Artist Never Made My Costume; Would I Win A Small Claims Case?

About 4 years ago, I commissioned someone to make me a body suit of a griffon (the mythological creature) to wear to conventions. A friend of mine worked for the artist’s LLC, so I wanted to give them my business and trusted them with my money. I paid about $1475 in total, in installments over time.

About a year after I finished payments, I asked them for an update and was told they hadn’t started on my commission yet because there were people ahead of me.

About two years after I finished payments, still no update, but I was given a vague “we’ll have it done by the end of the year”.

About three years after I finished payments, I was fed up; I tried asking for updates and was ignored, but they sent blanket messages to all of their clients that they would be working on things and clear their queue soon. I finally got in touch with the artist and LLC owner and told them that I was frustrated with their lack of communication and forward momentum, and they promised me that they’d handle my commission themselves. Then, nothing. No updates, no messages. Other clients in our “commission group chat” are asking for updates and they give no answers, only excuses as to why they haven’t done any work, citing personal illness, life expenses etc.

I’m now at year 4 and I’m tired of letting this stress me out. $1400 isn’t a lot, but I busted my ass to save that money for the commission and have gotten nothing from it. At this point I don’t want to do business with this person any more— I’d rather give that money to someone who will actually make a product.

I intend to sue to get my money back through small claims court. I have every message between myself and the artist/LLC owner screenshotted and every payment I made to them via PayPal documented. The only documentation they gave me when we agreed to the purchase was an Excel sheet depicting the breakdown of costs (each piece’s cost, including labor and materials). However, long after I finished making payments, I found that their (now defunct) website had a Terms and Conditions page detailing that “If the commissioner cancels the order before or during production, [the LLC] has sole discretion to determine what portion, IF ANY, of payments to date will be returned.”

I didn’t sign any paperwork prior to purchase and didn’t even know these terms existed until I went and looked for them. You can’t even find them anymore; they deleted the T&S page off of their website about two years ago today, and if you went looking for them now you’d find an empty domain.

Regardless, I’m worried that if I were to press charges, they could dismiss me by citing their T&S. So, how borked am I? Or do I have a chance at winning this?