Commissioning a portrait is one of the few purchases where the thing you buy does not exist until after you have paid for it. A sofa can go back in its box. A painting of your mother, painted by hand over four weeks, cannot be resold by anyone, which is why the returns question makes buyers hesitate. The honest answer is that a well-run studio does not protect you with a refund policy. It protects you with a sequence of checkpoints — placed before the money and the paint — where the painting can still be changed for nothing. This article walks through each checkpoint, what it locks, what it leaves open, and what to do if you reach the end and still are not happy.
The honest answer first
At our studio, and at any studio worth hiring, the rules are short. Custom portraits cannot be returned once you have approved them — you will have seen a photograph of the finished canvas before it ships, and a painting made to your likeness has no market for anyone else. Original paintings in stock carry a 14-day return window, because those can go back on the wall. That asymmetry is not fine print designed to trap you; it is the entire reason the process is front-loaded. If a studio cannot take returns on custom work, it must give you every chance to correct the painting while it is still cheap to correct. Everything below is what that looks like in practice, and each step is spelled out on the how commissions work page.
The five checkpoints, in order
- The digital mock-up — produced within 24 hours of your photos arriving, at no cost. It shows the composition, the crop, the background and the mood of the finished painting. Nothing is painted until you approve it.
- The approval gate — you confirm the mock-up and pay, or you ask for changes, which are free. A mock-up can be revised several times; what costs nothing on screen stays nothing.
- Two progress photos — sent while the painting develops, usually at the block-in stage and again once the face is resolved. Problems caught here are hours of work, not weeks.
- The finished-canvas review — a photograph of the real painting before it ships, with one free round of adjustments.
- The repaint guarantee — if the likeness is genuinely off, the painting is repainted, not argued over. The terms are written down before you pay, not improvised afterwards.
Notice the order: every checkpoint except the last sits before or alongside the irreversible steps. By the time paint touches canvas, the composition has already been agreed by you in writing.
What the mock-up decides — and why late complaints trace back to it
Almost every “I don’t like it” conversation in portrait painting is really about one of four things: the crop, the number of subjects, the background, or the mood. All four are visible in the mock-up, and all four are free to change there. This is why the review you give the mock-up deserves more attention than the review you give the finished painting. The full checklist is in the mock-up guide, but the short version: check where the figure is cut, check the background tone against the wall you plan to hang it on, and check that nothing you consider essential is missing. Once you approve, the composition is locked. Asking for a different crop after approval means a new canvas and repainting, and any honest studio will call that a new commission rather than a revision — we say so plainly, before you pay.
What stays open after approval
Locking the composition does not freeze the painting. Colour temperature, background shading, the softness of a shadow, the colour of a tie — these are decided with the brush, and they stay adjustable through the progress photos and the final review. The distinction matters because buyers sometimes fear that approving a mock-up signs away all further say. It does not. It fixes the design; the execution still has two more points where you can speak.
The two progress photos: your cheapest chances to speak
Progress photos work only if you actually look at them, properly, within a day or two of receiving them. Flag anything that worries you at the first photo — the angle of the head, the width of a shoulder, the size of a hand — because at block-in stage, corrections cost the painter an hour. The same concern raised at the finished stage costs a week. Two practical habits: open the photo on a large screen rather than a phone, and comment in plain language (“his smile looks stiffer than in the reference” beats “something feels off”). A studio that paints three to five weeks without ever sending progress images is asking you to buy a pig in a poke — that alone should end the conversation.
What the one free round of adjustments covers
When the finished canvas is photographed and sent for review, you have one free revision round. In practice it covers execution-level refinements:
| Covered by the free round | Not a revision — a new brief |
|---|---|
| Recolouring clothing or a background tone | Adding or removing a subject |
| Softening or strengthening shadows and contrast | A different crop or canvas size |
| Refining a small detail — a tie, a hand, an earring | Painting from a different photograph |
| Adjusting the strength of the likeness in small ways | Changing the style after the fact, e.g. painterly to classical |
The dividing line is simple: if the change fits inside the approved mock-up, it is a revision; if it replaces the mock-up, it is a new commission. One round is the industry norm. Treat “unlimited revisions” as a warning sign — generous words with no mechanism behind them, as the studio-vetting guide explains. And the quality of the reference photographs you send is the single biggest factor in how much revising the painting needs at all; the standards are in the reference photo guide.
When the answer is a repaint, not an argument
There is a difference between “I would have preferred a warmer background” and “this does not look like my father.” The first is a preference, handled by the revision round. The second is a failure, and a studio that takes its work seriously repaints it. Our terms are written into the process page: a genuine error of likeness is repainted at no charge. Repaints are rare — partly because a studio that repaints for free has a strong financial interest in getting the mock-up right the first time — but the guarantee has to exist on paper, before the deposit, not as a promise made after you complain. If a studio cannot state its repaint position in one sentence, that is your answer.
Where the money sits
A 20 × 24 inch portrait of one subject is $549; a 16 × 20, the most common choice, is $389; the full table sits on the custom portraits page. Whatever the size, four things should never appear as line items on the quote: the mock-up, the progress photos, the first revision round, and worldwide tracked shipping. They are not freebies — they are priced in — but a studio that charges separately for them is charging you for its own quality control, which tells you where its priorities sit. The only predictable extras are optional ones: combining two photographs or restoring an old one runs $60–$70, and a three-week rush is $90.
Five habits that make revisions unnecessary
- Send your best photographs, not your newest. Sharp, flat-lit, face at least 500 pixels wide. The reference guide above has the exact specs.
- Say who is taller and who stands where. Proportion errors, not likeness errors, cause most revision rounds in group portraits.
- State your must-haves in writing at the mock-up stage. “Keep her engagement ring visible” is enforceable at mock-up and expensive at review.
- Answer the mock-up within 48 hours. Every day of delay pushes painting start back a day — and pushes your deadline, if you have one.
- Review progress photos on a real screen, within a day. Early comments cost the painter minutes; late ones cost weeks.
The short version
- Custom portraits approved from a finished-canvas photo are not returnable; the protection is the checkpoint sequence, not a refund.
- Mock-up changes are free and unlimited in practice — this is where the painting is really decided.
- After approval, composition is locked; tone, shadow and small details stay open through two progress photos and the finished review.
- One free revision round covers execution; structural changes are a new commission.
- A genuine likeness failure is repainted, at no charge, and the guarantee should be in writing before you pay.
- Originals in stock: 14 days to return. No studio should ever charge for a mock-up or a first revision.
If that process sounds like the one you want your family’s painting to go through, send your photographs for a fixed quote. The mock-up comes back within 24 hours, costs nothing, and nothing gets painted until you say go.