? I despise people that are indecisive.
Or when they give me freedom on the color but then say it's not colorful enough? WTF. I list 50+ individual colors I used in the painting, not to mention what was mixed on canvas then they still have the audacity to say it's not colorful. Or they want a portrait done like one of my other pieces but want it a 1/4 the size of the other one, well I'm sorry I can't be as free as I was, because there isn't enough space to do it. You can't be as free with the stroke when the entire face of the subject is just the size of your hand and in the one they wanted similar to, her eye alone was as big as my fist. More canvas space more color, it's pretty simple.
And don't get me started on the scammers that email me their obvious BS stories through my website. Hi, I'm an engineer on a boat in the Atlantic, I am moving to the Philippines and want to buy my new wife a painting but keep it a surprise. And I closed my bank account in America and can only do cashiers checks. But not Western Union....can you tell me which painting I should get? Or they say they have an agent that has seen my work in America or they have seen my studio, well congratulations chump I have only showed once in America and it was a private event and I knew everyone there brohime. And really you been to my private studio? In the middle of the sticks in Bali Indonesia? an hour away from any kind of civilization, on a road that isn't even on google maps, you really been to my studio you scamming scumbag? Why don't you slowly kill yourself, but document it so I can have to pleasure of watching you die. Firstly I don't know your taste, you need to make that up for yourself, second I don't do checks, I can do credit card or paypal or online bank transactions, and if your bank doesn't do online like you claim it doesn't I guess you are screwed. And who the hell closes their bank account without having opened another you just walk around with a duffel bag full of cash? Also carrying more than 10 grand anywhere is not illegal but it raises flags with governments.
It's always the boat engineer story haven't seen a new version of the scam story, and when the emails start flowing their English skills start dropping. Perfect grammar the first email, then drops immediately to sub par and spelling errors, I know it's a scam, but I try to squeeze information out of them to pass on to the better business bureau. I have venomous rancor for these troglodytes.
/rant