My Cruel Clients: Real Horror Stories from a Freelance Illustrator

Hello and thank you for reading Punnipanda, the artist!
 When you work at a studio or company, you’re protected by the system — you get official contracts, vacations, sick leave, help with tasks, and a stable paycheck.

But what happens on freelance platforms, where you constantly have to find clients on your own, never know when your next job will come, and there’s no project manager to help with conflicts?

In this article, I’ll share real client horror stories that will make your skin crawl.

“War Is Not a Reason to Pity You”

On freelance platforms, it’s considered lucky when clients reach out to you and you don’t have to spend money on pitching. This kind of luck happened to me now and then.

In 2023, during the brutal war in Ukraine, while I was living under daily bombings, I kept working as a freelance illustrator and searching for clients.

One day, a guy contacted me about a t-shirt design.

Red Flag #1: The price was extremely low.
 When someone offers a ridiculously low rate, it’s usually a bad sign — they’re often disorganized, undisciplined, emotionally unstable, and trying to take advantage of your expertise to get rich quickly.

Red Flag #2: The request turned out to be a plagiarism of a popular retro 90s t-shirt design.

We discussed the project and started working. But then came endless revisions. The client changed the core idea several times. After yet another redraw, I kindly asked him to stop — explaining that this was extra work. His response? He started insulting me.

In the end, he took part of the deposit and disappeared.

I opened a dispute asking him to pay the remaining $50 (the total job was $150 and I had already sent him the revised source file). He refused, saying:

He was from the U.S., nowhere near a war zone, and yet he chose to withhold $50.

I lost the dispute. Nobody paid me for the extra work.

“This Drawing Is Crap”

A client from India asked me to design a prototype for a fashion backpack for his female client. He didn’t send a deposit, but I agreed to show a sketch.

When I shared it for free, his response was:

“What is this crap?” — and he left the chat.

I had drawn a children’s story for him earlier, and crypto site also starting with a free sketch, and even then he had doubts that I had drawn it myself.

His attitude toward me was as if I were trash.

Question: How do people like this even get clients?
 Dear clients — work with kind and respectful people!

Our studio, Punnypanda, offers professional, polite, and reliable illustration services.
 👉 Check out our services here

“I’m Your Friend… Trust Me”

This client came through a referral. We became friendly. He presented himself as a guru in the creative industry, claiming his students worked at Marvel and Microsoft. He told me not to call him “boss” because he was just a friend who saw my potential.

But I missed the signs — this man was a manipulator.

When I showed him my branding and projects, he began pressuring me to change everything to his liking.

When I refused, he said:

“Hiring you was a favor. Your art isn’t worth more than $30. You’re nothing. Just a piece of crap.”

He went on to insult me, saying I wasn’t a professional, that I was from a village and couldn’t possibly have a “broad” mindset like his.

He promised me a project with a client of his — but for six months, it kept getting delayed. Meanwhile, I wasn’t allowed to take on other work, or I’d be fired from the “team.” He threw me tiny bits of money ($25 at a time), while demanding I change my comic, saying my entire website was garbage.

I kept all the messages.

I didn’t understand how I was supposed to survive during those six months. He was just messing with me, offering scraps while controlling my creative work.

Conclusion

After hearing so many insults, I was left without clients, without income, and with tons of wasted time — all because of toxic people who didn’t care about me and treated me like dirt.

If you’re wondering about the demographics — yes, the abuse came from Black individuals. What you do with that information is up to you.

Stay connected, and work with kind professionals.
 — Punny