Commission scams: A guide on how to avoid them and find legit artists
Hello! I am writing this guide in order to hopefully help people spot scammers and art thieves, to teach people how to deal with them and to give people ways to actually get real artists for commission work.
For those who do not know, there is a recurring, extremely widespread type of scam where someone will advertise their commissions using stolen artwork, or (sometimes) traced or AI-generated pictures. This started (as far as I know) on Twitter, but it is currently in all sorts of social media (I have found them in Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Tumblr) and also on Discord servers, often large Discord servers requiring no invites or that are easy to find through Discord advertisement places.
These do obviously hurt both, the people seeking to buy a commission (who will either get their money stolen, or given a product that is not of the quality that was advertised), and the artists whose work is being stolen, who are not getting the work themselves. It is important for people to learn how to identify these people, and to quickly take action when possible. This post is kind of lengthy, so please press the Keep reading button below for the full guide! (And please do share this post around if possible- This is a very common scam and I have met far too many people who have fallen to it or have got their art stolen due to it, including friends and myself.)
So, how do they work? (in Social media)
In my experience, a lot of these scammers either run multiple accounts or are part of a larger scheme, operating in organized groups that follow similar tactics. They will very often use automated means to advertise en masse. Those in social media will make accounts that post some example artwork, often with a myriad of tags, in styles that do not match (see first example, featuring my stolen art :'')). They very rarely post anything that isn't stolen artwork, or have any actual real following they interact with properly. They will then very often spam heavily through replies (such as it happens in Twitter), posting hundreds of really similar messages in a short period of time. In the second example, you can see an account from one of these scammers that is using automated posts to garner attention, which are shared by similar accounts (notice the same exact wording between the first and third post). The third example (in the Replies tab) shows how one of this accounts replies "Hi" to every single message they get.
They will often seek posts from people who are searching for commissions, answering them (often with a "I do commissions, DM me") or other variants of that. (They often only share their "art" on DMs to not be caught stealing by the original authors.) You can see an example of that on the first screenshot below. On Twitter, Instagram and pretty much any place where you can DM people, they may also come to your DMs, often starting with a "Hello" or something so you answer to them, and then they will suddenly share their commission information (as seen in the second picture).
In any case, they rarely have publicly available commission sheets, and will only disclose their prices on DMs. They may share more stolen artwork in there. From there on, they will often speak in fairly broken English, and try to lead you to commission them. They will haggle the prices if they can- But they tend to be fairly steep, with them going up to $300 a fullbody, which tends to be unusual in people without a fairly established following or popularity.
They will often give you a payment method that does not allow for refunds- Such as sending the money to "Friends and Family" in Paypal. This is actually illegal for commercial work, so if you get an artist telling you to pay them through such a method, please do be incredibly wary: Professionals will use methods that do have an option for refunds.
2. How do they work? (on Discord)
On Discord, they will often enter in servers where there may be a place for them to advertise, or servers available through Disboard and other Discord-community searchable sites. Then, they will often not interact at all with the community itself, but they will jump to advertising channels and post about "seeking for work". I have found out that scammers operating on Discord do only very rarely also have socials, so look out for that. Do reverse searches if you can. Legit artists don't tend to join Discords solely to advertise, so look up "from: [name]" on Discord and check how they have interacted in the server, if they have done that in any way. See the first and second example for an example on how they behave. First example has art from @ydteus (in the second message, the dragonborn's source is unknown.) Second example is from one of these accounts who entered on a Streamers' Discord. Streamers and VTubers are very popular targets for these scammers. Third example (with art from absent_lambeth on instagram, and unknown for the second picture) shows another important point, which I'll explain below.
Many of these scammers do not have solid commission sheets showing examples and prices for them. The third one even mentions "it is under construction", fully knowing a commission sheet is expected. Not every professional artist has them, but most do. It is often expected that people who do commissions will have some sort of Terms of Service at the very least, even if they do not have a commission sheet.
3. What do they do?
They scam you. You may never get any art from them. You may get traced art, or art that is not of the quality they advertised, because the art they used for promotion wasn't theirs on the first place. Or you may get an AI-generated picture, too. In either way: You will find yourself with +$200 less in your pocket and no way to seek a refund. So, it's very important you know how to spot them BEFORE they scam you. I have known people who have lost their money
4. How do I actually spot them?
Simply put, they do not act like normal artists would. Let's make a handy list of suspicious behaviours to look for, though.
Most people who draw commissions won't directly DM you unprompted to ask you to pay them for work. If you get such a DM- Report as spam and block.
Most of them don't act like bots, either. If you're on Twitter or similar pages, seek for extremely repetitive posts, hundreds of Replies in their Replies tab that are copypasted or very similar. If you see that, report as spam and block.
Reverse search is sadly very unreliable nowadays, but it does not hurt to try. A lot of them will modify the picture so it doesn't show in reverse search, but try it- And seek if it links to a different account with a different name.
As an ESL, I hate to say this, but the grand majority of them have really broken English, so look out for that. Not every person with broken English is a scammer, but it is something common amidst them. You will notice they fail to communicate general information. Try to ask them for Terms of Service, for example: They will probably be unable to provide you anything (if they do even understand you.)
You will rarely find them on your own unless you frequent specific tags, such as "commission" or "openforcommission". Or even using completely unrelated tags in their posts. I found one of them using a tag about someone's death to cop violence on their anime art. These people mostly only interact with their fellow scammers, but not with artists you'd find through other means.
As mentioned above, they won't provide you a payment method that allows for refunds the grand majority of the time. If someone tells you to send them money "as friends and family" in Paypal, or through something life Ko-fi's donations (although this one is rare), do not pay them. This is a general advice: Do not use payment methods that do not allow refunds for people you don't know.
Ask them for a commission sheet, a webpage, their Terms of Service and other things. Professionals should be able to provide at least one of these, usually.
5. What do I do if I find out they have stolen art/if my art has been stolen?
If you have found stolen art, let the original artist known ASAP if you can find them. Ask for help from friends if you cannot find them.
If you're the artist, DMCA claim. Every page has it, it is required for them to have it. If you search "dmca form (and the website's name)", it should show up. Bsky only has it in mail form right now, but it's there. A DMCA claim is a Copyright claim, and as long as you can show that you posted your picture somewhere before they did, you can do it. The form may seem scary, but it is not all that much. They will ask for your legal full name, address, a mail + a telephone, the url of the post stealing your art, an url to where you posted it first, and to sign/agree to some terms. DMCA claims tend to be processed swiftly (in about a day) because websites can get in trouble if they allow for copyrighted content to be stolen. And you actually do have rights to any picture you have created without needing to trademark it or anything.
You may also want to ask your friends to help you report the account and/or posts. Often, reporting it for spam will give you the best results. DMCA claims will take down the offending posts, but sadly, reports in most major places are rarely taken seriously, but they may limit an accounts' reach or auto-flag it as spam in DMs, so it is still a fairly effortless option to follow. DO still DMCA claim them though.
6. Where do I actually find real people to commission?
Your best bet is through other real people. Let me explain some good methods for this.
Do you have friends who are artists? Ask them if they have commissions open, or if they know other people who take them. Artists almost always know other artists, and they can quickly find you someone you can trust.
Did a friend of yours get a commission? Ask them who was it from if you like the style, and they may be able to get you a link to their social media!
Do you follow artists for any sort of content you're interested in? (General art, fanart/fandom stuff, people you look up to, etc). You can check their work first and see if they have commissions, or if they share art from other people, and then check those.
Scammers really don't partake in fandoms or have art-related posts go viral (some get some follower-begging bait going viral, but that's it). Chances are that, if you found a cool art in your dashboard or timeline, it is from a real artist.
I think places such as VGen need verification for artists and have ratings. I am not personally experienced with it, but you may want to check that out.
You can always ask people to double check with you if you found someone but are doubtful about them being legit. If you are part of any community, do ask there! If you have artist friends, tell them! A lot of artists are acquittanced with the scam issue.
I have seen people do lists of artists available for commissions in places such as bsky, too. These can be an option, but always do verify that the people doing the list in the first place do seem like an actual person.
Ending notes
This is a very long post, but I really wanted it to be very thorough. I would greatly appreciate if you could share it around, as it is a very widespread issue that not many know how to identify. If you do find out scammers in Discords, please DM the servers' admins and link them to this post so they can get banned, in order to prevent scamming and art theft.
If you have any question or you need someone to help you verify an artist being legit or a scammer, my DMs are open for that too. I have talked about this a bunch in other places and I am fairly experienced with these cases, and I would be very happy to be able to lend a hand and find you an artist, if you do need the help. Thank you for reading!
try and tell me literally any one of these would not fit above a short story about two wholly random men from the MCU fingering each other, or possibly 12 chapters of one or more characters from a CW show being in high school while having a photogenic but terminal kind of cancer. try.
What do you mean that Forgotten Realms is a romantic fantasy setting masquerading as high fantasy?
(With reference to this post there.)
Exactly what it says on the tin – the Forgotten Realms is clearly principally inspired by romantic fantasy, not high fantasy.
In this context, when I say "romantic fantasy", I'm referring to a specific, relatively short-lived genre of fantasy literature that was wildly popular in the 1980s and 1990s, but abruptly fell almost entirely off the map after about 1998, due to a variety of economic and cultural factors which are way too complicated to go into in a Tumblr post. This is distinct from the more contemporary usage of "romance novels with fantasy settings", though there's definitely a lot of overlap.
If you're looking for a romantic fantasy reading list, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series – especially the early stuff – is probably the easiest to get your hands on these days; it's practically the only example that still has any real name recognition in 2025, for all that Lackey was a latecomer to the genre. Other names worth checking out include Margaret Ball, Carole Nelson Douglas, Tanya Huff, Holly Lisle, Jennifer Roberson, and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, off the top of my head, though not all of them worked exclusively within the genre.
(Elizabeth Moon is an interesting edge case, in that her stuff is principally military science fiction, but very much adheres to the forms of romantic fantasy. Her Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy, one of her few pure fantasy works, is a fun snapshot of an era because it was written explicitly in response to what Moon perceived as the shortcomings of the fantasy worldbuilding on display in then-contemporary Dungeons & Dragons settings, and hit the shelves at just about exactly the same time as the earliest Forgotten Realms material.)
Well, the trick is that genres are creative conversations, not checklists of tropes, so the real answer to that question is "it's the type of fantasy that was being written by this specific group of popular fantasy authors, most of whom personally knew and frequently collaborated with each other, during this specific period of time".
That said, there are a few recurring features that can be identified. Not all of these will be present in every example of the genre, of course, and whether they add up to a distinct strand of fantasy or a subgenre of high fantasy or what-have-you is a debate I'd prefer to leave to those who have more time on their hands, but to hit some high points:
Romantic fantasy typically features a strong focus on political worldbuilding – not in the lists-of-kings sense, but in terms of the nitty-gritty details of hierarchies and power relations. What explicit hierarchies are in play? What unspoken hierarchies are in play, and how do they undermine the explicit hierarchies? Who's really in charge, and how does that differ from who's officially in charge? Often there's an emphasis on interrogating gendered divisions within the political sphere. What kinds of political power are typically wielded by men? What kinds of political power are typically wielded by women? How do these spheres interact?
As an extension of the preceding point, romantic fantasy often features lengthy sequences of the protagonist and their allies engaging in complex political discussion and manoeuvres, with the same sort of narrative weight and focus that scenes of battle are given in more conventional fantasy. This isn't to say that romantic fantasy doesn't also feature scenes of battle – it usually does – but they tend to be addressed in a just-the-high-points fashion, rather than the meticulous, blow-by-blow fashion of the politicking leading up to them. (Folks who aren't fans of the genre often report finding this difference in focus dreadfully dull!)
There's often a secret or semi-secret do-gooder organisation – a sort of conspiracy of heroes – which the protagonist either joins early on, or is already part of when the story begins. (This is most common in ongoing serials, and may be absent in stand-alone works.) Valdemar's Herald-Mages and the Forgotten Realms' Harpers are two examples of the type. Contra the expectations of grittier fantasy, the righteousness of this organisation usually is not questioned; stories may concern rooting out corruption or error in individual branches, and members may temporarily fall from grace, but overall they're on the side of the angels.
While specific applications of magic may be secret knowledge, magic in general is something anyone can do. This may be carried to the point of every (adult) person in the setting sporting a unique magical talent, or of people being sortable by their affinities for particular spheres of magic. The protagonist discovering, exploring, and/or mastering their magical affinity is often central to their arc. The lack of such an affinity will usually be framed as a kind of disability, with all the awkwardness and unfortunateness you'd expect of 1980s popular media.
Magical companions aren't necessarily common in the setting overall, but they're common for protagonists, to the extent that being bonded with such a companion is often positioned as a diegetic marker of heroism. Snarky talking cats and wise telepathic horses are both popular choices, though there have been many variations on the basic idea – I recall one example where the protagonist wears a sapient enchanted bracelet which later turns out to be a dragon who's transformed himself into an inanimate object for initially mysterious reasons.
The settings tended to be explicitly egalitarian and gay-friendly, with sexist and homophobic attitudes functioning as cultural markers of the obligatory Evil Empire Over There. This is kind of a nothing distinction in 2025, but in the 1980s it was noteworthy. It wasn't without its problems, of course; homosexuality was usually treated as a kind of gender variance, with gay men being framed as in some sense "womanly" in their fundamental essence, and lesbians as in some sense "manly". Oddly, this idea of homosexuality-as-gender-variance almost never extended to any sort of trans representation. Having a special made-up word for gay people – always printed in italics – was so common in the genre that it became the subject of frequent parody.
I can’t believe I just found out that Tolkien did a Gollum impression and narrated the entire riddle scene! How could I not have known about this?! You can listen to the whole recording here starting at the 30 minute mark. I wish he had narrated the whole book from start to finish! I would give anything to listen to that!
everybody is drooling for the blond guy from dungeon meshi. that guy is 100% real and I know like six of him, what you are looking for is a marine biologist
1. spends a long amount of time doing something weird far away from society
2. will not stop talking about their animal
3. has definitely eaten their animal and has strong opinions on how to cook it best
gamzee kills people because he is trying to spoil the show; he's going off script because he wants to be written out.
before murderstuck, gamzee has no idea that he is a clown. sure, he anoints his face with greasepaint, rides a unicycle, and juggles, but these are serious religious sacraments to him. and, sure, sometimes he trips on his giant floppy shoes and lands face first in a pie, but that's just being blessed with a miracle, because he was just thinking about pie. and, sure, sometimes his friends say things like "HEY ASSHOLE. CLOWN ASSHOLE. YOU WORSHIP A CLOWN RELIGXON. FOR CLOWNS." to him, but he's too zonked on sopor slime to extract any meaning from it.
when gamzee sees the ICP miracles video, he's too sober to dismiss it as a mere coincidence; for once, he gets the joke, and realises that he was the butt of the joke the whole time. he understands that every time he fell face first in a pie, it was the work of an unsen riddler. he grasps that he is, in a cosmic sense, a clown, and hates it.
the next time the curtain rises and hussie says "everyone look! he's about to do something stupid!" gamzee goes shithive maggots and starts mauling his friends and fondling corpses; every time hussie says "don't worry, folks, he can't hear us making fun of him! everyone point and laugh!" gamzee gets angrier. that's what the "are you next?" bit is about - gamzee is aware of, and hates, the audience.
when the murder spree is over, gamzee's beatific grin returns; no longer a look of blank ignorance, but a knowing smirk. he's successfully ruined his character forever - no one wants to see him and no one thinks he's funny. hussie seems to say: jesus you are such a shitty clown. and gamzee's impassive face seems to say: i know.
gamzee refuses to clown out of spite, and hussie refuses to remove gamzee from the story out of spite. it's a committed relationship of reciprocal, mutual antagonism. what i'm saying is that hussie and gamzee ar
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