I’d like to take a moment to talk about the business of custom creation. Now, I cannot create anything other than blog posts to foist upon all of you. But I have, just a few times in my virtual life, sought out a custom bauble from the content creators of SL. In fact, just recently, I was after a custom tattoo to match the one I have in RL.

After looking around, I found a parlor that seemed to be good at what they did and I read their custom request instructions. Per the instructions, I created a notecard outlining what I was interested in and including a picture. In the notecard I asked for more information, such as a timeframe for the creation and a price. What I got was complete silence.  Just when I had all but given up hope, I got an IM from the creator herself telling me my custom tattoo was ready.

Did you find something wrong with that last sentence? I did. But I decided on the benefit of the doubt and went over to view the item. When I got there, the tattoo was very oversized, the image was severly pixelated, and the creator seemed to have no issue with it (or the shady business practices) whatsoever. I politely inquired as to whether or not the size and quality could be remedied and was informed that it could. For a fee. So let me outline what I was being told here. Since the custom job was already complete (despite the fact I had not requested it to be done yet) I owed the creator for the price of the item already. On top of that, if I wanted the quality corrected that would be an additional fee. I was informed that the image I provided was not of a suitable quality, but it could not be explained why that information was not shared before the inferior tattoo was created rather than after.

I retained my cool, dear readers. At that point I asked if a better image would rectify the problem, and was told it would. The creator even asked if I had the original image from which the real tattoo was created in the first place. I did, and I gladly uploaded and passed it over, with the stipulation that if the image quality was not suitable, I should be asked to provide something that was.

More time went by with silence, until I prodded the creator again. At that point I was quickly rewarded with the “fixed” version. The tattoo was indeed smaller and better placed, but was even more horribly pixelated. I was so flummoxed that I decided not to even bother this person again, and since they never requested the fee for the “correction” I never paid it. But the experience left me with a decidedly bad taste in my mouth.

The obvious question is why anyone advertising themselves as an SL tattoo artist could not hand draw the very simple design that is my tattoo instead of relying on images which clearly did not meet their needs. But placing that aside, why was this item created in the first place when I was just making an inquiry? And why is this particular content creator so satisfied with passing off what was clearly a terrible product? Have other SLers had similarly awful cutom experiences, or am I just unusually unlucky? And furthermore, exactly where does one go to get a good custom tattoo where this is guaranteed not to happen?

Enlighten me.