In 2005, was new to organized furry fandom & IRCs in general. on one of my first ventures on a furry IRC, there were 2 guys saying how much they'd love to have a pic of their fursona, but they couldn't pay anyone, & they just wanted one so bad, could someone, anyone, please oh please draw for them?

I fell for it, and not surprising to most of you reading this, neither one seemed to think it was worth even commenting on. Which was actually a better reaction than others I've received.

I've learned that most furry IRC's are chock-full of folks asking for/begging/whining after/giving tales of woe in hopes of free arts & drawings of their fursonas, but back in 2005 I was still a little naive.

I learned that not everyone who acts like they're starving for free arts is really going to appreciate it it. Most strangers asking for free art are apparently expecting something along the lines of Blotch & can be downright snotty when your FREE work doesn't measure up to a pro's level.

Do I expect people to kiss my ass? Hell no--that's annoying. I also think it's unrealistic for me to expect these people to say "I recognize that I was begging & whining for FREE ART FROM STRANGERS & I acknowledge that I didn't communicate very well, so even though you're not a super-fantastic artist, I appreciate your effort and I appreciate that you put some effort into being nice to me, a random stranger, for no reason other than to be nice."

I do however think that it's basic courtesy to at say "It's not quite what I expected, BUT thank you."

I've since learned not to fall for every ploy for free arts, in fact I now kinda get hostile about it if it's some random stranger.