So, let's break down what happened last night.

I opened a request for an artist. For the character artist, I was given an internal reference who's worked on similar content before. That was easy. We got everything sorted out.

For a landscape artist, I was mogged by at least a dozen folks who immediately attempted to scam me. There were at least 8 or 9 others who had no references to landscape art, so they weren't even considered.

For about an hour, any time we got to the 'payment' portion of the negotiation, they'd send me the most generic paypal/cashapp addresses that didn't link to an artist page. In fact, one linked to a software technology page that was the most generic cookie-cutter thing I've seen in my 20 years on the internet.

One just begged, and begged, and begged. They might have been genuinely human, but had no art to refer to, so I just blocked them.

One insulted me when I didn't agree immediately to working with them. The reason? Their reference, after reverse-image searching went back to a stock photo that's been used 4,000 times.

Another saw fit to advertise not just her art, but her body as well, suggesting I wanted her OF link, too. No? I just wanted art- what the fuck is wrong with you.

One person, out of all of the DMs and finessing, popped up. They actually had a reference that indicated they had indeed worked on landscapes before.

The fact that they followed my instructions on the original post was evidence enough that they were serious.

I'll make it a point next time to weed out the bots and scammers more thoroughly.

How the hell does anyone make a living in that kind of an environment...

Don't advertise on X. Or just be very selective. Don't be afraid to say no. Don't be afraid to ghost, either. Just be careful with your money.