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Graphic Artist Needed

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Keldarris
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Joined: 05/25/2010

Hello Everyone,

I have been lurking for a while, reading on several of the disccusion topics for a few months now, while creating my game. Some of the suggestions I've found very helpful, or help overcome a road block in the design. At present, I have a alpha build of a game, the play testers enjoy. I'm now trying to find a graphic artist for the artwork needed.

A) How much does a graphic artist pay by the hour? Lump sum?
B) What do I need, besides some samples and a discription of the art, to make sure the work is 'mine' in the end?
C) What if the artist does work, but its not exactly what I had in mind; do I still have to pay for it?
D) Anyone you would recommend? Or that I could see their portfolio online?

Could I just visit a local art college, and hunt down poor, starving artists? I rather stay ethical and honest, then prey on said 'poor and starving artists'.

Redcap
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Joined: 07/26/2008
The general consensus is you

The general consensus is you don't pay for a graphics artist, rather submit your game to a publisher and they get the graphics.

If you are looking to not go through a publisher and you are set with hiring a graphic artist you will find different artists do and expect different things.

For example, this is generally how I work:

A) How much does a graphic artist pay by the hour? Lump sum?
Up to you, you can contract me at an hourly rate (around $15-$30), or offer a lump sum amount. The size and scope of the project would dictate the price, etc...

B) What do I need, besides some samples and a discription of the art, to make sure the work is 'mine' in the end?

Not sure if I understand the question, but you pay for it, it is yours.

C) What if the artist does work, but its not exactly what I had in mind; do I still have to pay for it?
Some artists yes, with me I do a sample work and if it isn't what they are looking for then I might do one or two more samples. If they like it then I contract for the whole project with the understanding that I will make small adjustments here and there upon the clients request. If they don't like my few sample attempts then I don't contract with them and no love lost.

D) Anyone you would recommend? Or that I could see their portfolio online?
If you are really committed to this, send me a discription of the project, and what you are looking to pay. I will do a sample piece of art so you can see whether or not it is the style you like. Most artists can adapt their style to the different moods of the game. So even if you don't see anything in my portfolio that looks like it matches your genre, doesn't mean I can't do that genre persay ;)

Here is a rough portfolio of mine, haven't gotten the time to actually make one that has rhym or reason...

http://www.unpracticalmath.com/portfolio/portfolio.html

simons
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Joined: 12/28/2008
I've had success looking on

I've had success looking on websites like deviantart.com. There are lots of forums for people like this. Just go and advertise what you want and what you're willing to pay, and see what you can get.

Simon

seo
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Joined: 07/21/2008
Keldarris wrote:Hello

Keldarris wrote:
Hello Everyone,

I have been lurking for a while, reading on several of the disccusion topics for a few months now, while creating my game. Some of the suggestions I've found very helpful, or help overcome a road block in the design. At present, I have a alpha build of a game, the play testers enjoy. I'm now trying to find a graphic artist for the artwork needed.

As Porter (Redcap) said, you don't usually pay for a professional artist unless you are self-publishing. Even if that were the case, you only hire an artist when the game is fully finished and ready to go to the press, not at "alpha build" state. You might want a nice prototype for playtesting once the game is more or less finished, but that's totally different from final art. Even if you don't have artist's skills, you can probably produce a decent prototype with clip-art, simple and free graphics applications like Inkscape and Gimp, and a pinch of common sense.

Keldarris wrote:
A) How much does a graphic artist pay by the hour? Lump sum?
You will have a hard time finding an artist willing to pay by the hour. Most of us charge by the hour. ;) Most artists will give you a lump sum estimate based on how much time they think the job will take and their hourly rate. Then they will charge extra for last minute changes not covered by the estimate. A reasonable hourly rate would be $40-50, which will result in $2000-5000 for most games. If there is a lot of illustration work involved (like in CCG) it's going to be more expensive. A simple game with little or no illustration involved may go for as low as $500-1000.

Keldarris wrote:
B) What do I need, besides some samples and a discription of the art, to make sure the work is 'mine' in the end?
A contract will, in most cases, make you the owner of the final art. Try to include in the contract what happens with derivative images, like making a poster or a flyer out of the box art, making a digital version of the game, etc.

By default, the artist owns the rights for all derivative images unless it is work for hire or explicitly stated in a contract, while the hiring party owns the copyright only when the art is produced specifically for him (hence if you pay an artist to use something he created in advance that fits your needs for the box cover, you are only paying for the right to a specific use of that image and will/may need to pay extra if you then want to also use the image in a poster, ad, brochure, etc.)

In any case, the artist will have the rights for any working files he might have created in order to produce the final art, unless he is your employee. For instance: you will own the final PDF files sent to the printer, but not the Photoshop/Illustrator/Corel files used to create the final PDF files. This is a subtle difference and not an issue in most cases, but it's also the subject of many an argument between freelancers and their clients. If you want the working files you will probably have to pay extra (and you will probably never use them anyway).

Keldarris wrote:
C) What if the artist does work, but its not exactly what I had in mind; do I still have to pay for it?
When you sign a contract you will have to clearly establish what the process will be. Usually you've seen enough samples of previous work by the artist to be reasonably sure he will be capable to do the job. Then, you will discuss the concepts, show the artist samples of art similar to what you want.

Then the artist will produce some initial sketches or samples for you. Some artists will do this for free, most professionals will charge you a small sum for this, but nothing close to what the final art will cost.

Once you approve the initial sketches, an agreement is reached for the final art, including a detailed list of what elements are to be produced (box, x-pages ruelbook, board, tiles, cards, counters, etc.) how much the job will cost, how many instances of sketches/samples/proofreading/corrections are going to be.

As a rule of thumb, if the artist does his job, he should be payed. Good communication (both verbal and visual) from both sides plays a key role in guaranteeing a successful working relationship. Try to be as clear as possible with your specifications, find samples of existing art you think might help the artist get a clear idea of what you want, be sure you hire someone fit to the task, and then let him do his magic. Hire someone you can trust, someone you don't feel you need to be directing all the time, but rather just give some working guidelines and let work from there.

Keldarris wrote:
D) Anyone you would recommend? Or that I could see their portfolio online?
My portfolio: here

Keldarris wrote:
Could I just visit a local art college, and hunt down poor, starving artists? I rather stay ethical and honest, then prey on said 'poor and starving artists'.
If you only need a nice looking prototype, this might be a win-win situation: you get your nice art for free or almost free, and the student gets an interesting project to add to his portfolio, plus some real world experience on working for a client. This is probably a better option than hiring a professional artist.

If you are going to self-publish, things are a bit trickier. I strongly advice you to hire someone with actual experience in commercial print production. A board game involves several production challenges (die cutting, CMYK offset printing, board, tiles and box mounting, etc.) and you don't want the final product to suffer because the artist you hired was able to make nice looking images but lacked the technical knowledge required to provide the printer with adequate files.

Ariel

RogueKoi
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Joined: 07/29/2009
Wow seo

Wow, you could not have asked for a better run down than what Seo posted above. There is really nothing more I or really anyone could add to that post.

Yet with everyone posting samples I would feel "left out" so to speak if I did not try to pimp my wares as well. Below are a a couple samples that I enjoy.

sample
sample

If you are looking for a graphic artist feel free to PM me and we could discuss things.

ausloosd
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Joined: 11/13/2009
graphic design

Hello,

I saw you are looking for a graphic designer.
Here's my portfolio: www.ausloosdesign.be

Feel free to pitch me your project.

Take care,

David

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