#godspeed you begger

[notashrew]

Hey peeps wanna see the wildest case of free art begging I've experienced

Warning for very old-school 2013 internet teen language, tons of owos and asterisk roleplaying, and a long post

I'm doing my best to place there in chronical order as there were so many branches from comment to comment

So some context as far as I can remember it:

Back in the ancient year of 2013, I was a first year high school student with evolving drawing skills, still being pretty bad but starting to get a hang of it. And deep deep in Once-ler fandom. So deep I couldn't stop talking about it and even half-forced my friends to get into it too.

One of my old friends requested if I could draw her a picture of Once-ler, and of course I loved to! I loved him and I wanted to draw him and this was my friend, and I love to make art for my friends. So I drew this thing and published it in my DeviantArt account, like I did with all things I drew. I wrote in description it was a request gift for the said friend, and.... this began happening.

This complete stranger I had never seen in my life comes into the comment section of my art, and starts demanding me to draw them this very detailed Once-ler art. Yes, demands. I will draw this thing for them. And what does a young, unexperienced 15-year-old me does?

Accepts it of course! Because this sounds fun and is about the character I'm obsessed with, and I like to draw for people!

Oh, okay. I did explain them I'll be busy because of the school, and they repeat their over-detailed demand again. You will start sketching.

But then things turned interesting.

Notice the tune of you will draw all of this for me. I didn't ask for your opinion, you will do it.

I.... wow. Okay. Seems rough and big thing to draw all of the sudden but m-maybe I can do it. Right?

Oh silly noob artist me. But at least I had enough sense to not take this too seriously.

We have a little time skip. Little me has returned from exam week but has lots of other IRL worries and distractions, and own things to do. I had planned hard these requests but hadn't gotten to even sketch them because of their overwhelming lenght and workload.

They return soon again.

And it won't end here. They keep demanding more.

And they had very hard time understanding why I wasn't able to spawn 9 whole-ass pictures within two months or so.

So basically this random stranger I've never interacted before saw my art, liked it, saw the keyword requests, and came into my room and began telling me I'd start draw 9 large, super detailed and reference filled full art pieces including their self-insert and a cartoon character before halloween, precisely to their details. All for free. No exceptions or take-backs or excuses.

Now, the story through the comments end here. But where it finally ends, is me ending up being able to spawn the original request! I'm happy! I'm proud! It's shitty but for my skills of that time it's big ang decent enough! I'm so excited to see what does this person think of my hard work and great accomplisment!

All they comment is "Ooh, thanks."

That's it.

Needless to say, I never got into drawing the rest of the insane demands and art begging for them again.

Now years later I return to this incredible experience, and decided to check if this person was still active in DA. They are, and their account is quite an experience on its own, but that's not what we will go digging today. However, I'd like to bring up this gem from their profile bio:

Moral of the story: Don't do this. You're an ass and don't deserve anything you begged for if you expect artists to do this much of ridicilous work for free for you and you won't even appreciate their effort.

Thanks for joining the rollercoster with me