Amateur Artists Describe The Most WTF Thing They've Ever Been Commissioned To Draw

Part of being a freelance artist means you take the jobs that come your way. Sometimes it also means working for an enterprise or individual who you may not support or agree with, but if it keeps the lights on for one more month, who are you to argue? Then there are those times when you're commissioned to make something that goes TOO far, that's too weird, or maybe it crosses the line legally, and that's when you put your foot down.
WARNING: Strangely NSFW.
Reddit user, u/swadextra, wanted to really open wide that can of worms when they asked:
NSFW artists of reddit, what's the worst thing you've been commissioned to draw?
In The Name Of Jupiter, Stop.
I'm not a NSFW artist or even an artist anymore but when I was in high school someone on Deviantart requested that I draw Sailor Jupiter turning into a jack in the box.
I uh, politely declined.
Drown, Baby, Drown
I was once asked to draw one of the squid girls from splatoon erotically drowning to death in a maid costume. From that point on I had to add "drowning/suffocation" to my list of rules of commissions I will not accept.
That's The Appropriate Response
When I drew a lot online in high school (all SFW art, mind you), someone came to my request stream and asked that I draw Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon getting dressed for the day.
They were very specific about the type and color of underwear he was wearing. I didn't realize it was an inappropriate request until I had started the sketch and they kept asking me to change the pose to be further and further into the beginning stages of getting dressed. Disconnected my wifi so I could pretend the stream died.
Nope nope nope
But...Why?
Remember that scene from the live action [Scooby Doo] where [Scrappy Doo] grows all big.
That.
That's One Breast Too Many
Furry (sometimes) artist here.
I've had people ask me to draw six breasts before. For some reason that is too weird for me. Also had a particular individual wanting me to draw his villian OC killing some good guys. That I could not do. He still likes to talk sh-t about me after 4? years.
THIS Is Your Marketing?
I was asked to design a tee shirt showing a winding road going into the naked crotch of a prone, spread eagled woman and on that road would be a guy riding a motorcycle. This was for a company that specialized in motorcycle accessories. I spoke to to the guy's wife and told her to tell him no and I wouldn't do any art for his company.
Taffy, You Say?
Someone once asked me to draw their character with a LOT of foreskin. They showed me examples including art of some pretty disgusting looking, It was pretty gross and honestly I had to say no.
I barely do commissions either way but that had to be the weirdest kink someone's asked me to do, luckily I pretty much never get anything of the sort normally.
I like uncut as much as the next guy but that was a level I never thought existed.
Thou Shall Not...Ugh...
I was commissioned to draw Gandalf using a staff as a butt [sic] plug... I really don't need to provide any more detail on what my reaction was
Working in the dark hours of the night has never been appealing to me.
Those are the club's best hours.
But also, things do go bump in the night.
And in this timeframe is when workers are most alone.
If you're having to work those hours though, try to be in a cheery place.
You know, a location with living bodies, not dead ones.
Redditor give-orange-houses wanted to hear from the people who work while we're asleep. What scares you? They asked:
"Night shift workers of reddit, what is your scariest experience while working?"
So why should we avoid working in the wee hours? I think I already know.
Frozen
"When I was 18 I worked closing shift at BK and we got robbed. Had a gun shoved in my face and they put us in the walk in freezer. They got away with over 10k but the morons stole the managers car and left a gun in it that was registered to one of them. Then he turned on the others."
mrsmith2929
The Morgue
"Taking my first deceased patient to the hospital morgue in the middle of the night. It's in the basement and getting to the morgue wasn't straightforward. There's a lot of turns and dimly lit hallways. At the time the morgue was being renovated. I was freaking out bc there was no room left in the morgue and there was an unattended, OCCUPIED stretcher in the doorway."
tae_unnie
Allsups
"I was working night shift in a gas station/truck stop in Tucumcari, NM back in the mid 90's. I had another guy working with me who ran the diesel side while I worked the gas side. We had a guy come in around 1 or 2 am and just looked at stuff in the aisles for a while before he left. Didn't really think twice about him."
"Later, about 6 AM, when I got off, I drove home past a convenience store named Allsups, they're big in the southwest. There had to have been 30 cop cars in the parking lot. There aren't even 30 cop cars in Tucumcari so where they came from I have no idea."
"Come to find out that some time during the night the Allsups had been robbed and the clerk had been taken into the cooler, tied up, and beheaded. I found that out when I (day sleeper) was awoken by the state police a few hours later and asked if I had seen anything suspicious during the night. That guy who came in and left was the only thing I could think of."
"The police took a copy of our security footage which led them to a suspect who was later convicted for the murder. I can't even begin to tell you how hard it was to go to work the next day. We kind of assumed that the guy was going to rob us first, but didn't want to deal with two clerks, so he left and hit Allsups instead."
eruditeimbecile
He still died...
"Trauma nights on general surgery. We had a teen who was shot 9 times. Ran the code, did all the things including thoracotomy (so we had opened his chest to access his heart). He still died. I was sitting outside the trauma bay writing the note, janitorial staff cleaning the trauma bay (lots of blood and debris), and about 9 minutes after the end of the code and calling it... he sits up on the table, full situp under the tarp, and belts out a gutteral groan."
"Janitor staff pretty much all died and/or pooped their pants. we all ran in and restarted the code, even got some pulseless electrical activity, but ya, story still ends with him dying. Lots of theories about what it actually was, lazerus effect or just spontaneous diaphragmatic spasm. But ya, was absolutely crazy."
SkippyBojangle
Falling Out
"Charter bus driver: Picked a group of drunk people up from night-life central around 3am. We were going around 50 km/hr on a main road at the time and one passenger opened the sliding door to throw up. Had to get the other passengers to hold him back from falling out the bus before I could safely stop and let him out."
Morrigan_Ondarian078
People are crazy! When you're drunk, sit still!
"I had just started the night shift with him when he jumped up in his bed, nearly pulled his catheter out, and yelled 'THEY'RE BANGING ON THE WALLS! JOHN (not my name) GO GET THE GUN! THE NEIGHBORS ARE TRYING TO KNOCK THE HOUSE DOWN!!' He had a UTI and it made him hallucinate. Still scary."
WriterReborn2
Behind Me
"I was an overnight valet at a hotel and our overflow lot was a couple blocks away. I was walking back from that lot after parking a car around 1am and I started to get this really uncomfortable gut feeling. I looked around and noticed a guy in a hoodie about 50 ft behind me."
"This was in a business district so it’s unusual to see people walking around there late at night and it was also summer so a hoodie is a little out of place, but I didn’t want to jump to assuming this guy was some kind of murderer. I picked up my pace anyway just in case, and he picked up his. When I turned at the next block, he turned."
"He was also gaining on me pretty quick. I was REAL freaked out at this point so I pulled out my pocket knife and ran as fast as I could back to the hotel. I don’t know at what point he stopped following me but I refused to park anymore cars in the overflow lot that night and ended up finding a new job not long after."
Hanz_VonManstrom
WTF?!
"I was delivering some food once on a college campus and my wife was asleep in the car. When I started back towards the car I saw a college student looking in the window and taking pictures of my sleeping wife. I yelled at him as soon as I saw (something like, "what the f**k are you doing? get away from there!")"
"And instead of running away or apologizing straight up this motherf**ker said, "oh, I didn't realize she was with somebody. do you need help carrying her somewhere?" I chased him away but was dumbfounded... like... what the actual f**k?!"
golden_death
Jumper
"I'm a security guy at a paper plant. Night shifts are slow, it's mostly watching Netflix if there isn't any emergency or fire on the site. One night will dozing off I was woken up by a loud and near sound. Got up off the chair in panic. Right in front of me in the parking: a big freaking moose. He just jumped the fence and wandered around the lot for a bit and took off by swimming down the river."
TheObnixiousGoat
Check Out
"Once had a lady check out, and pull me and my coworker (both women) aside and tell us the guy wandering around the gas station had a gun and was paying way too much attention to women walking out."
LeatherHog
This why I'll only work in daytime hours or from home.
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Are we being lazy or is it self-care?
That is what you should ask yourself first, before you judge.
Life is an arduous journey and a constant energy suck.
It was inevitable we'd find shortcuts to get by.
It's all about survival.
Redditor Batman_In_Peacetime wanted to hear about the times we just didn't care enough to try harder. They asked:
"What is a lazy thing you began doing when you realised you can live with it?"
I'm best when I'm at my laziest. Ok, that's a lie, but I don't care.
Zzzz...
"On weekends I sleep for 12-14 hours. I usually wake up a few times but I dream so much during those long sleeps that it’s basically become a recreation type thing and I love it."
HouseOfZenith
Warm it up...
"When I use the microwave, I’ll heat food for 1:11 or 2:22 because I can’t be bothered to move my lazy fingers."
fysicks
"I figured out that my microwave's turntable rotates once every 12 seconds. So, everything I cook is on a multiple of 12 seconds so that it always ends up at the front of the microwave when it's done cooking, and I don't have to reach all the way to the back of the microwave to get my food out."
unittwentyfive
Bang
"When I was a kid on a school day, I had this routine where I'd stick my legs out of the bed and bang around on the floor so it sounded like I got out of bed and then just lie there for a few more minutes."
bewarethechameleon
"Did you also get your toothbrush wet and squirt a wee bit of toothpaste in your mouth rather than actually brush your teeth? If so I may be your mom and you weren’t fooling me or the dentist and you sure weren’t fooling the plaque that attacked."
TigerLily98226
Pockets
"Whenever I clean the house I put on my housecoat with really big pockets. I just walk from room to room and put things in my pocket that don’t belong in that room. Once my pockets are full I go to each room and empty my pockets putting what is from each room in that room."
kindhearttbc
"That's not lazy... that's productive AF."
throwaway92715
Toss It
"I don’t fold the fitted sheet. Just ball it up and place it in the closet."
SpaghettiSquash33
I just see people human. Don't he so hard on yourselves.
12 Hours
"I once watched 12 hours of the golf Network because the batteries were dead in my remote control. I don't know if that's lazy or depressed."
sadbirdfox
I swear I was...
"I was taught to make a bed properly as a child, I swear I was. Hospital corners and everything. I even know how to fold a fitted sheet, thanks to my auntie, who's an Air Force nurse and therefore doesn't consider little problems like 'non-Euclidean geometry' to be a reason not to do it properly. The second I found out about duvet covers, that was over. Sure, it doesn't look as tidy, but five minutes a week plus 10 seconds in the morning instead of 10 minutes a day? I can live with that."
katie-kaboom
The System
"I don't fold laundry anymore. I have a system of laundry baskets like this where clothes gets sorted by type (pants, t-shirts, sweaters, etc). Most of my clothes is wrinkle free, and for the few pieces that aren't I just throw them on a hanger in the bathroom while I take a steamy shower."
User deleted
Genius!!
"Before I get out of bed in the morning, I will grab the top corners of my sheets with my hands and prop up the bottom two with my feet and move it into place. Then I slide out of bed without ruffling anything. Just like that, my bed is made."
Markymark142
"My sister has to do this before she goes to bed at night, even is she made the bed that morning. It's an odd little quirk and mostly harmless."
mel2mdl
Yummy
"Just eating food straight out of the pan."
refrshmts_N_narcotcs
None of that sounds so bad. That sounds... like my life. Don't judge!!
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Be it on a blind date, at a party where you don't know anyone, or sitting next to someone on an airplane, starting a conversation with a total stranger is difficult.
As much as we'd all like to be friendly, far too often we find ourselves at a loss for words.
It doesn't help that we generally have no idea of what these people's various interests are, making it anyone's guess how they'll respond.
But some have this problem solved, finding a go-to topic which is always guaranteed to get a response, no matter who you're talking to.
Redditor Blugged_Bunny was curious to hear what people thought was the best way to begin a conversation with strangers, leading them to ask:
"What is your go-to 'small talk' topic with strangers?"
Did you check the forecast?
"We sure are having a lot of weather"- r_Ju_Tacular.
"As a British person, the conversation usually starts like this:"
“'You alright?'"
”Yeah you?”'
“'Yeah not too bad, weathers a bit sh*t innit?'”
“'Yeah”'.
"The end."- chelstippins
Why beat around the bush?
"Straight to politics and religion."- Turd_Ferguson009.
Just let it happen.
"Make an observation."
"Literally anything."It helps if it’s something about them like an article of clothing that catches your eye, something they’re doing, anything that you can relate to or are interested in but it doesn’t have to be."
"It can be something in the environment that is drawing both of your attention."
"People bullsh*t about the weather all the time."
"Make a comment about it, gauge their willingness to talk about it to you and build off of what you get from the response."
"If all you get is 'haha yeah', leave it."
"No shame in silence."
"Some people just don’t want to talk."
I"f you’re talking about the weather, 'Man it’s a great day out today!'"
“'Yeah absolutely! I drove here with my windows down all the way here!'”
"Boom, you’ve got something to latch onto."
"They probably enjoy getting outside for some fresh air. "
"They probably enjoy driving."
"Ask about their car."
"Ask if they go on drives a lot."
"Ask if they do outdoor stuff."
"What kind of outdoor stuff?"
"Once you’ve got something to work with, the key is to ask."
"Let them do the talking."
"People love talking about themselves."
"You learn some light hearted things about the stranger, they feel more comfortable, and you can add bits and bobs of your own experiences in response so they get to know you too."
"It works in literally any situation."
"From an elevator ride to a first date."
"It’s so easy to personalize small talk and it makes it so much less uncomfortable."- 1arrocknroll.
"But enough about me, what do you think about me?"
"Usually people love to talk about themselves, so a few questions about them and some follow up questions to their answers usually does it."- I_can_see_the_music.
"Food, glorious food..."
"Food."
"People typically love food."
"I mention I’m new/newer to an area."
"And ask them what they like, where they eat out."
"Usually works and people have their choices validated and I always know where to find good local snacks."- TheProfWife.
Can you believe it?
"Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"- housemuncher.
Nothing!
"As a Norwegian - we leave strangers alone."
"No need to bother them."- neihuffda.
The sky's the limit.
"So, do you like stuff?"- Bwon669.
All of these seem like surefire ways to get a conversation started.
But use cautiously, as who knows how long it will take these conversations to end.
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Quality comes with price. That's a fact you can't escape. If you hire someone to fix your home, and want them to do the best job, you're going to have to pay above average prices. That's fine. Pay the people what they're worth for the great job they did. However, we live in a world where everyone is looking for their payout, even if what they've given you is less than ideal.
Don't overpay for any of these.
Reddit user, DrLizardLover, wanted to know what we're paying too much for when they asked:
"What is just stupidly overpriced?"
If you didn't know any better, you would think making office and school supplies was a lot like mining for diamonds in the center of the Earth.
Though, we also know diamonds are a rip-off so maybe that's not the argument we should be making.
Another Collegiate Payment
"College books"
Spooly_Boy
"Especially when they say you have to buy the newest copy every year"
disantiyesnt
Good Thing We're Going Paperless
"Printer cartridges."
DataPlenty
"Apparently it's because in order to make printers affordable to everyone, you must lower their prices. The cartridges are the upsell and is where the profit comes from."
AltaSavoia
We Carry Them Around On Our Phones
"TI-84"
"I could get an old cell phone from a dumpster that’s 10x as powerful. Why the f-ck they still charging $80 or more for these things?"
edgeblackbelt
If living in 2022 has taught us anything, it's that convenience has a price.
And it's high.
$50 For Twizzlers
"Foods and drinks at movie theaters or sporting events"
Icy-Company7718
"I can answer for the theaters. They don't actually get much, if any, of the ticket sales. A lot of their operating budget comes from the snack bar."
Head_Razzmatazz7174
Fees On Hidden Fees For Hidden Fees
"Concert tickets"
"(AKA Ticketmaster)"
Catilily_3141
"I thought I was on the school box office site when I was on one made to look like it. I bought two reasonably priced ncaa basketball tickets and when I went to check out it went up to $70 with fees. Found the school website and checked out for $26 total."
blackcatmystery
Costs A Lot To Be A Woman
"One bra is like…40 dollars"
Noliel_Laicaster
"except i have big honkers so i'm forced to pay upwards of $80 for a bra because the only place I can get them in my size is Lane Bryant or Torrid"
kelsiewest11
"Just women's clothes in general. If I'm paying $40 for a pair of dress slacks, they damn well better have pockets. I have to have black slacks for my delivery job and ended up buying 3 pair of men's pants for $20 each, just to have the pockets."
Head_Razzmatazz7174
What can hurt the most is the idea companies and people will charge you for things you need to have. It's almost as if they know you're willing to pay the price...
Awful.
History Has Funny Way Of Changing Perspectives
"Lobster. Was literally considered food for the peasants at one point in history. They used lobsters as bait on ships"
magoted
The Most Expensive Day Of Your Life
"Anything tied to a wedding"
nickp123456
"Friend of mine needed a generator for a wedding. He booked it as a "corporate event" to get cheaper hire."
"When the company arrived to setup and saw it was a wedding they demanded extra money, because it was a wedding. Same location, same generator, same rental period."
salmonlikethephish
Sipping The Last Bits Of Money Out Of The Dead
"Funerals"
Longjumping-Oil4497
"I definitely think that add-ons for funerals are sold like biggie sizing your happy meal. And the concept of memorializing a person for eternity has been sold as bare necessity. But I do know that the pomp and circumstance a lot of people need to lay somebody to rest, costs money."
"I want to see people honored in their death, but spending $5,000 on a pine box does not make sense to me"
444unsure
People Need Help? Charge Them.
"Mental health services. Blessings upon blessings to the mental health professionals who offer sliding scales."
AphelionEntity
America Gonna 'Murica
"Getting an IUD put in or taken out without insurance costs 1300. Takes 5 minutes to put in and it’s a piece of plastic."
m_hahn_solo
"Wow thats so much. I'm in Canada so having it inserted, removed, and follow up appointments are free. But I had to pay for the IUD. The first time I used the insurance from college so only paid $30. The second time I graduated and didn't have insurance so I went to planned parenthood where its cheaper and paid 230. The third time I had insurance from work and it was free. Honestly all birth control should be free."
Forever-25
Keep an eye on your wallet, since you know most of the world is keeping theirs firmly on it.
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