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Originally Posted by Heidi Maiers
Anyway, life lessons learned are many. First, always make that deposit non-refundable to keep clients from taking your time and then defaulting on an agreement. Second, limit the amount of rework that you will agree to within reason and charge extra for any that goes above and beyond reason (may be hard to determine where to draw the line). Third, never schedule time for a project until you have confirmed with the source that you indeed to have the commission.
I'm sure there are more lessons to be learned from that experience, but one thing I'm glad of is that I have a reliable job and am not dependent on my art to get my bills paid. I am tempted to stop accepting commissions all together and only sculpt things that I want to make and just enjoy my hobby.
At any rate, it all goes back to the idea of having a portrait rep - that would go a long way towards weeding out the nutballs.
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Haha...i like that "weeding out the nutballs" part. That suddenly reminds me of my own recent nutball - a school vice principal who got me into the trouble of writing a proposal (a bigg headache for me) and then can't even mouth "we're not going ahead with it" (i had to dig out those words from their mouth).
Then again, after reading Carlo's story i won't be surprised they're taking my proposal as a template to sourcing for a "cheaper" artist!
Well, anyway what i was about to say was i finally came up with the idea to prevent clients from dragging my time - and that is to charge the additional time if they drag my work because of their whims and fancies, after they have signed the contract.
I reckon that will scare many clients away, but i also think it will sieve out the genuine customers from the "nutballs". Hope this tip helps.