Hello everyone!

Today, we have a little sneak-peek of our upcoming commission management tools, intended to make it easier for both artists and commissioners to safely and easily trade online. These are works-in-progress, so expect a few rough edges – but we were too excited to hold off on showing you what we’ve been working on.

We believe that commissions should be easier, safer and more convenient for everyone involved – and that it can (and should!) be fun to commission an artist, author, craft-maker or fursuit maker online. We want to raise the bar when it comes to communication – and to make it easier to make a living from doing what you love (if you want to!). Of course, commercial transactions are only one part of the site: gift art, trades and other non-financial transactions are important as well, and we are dedicated to preserving and encouraging them!

Making Commissions Easier

Here, you can see an example of what the process of a Commission may look like – starting with an initial inquiry to the artist (who has set themselves as ‘open for commission’). Both artist and commissioner can talk back and forth, upload and share files (including character reference sheets linked automatically from their account), to decide on a ‘scope of work’.

Think of a ‘scope of work’ as a ‘quote’ (in fact, we’ll probably end up changing the name to that) – it’s you and the creator mutually agreeing to the terms of your transaction, prior to exchanging money. This is a great way of keeping things organized, all in one place, in one clean interface – and for both of you to be confident in what you’re going to get from the transaction!

Once you’ve both agreed on a scope, you’ll be able to complete payment for the commission using a credit or debit card, through our in-house payments system. This money will be held by Furry Network until both parties are happy with the commission – and will be paid out directly to the creator:

The feedback we’ve received indicates that most content creators within the US would prefer ACH/bank transfers – if you’d prefer a different method, make your voice heard! We are currently investigating payment methods for international customers; if you’re a non-US creator and want to suggest a payment method, please hit us up.

One of the great advantages of having strong existing relationships with credit card processors is our ability to process payments for a whole variety of content, including adult content. This means that you can now buy and sell adult furry commissions directly (and safely) on our site, without having to try and send payments ‘under the radar’ using other online payment systems – and all the inherent risk that exposes you to. We’ll support digital content out of the box, with future plans to allow tangible goods that require shipping – for example, crafted physical items, traditional art and fursuits.

For Artists

If you’re an artist or content creator, you’ve probably experienced ‘Notes Hell’ – where you have to wade through an inbox full of un-threaded messages to try and figure out what work you have due, what you’ve completed, and what new requests you need to respond to. Sometimes you’ll even make a spreadsheet to track your work, and have to keep it up to date; with people contacting you through a multitude of methods, this can become time consuming and a real pain!

We’ve decided to make that all simpler – starting with a fantastic inbox-style commission management tool. All statuses are color coded, filterable and searchable, so you can see only the items you’re interested in, and very quickly get a view of what’s in your work queue.

All commission requests will arrive in threaded conversation format, allowing you to keep everything organized and decide what requests you’d like to accept or reject:

Obviously this isn’t finished yet – we’re still working on tweaking the terminology, color coding and generally polishing things – but this should give you an idea of the exciting things coming soon that we’re working on!

Getting set up will be simple – upload some content, set up your account (including how you would like to be paid), and mark yourself as open for commissions!

We will be launching Furry Network with full support for announcements when you open for commissions: these small ads will be automatically published to interested parties, including your followers, so they know you’re available:

For Commissioners

We want to make it easier and safer to commission your favorite artists (and others you’ve maybe not heard of before), and to feel safe and confident in doing so.

We’ve all heard horror stories of commissioning artists, and we know how frustrating it can be chasing up a long-overdue piece. By offering a dispute resolution mechanism where you can get your money back if the artist doesn’t hold up their side of the deal, we hope to make problems like this a thing of the past!

Buy & Sell with Confidence

One great benefit to building our own payments system is that we can provide excellent dispute resolution and claim tools, as well as full buyer and seller protection, to increase safety and to make you feel more confident in trading on the Furry Network. At any time, if you’re unhappy with a creator’s performance (or are dealing with a difficult client), you can dispute your commission, and a member of our dispute resolution team will review the transaction and work with you to resolve it. If things go really wrong, we’ll make sure that you’re never out of pocket. (Full details to follow, once we finish up the policies and procedures for this area!).

In conclusion, I hope you’re as excited as we are about the possibilities that really good commission management tools bring to the fandom. We welcome your feedback and questions via our Twitter account! For longer requests, you can send us a direct message (even if we’re not following you).

Thanks!

Varka and the Furry Network team