Commission scammer spotting guide
Tumblr has been plagued by art thief acccounts pretending to be artists and trying to scam you to commission them. Here's a list of things to watch out when a suspicious account is claiming to be a commission artist. Not to say that every "red flag" is an indication of fake artist, but if you see too many red flags at once, it's safe to assume the "artist" might be a scammer.
No digital footprint - Despite the quality of presented art and the supposed number of commissions they're getting, the account is fairly new and unknown, there is no trace of them ever existing before on tumblr or any other sites.
Varying styles and quality - Sometimes it's a full painted pieces, sometimes it's a sketchy drawing and sometimes it's a simple cellshaded chibi. There are artists who work in different styles but the things like quality of lines and consistency of shading don't usualy change overnight.
Bad quality uploads - Small and pixelated quality of uploaded artwork probably means they stole it from somewhere.
Eveything is a commission - Most artwork they upload is described as "commission from a client" to legitimize their commission scam. Also note the consistency of them calling their commissioners "clients" everytime. "Thanks for trusting me" is also a common phrase used by scammers.
No fandom tags - Even if the artwok is clearly a fanart, they never label the media or character, often claiming it's an oc.
Nameless OCs - When they claim the artwork depicts their own characters, you never learn their names or what they are from except "a story i'm writing" or sometihng like that.
Vague artistic descriptions - The scammers commonly use short artistic descriptions like "She represents balance warmth and cold, chaos and grace held together in one moment." instead of regular artist's comment about the art or character on it.
They are most likely to message you randomly whenever you post anything about wanting to commission an artist.
Of course things like AI claimed to be their own art or leftover signatures from original artists are a clear indication of art theft. If you are unsure you can always chek their images on google lens to see if there are any suspicious matches.
I uderstand this is not an exhausive guide and that yes, real artists are sometimes guilty of some of these too, we're just people. Just because an artist didn't tag their fanart or put a weird description doesn't automaticaly mean they are fake and trying to scam you. It's just general list of common red flags shared between confirmed scam accounts and might be useful when you're looking for commissions and want to verify if the artist is legit or a thief/scammer.
If you are interested to see what those scam accounts look like and how they are exposed, go give @ai-art-thieves a look.
