This is probably... the most incredible art commission I've ever spent money on. It's also the most adventurous. Why I say that is... we all know X-ROM  x-rom is a great artist. The guy is unreal with what he does. But I'd paid him just before his neighborhood got bombarded by the war between Russia and Ukraine. He basically lost everything and was forced to evacuate, spending months upon months between refugee camps. His apartment was pillaged in his absence, all the cold hard cash he'd saved up was gone. After I'd gotten the news of what happened... I thought that was it. There was no way he'd be getting back into art anytime soon. No way I was getting my money back. I didn't even have the heart to ask for it, honestly.

But one day, not very long after even, he began uploading stuff again on Boosty... and that came off as really suspicious. I couldn't shake the feeling like something was really wrong. On my best possible behavior, and boy did I try hard, I'd asked him about the status of my commission and... never got a direct answer. So I eventually told myself, I was gonna give him three chances. If I couldn't get any sort of explanation on the third try... we were gonna have a serious problem. Fortunately, that didn't happen. After I'd asked him for the third consecutive time, I was told he'd be starting on my commission the following day. I received WIPs a week later. Now what was agreed upon... was a headshot. But the WIPs showed a portrait down past the chest, colored. He'd gotten the whole Yinglet anatomy completely wrong, I wasn't given a linework WIP to make adjustments... but that's besides the point. It was already double what I'd paid for. Couldn't bring myself to argue.

Tonight I received the finished commission. Initially it was just Shima in a white coat. I wasn't expecting the purple and red... nor was I expecting the glasses... nor the background-only version... nor the several different resolutions of each. All in all, the ZIP file was almost 200MB. Is this his way of compensation? I asked and he wouldn't say. ''I just wanted to do it.'' I feel terrible. I came so close to ruining this guy. And I've been here before too. I've had a friend tell me off for stuff like this before, X-ROM isn't the first artist to appear on my sus-radar. I blew it the last time and I almost did it again this time. Why is it so damn easy for me to get people wrong? Anyway. Just one more thing I need to work on.

The anatomy is wrong, the only thing really Yinglet is the head... Shima would never dress like this, she doesn't wear glasses... Her entire outfit here is tacky as all heck. But hey. Yinglets are masters of style. Lets just say this is an alternate Cyberpunk 2077 universe Shima where Yinglets are anthros. I love it more than I hate it. I'm happy I saw this whole thing through. I'm glad I waited and didn't pull the plug on X-ROM. The guy is going through a lot. He's likely got more problems than anybody else I know right now. He's expensive... but worth it, no matter what happens. I can promise you that now. He needs all the support you can give him, so go splurge on him people! Get yourselves some REAL ART for a change. It'll be worth it.

The other versions will be on my Twitter: https://twitter.com/Caleb_Magness