Hello everybody.
A couple of weeks ago I wanted to make a mistake against my best judgement: I never made an on-demand job so I wanted to try one at any cost.
I accepted to make a character for a ridicolously low price. I proposed myself even if the customer didn't sound serious or professional. I accepted to make the model even if they couldn't give me any technical guideline of sort (nah, polycount doesn't matter). Needless to say, they didn't pay me.
Crew, if your guts/instinct tell you the customer isn't serious never accept the job. Even if you lose nothing like me, you are going to regret it anyway.
My previous profession tells me that you can work for years without bumping into one of these people, so I can tell you that most customers are serious people. It would be interesting to hear about customers experience too, I guess.
Anybody up to sharing any bad experience? No names and surnames, just the fact at large, it could be useful for those starting to work in this field.
You deal with people you will never see in the eyes, from all over the world, you, sometimes, are not ever sure of their real name. So there is only a statement to put in your mind when doing freelance jobs, and is this: "Money must come in before work delivery".
Fair customers will always understand this point, if they don't, you are sure that they don't want to pay you.
Hi Sirren, sorry for your bad experience. We try to determine if a client is not professional and usually filter them out, but of course it's not an easy task. While our job board is quite simple I would suggest to take precaution by sending only images, partly sliced model, asking for advance.
Also would be great to hear your comments on how we could deal in these situations.
Did you sign a contract with the client? The reason I ask is this: if he didn't pay you and hold up his end of the bargain, can you legally keep the rights to the model you made? Can you sell it on other sites to make your money back? I'd check with a lawyer first, just to make sure. ;)
I also wonder if it's a good idea to "name and shame" these kinds of clients. How effective would this be if the client can simply create a new user account or if he never posts again?
Hello Every one,
Sirren am not sorry for you, but want to congratulate you for learning a new lesson today and get all the CGTRADERS advises for free :) , so be happy and make a demo real of the delivered artwork and put it in your portfolio for another customers to c your abilities.
as many people here advised you how to do freelance job allow me to share my short experience in this subject.
when a customer show the interest of working with me i need to show my interest of the job without losing , so i wont send any image or art work until:
1- i must get information about the customer (website)
2 - i ask for all the requirements and understand what exactly the customer need .
3 - i send a quotation
4- if the customer accept my price , then i ask for 30% in advanced , then do the artwork outlines, drafts ,screen shoots, etc
5 - if the customer like it , then i ask for another 30% , or i wont continue spend more time on such a customer .
so i wont regret as i get paid 30% and will use the artwork in my portfolio , so i advise every freelancer to be careful and sharp but not rude regarding the money as you wont c those customers , and trust me if they r serious and saw the quality of your models, they will give you the job as it will be cheaper for them than hiring a full time artist .
Regards
Hello everyone. Thanks for your answers and advices.
Now let's go with order:
@ Guido Vrola: thanks for the pointer, I come from the hospitality field and for me it's first I deliver my work then I get paid. I didn't think about that.
@ Marcus: Thanks, but I got no damage at all. I got in touch with Dalia and she told that maybe CGTrader could process payements in the future. I guess this could be considered if failed payements become a real issue.
@ Burak: sorry to hear that, I hope you didn't loose much.
@ Zoubeir: I break no military secret in saying I scored only one sale on CGTrader. It was worth two months of sales on another site where I score three per month. If I scored that sale there.. Never mind. Anyway, I'm part of a Facebook community of vendors dealing with that site and the general opinion about CGTrader is "very positive". Interesting market growing by the month. Do your thing and upload good models, you'll get a result.
@ Supercigale: thanks for the tips.
@ John Hoagland: no contract involved, only a foolish 30 dollars agreement. There are E-mails and private messages of course. Anyway, it was a somewhat rushed job. I think I could refine the model and get something out of it. For the moment it stands at the end of a trail of projects...
I don't know about the "fame and shame" method. If he shows up again he'll change nickname for sure. Since he has a GMail account I got a name and surname (does it work like this for all mail providers?), but I don't know if they can be made public at all. Anyway, not in this case for 30 bucks.
@ firdz3d: That could be an idea, but imho this line of solutions should be treated with caution. It tells customers "we definitely don't trust you". Again, if failed payements become a real issue on CGT that's a good idea though.
@ CARTOOMOTION: I really liked your answer, firm, to the point and very polite. I think you gave everybody another good pointer :)
Next time I feel I can handle a custom work I'll keep your advices in mind.
See you all!
i agree with firdz3d
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