Thursday, June 3, 2010

Lesson Learned

So the custom bagger is done. I am happy with the overall out come and proud of my work. I feel I did a great job with what I had and that it is a good representation of the type of artist I am and wish to be. So imagine my surprise when I get a phone call from one of the people involved cursing up a storm telling me it was garbage.
This was on my voice mail. There were a few "S" bombs, a few "F" bombs, a little emotion. I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the level of disrespect going down. I also have to say I was pretty pissed myself and had to calm down before calling him back. Don't like the work? Fine, but don't leave a message full of cursing and complaining. I was mad enough I had to go get myself a cigarette and calm down.
Two cigarette's later, I gave the guy a call back. Not too surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of cursing going on when I called, but that is the way of the world now days. I was told that it wasn't what we talked about. The work didn't contain any of the things we talked about. There wasn't any of the type of work we agreed on. Here is what we talked about: Affliction styled work, more resembling tattoo inspired design. Chains, skulls, and some stone work. After doing some research, I found that affliction work is mostly based on the skull with wings. After looking at the guys website, I saw previous bikes that had been airbrushed with chains, ribbons, skulls with piercings, and smoke.
You can see here what I put on. Skulls, chains, piercings, skulls with wings, stone, smoke, and even some pain in my butt ribbon. You can imagine how confused I was to learn that the person who had called had only seen a few PICTURES of two of the parts. This was enough for him to call me and shoot some curse words my way.
To top it off, the guy who hired me was hired by another guy to build the bike. This other guy just showed up, and also doesn't like the work. They all, to set the record straight, feel the quality of the work is fine, it's the actual design they don't like. This other guy, apparently, has a say in the final project, but I never met him.
I don't have to paint a picture of just what is wrong with this scenario. Aside from an overall feeling of being dicked around, I also feel as if this whole project was a disaster from the get go. That I should have seen this from the start. When they called me, and called me, and called me to make a decision on whether I can do this, I answered. When I didn't hear anything for 3 weeks after multiple messages, I should have seen it coming. Looking back it is feeling like they were holding out for the artist that they originally had in mind. At this point, I really would have been fine with that.
The bottom line is, there still is not a solid answer as to if I am going to get paid my final amount. There is, however, the feeling that the work will stay on there, that the bike will get finished, and that the bike will sell. In which case, that's just some bullshivick.
More or less, this is a lesson learned. Contracts, contracts, contracts. Always contact the people involved, making sure that communication is built up between all parties. Leave no room for surprises. Provide sketches and even practice plates with what you are going after. May seem like a lot of work, but in the end it'll save some major grief. Just make sure all the practice panels are on items that can be hung or sold later and you're golden.
Lessons learned.

*Update*
After being unable to get in touch with the guy here in Portland, I called the guy in Arizona. After being cursed at again, I told the guy that there wasn't any reason to be talking like that. His adult and professional response was "Well how about this, why don't you go fuck yourself you little punk". I previously had his name on here, but I really don't think it's right to do. Regardless of his personality he does good work.

Today's Video of the Post comes from 3D Head Custom Paint

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