(Muchly summarized for brevity's sake)

A (longtime trusted) client: "I will pay you six thousand dollars to paint me a picture."

Me (career artist): Are you serous?

Client: Absolutely.

Me: Well, DAMN! That'll put a small dent in my student loans. Same rules as always apply (half up front, half upon completion).

Client: That's fine. And I can pay in one lump sum if you want.

Me: That would be awesome. So I'm guessing this is going to have like a million characters in it?

Client: No. Just two.

Me: Uhhh. Okay. Well, you know what I need (refs and a short description).

Client: Alright. I'll send them now. Basically I want these two characters together. I want them to be very sensual and erotic but not outright sex.

Me: That's fine. (As an artist, I've painted some pretty kinky shit. I cannot be surprised by this point in my life).

Client: I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this and please don't post the final work online.

Me: Sure. (Sometimes people are very embarrassed about their fetishes and they prefer privacy. That's fine.)

A few minutes later I check my inbox. The description read something like this- tasteful erotic, I want these colors used, I want this character doing this and the other character doing that. Nothing out of the ordinary. I click on the links leading to the reference images. Both of the characters are little children..... like five year old children.

And that was the day I lost my most high-paying client in the entire span of my career as an artist. All I did was politely refuse (it's actually not illegal to paint child porn I think but I'm just not going to do it, period) and he proceeded to get very angry at me. Sometimes I think I made the wrong decision (student loans) but then, I don't know if I would have been able to actually go through with it.