I wanted to make a report on this guy because he is a fraud and there is a subculture of people who somehow contact art schools and then try to take advantage of the graduates there by wasting their time, trying to cheat them, harrassing them at all times of the day and night, insulting them via email, and basically trying to con them into working for free with the promise of paying them.
Its bad enough that when a student graduates from ANY college, they are already in debt by thousands of dollars. To think that there are people out in society that are already established financially (or maybe they are not, but assuming they are) look to try to rip off the younger generation of students that are trying to enter the work force and look for serious employment extremely sickens me. Whether it be freelance or full/part time, TIME in general is very important for a visual artist. For a potential client to purposely set out to waste an artist's time under the assumption that the artist is stupid because they are younger is very immature and unprofessional.
I decided to inform the rest of the art community of this particular client because there are way too many people that will try this and the whole IDEA that it is okay to do any and everything to rip off artists and the idea that it is okay to disrespect an artist in a way that one wouldn't disrespect any other business man or woman is extremely unethical and vile.
Darren Dodson, contacted me via email and claimed to be a writer that needed illustration. He never said how he got my information, so I assumed he was just somebody that contacted me thru my website. I spoke with him on the phone to see what this client needed, but never committed to anyting and the client never sent over any paperwork or contract to do work. This client sent me a manuscript of his book and then proceeded to call my cell phone 3 times within a 15 minute timespan. The client then emailed me another 3 or 4 times after that. All of this within 20-25 minutes. He then emailed me and called me all weekend at oddball times of the day and night and left several odd messages on my voicemail before I could even write up a proposal or send the him an estimate like a normal human being does business. The last message he left on the voicemail was about how his email system was messed up, yet it wasn't messed up to where he couldn't send me the superfluous amount of emails. As soon as I sent him a written estimate, he wrote an insuling email and then proceeded to call my phone again atunproffessional times of the day and night until I finally had to block his number.
I casually told one of my friends about this odd experience to laugh about it and she asked me if it was Darren Dodson who did this. When I said that it was, SHE said that he did the same exact thing to her and that he also did the same exact thing to another artist.
So this report is just a warning not to get involved with this guy, because he will most likely play games and try to make you work for free. He will try to make you send him artwork, but he will call you and tell you his email is messed up or he will say he did not get it. Plus he will not list you as the illustrtator, he will list his wife as the illustrator and give her the credit for your work that he did not pay you for in the first place. I'm not sure how people like this make a living, because there arent too many GOOD artists out there that are stupid enough to take people like this seriously. But hopefully if there is an artist that is at least smart enough to look into this guy, they will see this and definitely try to get their money upfront before they send him any artwork.
Lacy Publishing Reviews
I wanted to make a report on this guy because he is a fraud and there is a subculture of people who somehow contact art schools and then try to take advantage of the graduates there by wasting their time, trying to cheat them, harrassing them at all times of the day and night, insulting them via email, and basically trying to con them into working for free with the promise of paying them.
Its bad enough that when a student graduates from ANY college, they are already in debt by thousands of dollars. To think that there are people out in society that are already established financially (or maybe they are not, but assuming they are) look to try to rip off the younger generation of students that are trying to enter the work force and look for serious employment extremely sickens me. Whether it be freelance or full/part time, TIME in general is very important for a visual artist. For a potential client to purposely set out to waste an artist's time under the assumption that the artist is stupid because they are younger is very immature and unprofessional.
I decided to inform the rest of the art community of this particular client because there are way too many people that will try this and the whole IDEA that it is okay to do any and everything to rip off artists and the idea that it is okay to disrespect an artist in a way that one wouldn't disrespect any other business man or woman is extremely unethical and vile.
Darren Dodson, contacted me via email and claimed to be a writer that needed illustration. He never said how he got my information, so I assumed he was just somebody that contacted me thru my website. I spoke with him on the phone to see what this client needed, but never committed to anyting and the client never sent over any paperwork or contract to do work. This client sent me a manuscript of his book and then proceeded to call my cell phone 3 times within a 15 minute timespan. The client then emailed me another 3 or 4 times after that. All of this within 20-25 minutes. He then emailed me and called me all weekend at oddball times of the day and night and left several odd messages on my voicemail before I could even write up a proposal or send the him an estimate like a normal human being does business. The last message he left on the voicemail was about how his email system was messed up, yet it wasn't messed up to where he couldn't send me the superfluous amount of emails. As soon as I sent him a written estimate, he wrote an insuling email and then proceeded to call my phone again atunproffessional times of the day and night until I finally had to block his number.
I casually told one of my friends about this odd experience to laugh about it and she asked me if it was Darren Dodson who did this. When I said that it was, SHE said that he did the same exact thing to her and that he also did the same exact thing to another artist.
So this report is just a warning not to get involved with this guy, because he will most likely play games and try to make you work for free. He will try to make you send him artwork, but he will call you and tell you his email is messed up or he will say he did not get it. Plus he will not list you as the illustrtator, he will list his wife as the illustrator and give her the credit for your work that he did not pay you for in the first place. I'm not sure how people like this make a living, because there arent too many GOOD artists out there that are stupid enough to take people like this seriously. But hopefully if there is an artist that is at least smart enough to look into this guy, they will see this and definitely try to get their money upfront before they send him any artwork.