Studio Queues Team · Last updated August 25, 2026
Checking history and process, reverse image searches, what a real intake looks like, and the payment structures that protect a buyer if the work never arrives.
Commissioning art means sending money to a stranger for something that does not exist yet, usually with no contract you would recognise as one. Most of the time this works fine, because most artists are exactly who they appear to be. The checks that catch the exceptions take about five minutes.
This covers how to verify an artist before paying, what a genuine process looks like from the buyer's side, and just as importantly, what is not a warning sign. Plenty of buyers avoid perfectly good artists for reasons that indicate nothing.
Reverse image search two portfolio pieces, since stolen portfolios are the most common commission scam. Check the account has history rather than appearing recently. Look for a real intake process, because someone who asks structured questions before starting is running a system. Prefer staged payment over paying everything up front for a large first commission. And do not treat a small following, a new artist, or a low price as a red flag, because none of those are.
The whole check is short. In order of how much it tells you per minute spent:
Reverse image search two pieces from their gallery. Look at whether the account has a posting history over time. Read whether prices and turnaround are published. See whether they ask you questions before quoting. Check how payment is structured.
If all five look reasonable, you have done more diligence than most buyers ever do. None of these require any technical skill, none of them involve confronting anyone, and together they catch the overwhelming majority of situations that go wrong before any money changes hands.
Stolen portfolios are the most common scam in this space, and they are also the easiest thing to catch.
Take two images from the artist's gallery and run them through a reverse image search. You are looking for the same images appearing under a different name, particularly on an account with a longer history than the one you are considering.
Also look at the work itself. A genuine portfolio has a recognisable hand across pieces, even when subject matter varies. A stolen one often shows wildly different skill levels or styles, because it was assembled from several sources.
Ask for something a portfolio thief cannot produce. A work-in-progress shot of a piece already in the gallery, a layered file, or a timelapse. An artist with their own process files can usually supply one quickly, and a request phrased as interest rather than accusation is not offensive.
Look for evidence of time passing. Posts spread across months or years, a progression in skill, conversations with other people, work that responds to things happening when it was posted.
A gallery of finished pieces uploaded within a short window, with no interaction and no history, deserves more caution. Not certainty of anything, since artists do start fresh accounts for legitimate reasons, but a reason to do the other checks properly.
Cross-reference where they exist. Most working artists have a presence in more than one place, and those presences are consistent with each other.
This is the signal buyers most often overlook, and it may be the most informative one.
An artist who asks you a defined set of questions before quoting is running a process. They want references, a description of the character or subject, the intended use, and any deadline. That structure exists because they have done this enough to know what goes wrong without it.
Compare that with an artist who quotes a price immediately from a one-line description. That is not necessarily dishonest, but it is a sign that scope has not been established, which is the most common source of commission disputes.
Published prices and turnaround are the same signal in a different form. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that clients examine an artist's portfolio when deciding whether to hire them. Look at their process as well as their pictures, because the process is what determines your experience.
How payment is arranged tells you a great deal and also limits your exposure.
Staged payment across milestones is the most protective arrangement for a buyer. You are not funding the entire piece before seeing anything, and each stage is an opportunity to confirm the work is going the right way.
Full payment up front is common and normal for smaller commissions, and is not itself a warning sign. For a large first commission with someone you have not worked with, staged payment is the safer request.
Deposit then balance sits in between and is widely used.
What warrants more caution is insistence on payment methods with no recourse for either party, combined with urgency and a large first order. Any one of those alone is unremarkable. All three together is the pattern worth slowing down on.
Most commission disputes are not fraud. They are two people who thought they had agreed something and had not, discovered three weeks later when the piece arrives different from what one of them pictured.
Protect yourself by keeping the agreement somewhere you can retrieve it. What you asked for, what was quoted, what was included, what the timeline was, and what the references were. If all of that lives in a chat thread, it can be edited, buried, or lost entirely when an account is deleted.
Send your references in one message rather than scattered across a conversation, and confirm scope in writing before payment, even briefly. A short message reading back what you understand you are getting is not officious, and most artists appreciate it because it protects them too.
This section matters as much as the rest, because cautious buyers routinely avoid good artists for no reason.
A small following. Follower counts measure content performance, not reliability. Some of the most dependable commission artists have modest audiences and full queues.
Being new. Every artist was new once, and newer artists are frequently more communicative and more careful because they are building a reputation.
Lower prices. Artists price differently for many reasons including location, experience, and speed. Low prices are a reason to check scope carefully, not a reason to assume something is wrong.
Declining your request. An artist who says no to something outside what they do is showing judgement.
Asking a lot of questions. That is the good sign, not the bad one.
Most of the checks above are attempts to establish things that some setups simply display.
On a Studio Queues artist profile, each offering carries its price, an estimated turnaround, a monthly slot limit, the intake questions the artist requires, and how payment splits across milestones. The availability shown is current rather than a status line from months ago. You can see the structure before you send a message, which answers the process question without asking it.
That does not remove the need to look at the work and satisfy yourself it is theirs. No platform substitutes for looking. What it removes is the guesswork about whether a process exists.
You can browse artists open for commissions and see those details on each profile.
Is it rude to ask an artist to prove the work is theirs? Asked politely, no, and most artists would rather answer than lose a cautious buyer. Framing it as interest in their process rather than suspicion helps.
What if they refuse to show a work in progress? Not automatically damning, since some artists do not keep files. Combined with a short account history and no published process, it is a reason to be careful.
Should I ever pay everything up front? It is common for smaller pieces. For a large first commission, ask about staged payment instead.
How do I know what a fair price is? Compare several artists working in the style you want. There is no universal rate, and anyone quoting one is guessing.
What if the artist stops responding? Allow reasonable time, then ask directly about the timeline. Keeping the agreement somewhere retrievable rather than in a chat thread makes this much easier to sort out.
What else should I ask before commissioning? Questions to ask before commissioning an artist covers price, scope, files, rights, revisions, and payment.
Learning how to verify an artist before paying takes about five minutes and catches nearly everything worth catching. Reverse image search two pieces, check the account has a history, look for a real intake process, and prefer staged payment on a large first order.
Be equally careful about the opposite mistake. Small followings, new accounts, modest prices, and artists who ask a lot of questions are not warning signs, and treating them as such rules out a lot of excellent people.
The strongest signal is process. An artist with published prices, structured intake, and staged payment has a system, and a system is what protects you when something needs sorting out. You can browse artists open for commissions and see that structure before you message anyone.
