Tales From
the Ether

I. Booking & Slot Reservation

A commission is considered booked only once two things have happened: (1) you've approved a written quote covering tier, scope, add-ons, and estimated delivery window, and (2) the deposit described in Section II has been received in full. Until both conditions are met, your slot is provisional, not reserved. I'll always let you know in writing when your slot is officially locked in.

II. Payment Terms

A 50% non-refundable deposit is required upfront before any sketching or preliminary work begins. This is a firm requirement, with no exceptions. Sketches, thumbnails, value studies, color comps, and any other preparatory work will not be started until the deposit clears. The deposit reserves your slot on my calendar and compensates me for the planning time and the slot itself, which is why it becomes non-refundable past the conditions described in Section IV.

The remaining 50% is due upon final delivery. The full-resolution file is delivered after the final balance is received. Layered files (PSD or Procreate) and timelapses are available on request at no additional charge once final payment has cleared.

All payments are processed through PayPal Goods & Services in USD. I do not accept Friends & Family payments, cryptocurrency, gift cards, or any payment instrument that bypasses standard buyer/seller protections. PayPal G&S protects both of us — you have recourse if something goes wrong on my end, and I have a paper trail if something goes wrong on yours.

III. Revision Policy

Every commission includes one (1) free revision. This revision is best used at the sketch stage, where structural changes — pose, framing, character proportions, gear placement — cost the least to implement and have the biggest impact on the final piece. I strongly encourage clients to spend the free revision here.

Each additional revision past the rendering phase is $20. The rendering phase begins once the sketch has been approved and I move into flats, color, and final painting. Once we're in rendering, the composition is locked: changes are still possible, but they cost real time to undo and redo, and the $20 per revision reflects that.

Major revisions past the rendering phase — meaning anything that requires repainting more than roughly 30% of the piece (re-poses, full outfit swaps, character redesigns, complete background changes) — are not covered by the standard $20 revision rate and will require a separate rescoping quote. I'll be transparent about this the moment a request crosses that line, and you can always decide whether to proceed.

Revisions are billed and added to the final balance, not collected upfront. If you decline a rescope, the piece is delivered as it stood at the last approved milestone.

IV. Refunds & Cancellation

Life happens. The aim of this section is to be fair to both of us when things change.

Client-initiated cancellation:

• Before any sketch work has begun: the deposit is fully refundable, less any payment-processor fees.
• After the initial sketch has been delivered, before rendering begins: 50% of the deposit is refundable. You keep the sketch for personal reference, but it remains my copyrighted work and may not be used as a final illustration, posted publicly, or handed to another artist for completion.
• After flats / rendering has begun: no refund is available. The piece will be completed and delivered to the agreed scope, with the remaining 50% balance due as normal. If you wish to abandon the piece entirely past this point, the deposit is forfeit and the work is retained by me.

Artist-initiated cancellation:

In the rare event that I need to cancel your commission — illness, family emergency, scope mismatch I should have caught earlier, or an irreconcilable creative block — I will refund 100% of any payments received, including the deposit, regardless of stage. You will not be left out of pocket because of something on my end. I will give you as much notice as humanly possible, and where appropriate I'll recommend a trusted colleague who can pick the piece up.

To initiate a cancellation, simply email me at ptvincentptv@gmail.com with your name, the project title, and a brief reason. Refunds are processed within 7 business days of acknowledgment.

Chargebacks: please reach out to me directly before initiating a PayPal dispute. The vast majority of misunderstandings are solvable in a single email exchange. Filing a chargeback without first attempting to resolve the issue is grounds for forfeiture of any in-progress work and may result in a permanent client block.

V. Anti-AI Guarantee

Every illustration produced under these terms is 100% human-drawn and human-conceptualized. No generative AI tools — including but not limited to Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, DALL·E, Sora, Adobe Firefly, NovelAI, or any successor or comparable model — are used at any stage of the commission process. This includes ideation, reference generation, composition planning, sketching, line work, flats, rendering, color correction, background painting, texture work, upscaling, and final delivery.

Reference images supplied by the client (your existing character art, photo references, mood boards, prior commissions from other human artists) are used only as visual guides and are never fed into a generative model. I will not use AI to "fill in" backgrounds, generate variations, or accelerate any portion of the work — and I won't subcontract any portion of the painting to a third party who does.

On request, and at no additional cost, I will provide any combination of the following as proof of an authentic, human-made process: a full process timelapse, layered source files (PSD or Procreate) showing the build-up of the painting, or in-progress screenshots at any stage. If at any point the work I deliver is found to involve generative AI, you are entitled to a full refund of all payments made, including the deposit, with no further obligations on your part. I stand behind this without qualification.

VI. Usage & Licensing

The base commission price grants you a perpetual, non-exclusive, personal-use license: VTT tokens, character sheets, your own campaign, social media posts, printed copies for your own home, profile pictures, and similar non-revenue-generating uses. You may share the work freely with proper credit (e.g., "Art by Parker Vincent / talesfromtheether.com").

For commercial use — selling prints, merchandise, publishing in a paid product, Kickstarter or Backerkit rewards, NFTs, AI training data, podcast art, or any other use that generates revenue — add 60% to the base price. The commercial license must be written into the original quote; it cannot be added retroactively without renegotiation.

I retain copyright on all original work. I reserve the right to display the finished piece in my portfolio, on social media, on this website, and in commercial promotional contexts (advertising, print fairs, conventions). If you require a portfolio or social-media embargo for a specific period — surprise gift, unreleased product, NDA situation — please mention this in your initial brief and I'll honor it in writing as part of the commission agreement.

VII. Communication & Timelines

Standard delivery is one to two weeks per piece from sketch approval, with larger scenes and multi-character work running longer. The estimated delivery window is included in your initial quote and reconfirmed at sketch approval. If I anticipate slipping the deadline by more than a few days, I will tell you proactively rather than at the deadline itself.

I will respond to commission-related emails within two business days, typically faster. If you haven't heard from me in a week, please re-send your message — your email may have landed in a spam folder. Communication outside of email (Discord, Instagram DMs) is welcome but the email thread remains the official record of the agreement.

VIII. Content I Won't Paint

Dark fantasy, horror, body horror, gore, morally complex characters, antiheroes, and grim tones are all welcome. I will not accept commissions involving: NSFW or sexual content; sexual or suggestive depictions of minors; real living people without their explicit written consent; content promoting hate, harassment, or real-world violence against any group; or fan art that infringes on existing copyrighted IP in ways that put you or me at legal risk. If you're uncertain whether your concept fits, just ask before sending the deposit — I'd rather have an honest five-minute conversation upfront than refund and rebook.

IX. Acceptance

Submission of the commission inquiry form, and payment of the deposit described in Section II, together constitute your acceptance of these terms in full. These terms may be updated occasionally; the version that applies to your commission is the version in effect on the date your deposit is received, and I will email you a copy of that version on request. Anything not covered above is decided by good-faith conversation between us — that, more than any document, is how I prefer to work.

Thanks for reading this far. Now let's make something worth all this fine print.