Ooh, I wasn't going to rant. But... but... So anyway, I just did a couple of art jobs, in between my usual work. One was brilliant, it ended up looking like this...
Be like those clients, is my message to you.
On the other hand, and this is where I wasn't going to rant. But, grrrrr. In the summer I ran a Kickstarter to fund my book Richard the Third. It was very successful. As part of this, I gave sponsors the chance to pay £100 to appear in the book itself. A dozen took me up on this and they duly appear in the Battle Of Bosworth. Some have lines of dialogue, most don't. They were all very happy with this, as was I. They look great, the book looks great, everybody's happy. Well, apart from one sponsor whose name I spelled wrong, unfortunately (I wrote the name as it is on his email address, but he now uses a different spelling, which he told me about but I missed. My error. Still enough about him.)
Then I was reminded, more recently, that as part of that tier of sponsorship I'd also offered to do individual drawings for those sponsors. So I asked what they'd like drawing and, finally today, halfway through December, I drew them and packaged them up to post. Here are a few...
Then there was one client who I couldn't remember what he'd asked for. I chased him up, and he re-sent the email that he'd actually sent weeks back. He'd asked for...
"I had the idea that Buff Chucky (from the TV series) was doing the Bane breaker move on Bananaman in a wrestling ring, with members of the audience being all incarnations of the Doctor (from Doctor Who), including the new one.
Ive included pictures of the Bane scene I had in my head, the costume of the 15th Doctor, and Buff Chucky as visual aids.
I appreciate the fact that this is a lot to ask, sorry"
So, keeping it simple (knowing that he appreciated the fact it was a lot to ask), I drew the main subject of his request and I was quite happy with the end result. It looked like this.
I sent it to him. What I didn't realise was that, as I was drawing it, he'd sent me this addendum:
"The incarnations of the Doctor is like to be included are-
1st Doctor- (Hartnell)
1st Doctor- (Richard Hurndall)
1st Doctor- (David Bradley)
2nd Doctor
3rd Doctor
4th Doctor- (Tom Baker)
The Curator- (Tom Baker)
5th Doctor
6th Doctor- (Colin Baker)
The Curator- (Colin Baker)
7th Doctor
8th Doctor- (in his Power of the Doctor costume)
War Doctor
9th Doctor
10th Doctor- (David Tennant)
Meta-Crisis 10th Doctor- (David Tennant)
14th Doctor- (David Tennant; looks slightly older)
11th Doctor
12th Doctor
13th Doctor
Fugitive Doctor
15th Doctor- (wearing the costume I showed in attachment)
Hope this is okay, thank you 
"I replied that I'd already drawn it, and had deliberately kept it simple. He replied:
'Is it possible to alter Bananaman’s cape by any chance cos his cape is usually in two halves like a peeled Banana skin?"
I replied that I'd kind of already drawn it. But, as a kindness, I added a cape. That's the version you see above (the capeless version only exists on the paper drawing that I've since sent him). He replied:
"Ohh okay. It’s just the fact I wanted it to be in a boxing ring and them be the audience?
If I’m being very honest with you, I do appreciate it is a lot of work to do, and I’m not as talented as you, writing or drawing, and I appreciate you have other drawings and work to do.
It’s just the fact I paid a lot of money to your kickstarter and the stipulation was that you’d draw the sketch to my choice and then have my name in the book and be included.
My name was done wrong in the book and then the drawing hasn’t been completed to the full thing.
That’s my issue. Sorry. I don’t want to be a pain.
It’s just I’ve had people do similar things when I’ve paid them and in the past I’ve accepted their compromise. But now it keeps happening, I feel like I’m paying people large amounts only for them to not keep to the full thing I’m paying them for.
And I’d prefer the item over the money.
Hope you can understand. Sorry if I’m being a pain."Oh yes, did I not mention this was also the sponsor whose name I'd got wrong in the book? He's already asked me to reprint the book with his name corrected, but that's a whole other story.
Anyway, at this point I confess I was getting a little peeved and I replied:
"X, you do realise you were asking for literally 15 times as much as any of the other sponsors? - Sorry, I've just seen that you asked for 20 individual Doctors. That makes 22 things!"
But, as a kindness, I drew him all The Doctors:
What I then discovered was that, while I'd been drawing all of those, he'd emailed:
"Okay- so I’ll make a deal with you then.
Cos I’m not trying to be difficult.
I’ll accept the Chucky/Bananaman drawing, as you’ve done it, long as the cape is altered and you don’t have to do the Doctors at all.
I would like a book with my name changed.
And then a refund of £50?
Does that sound fair? I’m trying to be. It’s not intentionally being difficult or anything.
I’m just going off what your promise was for the kickstarter. That’s all."I replied that the £100 sponsorship had been to be included in the book, and that his face had appeared twice in the book, and he'd even had a line of dialogue, which most people didn't get.
He replied "Yeah that's fine. No worries."
And we left it at that. I went downstairs and had lunch, and cooled down. I had been going to write a blog to vent my frustration at the situation, but after lunch I had as good as forgotten the matter and finished packaging the sponsors artwork to post.
I came back to some more emails:
"Is it possible to put all the Doctors on one side, so they’re in an audience so I can see them all if that’s okay? The Chucky picture covers some of them. "
Very calmly I redid the combined piece of artwork:
He had also added: "In future... I’d recommend maybe adding that the sketches bee simpler when when saying what someone’s sketch is? Just so you have covered this in future, so then people are aware not to be overly complicated with what they ask".
I sent him the new artwork.
He replied:
"Did you manage to do the War and Fugitive Doctors? Who are the ones at the back with their faces covered?"
I told him they're just out of shot. We haven't communicated since.
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