Curiosity on Artists

At the risk of sounding like I'm crackin' wise, my first thought is that the language you're missing is that which describes how much you'll be paying these artists. Whatever idealistic faux-justifications given (in your project post), being paid - and well - will produce reliability.

The art example you link to in your project post is professional quality work; Anyone who does that is getting paid for it. And if characters like those are animated then the amount of work it takes to hand-animate them can be phenomenal, depending on exactly what you're doing. There's a good reason that free games with lots of character art tend to use low-end 32x64 sprites with 2-4 frames of animation for a walkcycle!

You're making a free project - you might be trying to shoot to high, asking too much, though I don't know how all your art actually looks or what your direction is. Art can be a hell of a lot more work than people imagine, especially having it done well.

Other than that, artists aren't magical butterflies that need to be spoken to in special artist-language (at least not with useful artists - if they can't read a few paragraphs, do you really want to have to babysit them?), though pictures can be useful for an artist to gauge if they can fit their style with that already established by the game.

And perhaps you're looking in the wrong place if you're only looking here -- though I don't like to make a point of it, GD.net is currently structured, designed, and branded extremely poorly for amateur artists.

Yeah if you want to get artists to work on your project reliably, you'll probably have to pay them something. I spent a long time trying to find artists for my project, but no one wanted to join, so I decided to set aside a little bit of every paycheck to pay for art, putting it in a special account. I then made a post in the Job Offers forum on DeviantArt, and started looking around in the Job Services section for people that fit the style I was looking for. Sure enough, within a day there were plenty of people wanting to art for basically nothing. There are plenty of skilled college students that will do art for beer money.

Any more, most 2D artists are not pixel artists. You should specify pixel artists and put the sample of what you want as the first thing in the post, or consider not using pixel art in the game.

I hear ya, but I beg ti differ unfortunately.
These are your personal experiences.
As I'd like to remind you, this project has been deemed worthy by already two very talented pixel artists to actually work on. Also, I don't see why artists want to get paid when, programmers with overkill experience join for free. I've never had any issue with programmers in the past, and I consider their work to be of great value (I won't try to measure who works the most here, as I consider them two very important assets to any game).

As for "payment", I think it applies mostly to the market. In an indie project, I'd rather have everyone in charge of what they do, even if consistency is diminished. Artists should have an impact on the style, and not just serially produce for the leading entity. Besides, I offered alternative payment to people onboard already, and they feel contempted with that.

Big question is, it works for everyone else, why not artists as well?
Is it because artists think they are worth more? Or, like I said, because I just don't quite communicate adequatly with them (I'll admit, I do perceive artists like magic butterflies, in the sense that I'm not too sure I know what makes them tick, and as a matter of fact, visual art is the only thing I've never worked on in a project (I've even made music)).

Artists, and writers too, have a lot more difficulty making a decent living than programmers. As a reaction to that, both of these communities have a moral, "no one will buy the cow if you're giving the milk away for free". An additional factor is that what programmers contribute to a game project is often more fun and gives them more creative control than other types of program they do; it might also be easier. Just the opposite is true for artists - the art game projects need is more boring, more difficult, and more constrained than almost any other kind of art the artist could be doing.

I am a artist and I can validate what sunandshadow is saying, and I don't need to say anymore than what he's said. ;)

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Original post by 3shirtlessmen I am a artist and I can validate what sunandshadow is saying, and I don't need to say anymore than what he's said. ;)

I think its a 'she' btw.

@Sunandshadow

Interesting point, however, it doesn't seem to apply to writers. I've had so many interested in the project, you wouldn't believe... and quite strangely, the quality level was there.
As for artists having a rough time making a living, I have to disagree: the level of people I'm working with, most of the time, is commercial level. Most end up freelancer or over-paid within the industry. Any decent artists doesn't really struggle to get a job.
I've also agreed to give a reference letter to anyone worthy of one.

As some might know, my current status in the industry is sure to guarantee the letter will at least be read, and might just be the one turning point to get the person into an interview. It stirs, at the very least, enough curiosity to ask about it, and hopefully, even cause people to call me at the office.

I think these reasons are just excuses, and do not apply to the level of people I'm looking for. I need real reasons.

You're dismissing the real reasons "she" gave you. ;)

Now, as an artist, here's my thought process when someone says "Hey, your work is good, join my project. We have all the talent in the world, and already have great progress. At this rate, we will ship in 1 year. No payment."

1.) I would rather spend my summer or off-time 'pimping' my portfolio. I don't need an indie project to make good art. I can make whatever I want for my own portfolio with my own budgets and to the quality I want.

2.) There are always competitions going on for Blizzard, Epic, Bethesda, ID that are 'community' 'fan art' driven. For artists looking for jobs, this is a great opportunity as an 'art test'. I've seen artists hired from these 'fun community' events.

The reasons above save the artist time, but also give them great connections into the industry.

Obviously, this could amount to lots of things for programmers or writers as well but sociologically speaking -- I've seen this more with 2d / 3d artists.

So, If I understand correctly, artists are the only one that charge up money because they feel sociogically low-balled? Whereas everyone else can agree to work on a project because of its intrinsect value...

that seems a bit odd?

Obviously, your first point cannot explain the difference. A programmer or designer can also work on his or her own stuff for the portfolio, but truth be told, companies don't hire people solely based on quality but on dedication to actual projects and team working (its actually harder to work on commissionned work than what you just feel like doing). Believe it or not, its one of these criterias that are well known within the industry...

As for competitions, I've also seen game design and game dev competitions...

I still fail to see the difference being underlined here. I mean, there must be some kind of a reason? It can't just be a question of artistic ego...

I think it could easily be a case of coder and artist egos. It's not as much a matter of learning the skills to create the most effective piece of work as it is trying to compete or compare against another's work. What better way is there to learn than to compare what you can do with someone else?

Consider that a coder may take on a project on a volunteer basis as a way to measure his or her tallents. The ability to work with code from unknown sources and compare it code to your own. The only way you get to do that is to get your hands on some source. What better way to do that then to volunteer for a bit.

An artist on the other hand need only fix his or her eyes on any publicly available works. Anything from the original work to a photograph of it will be enough to compare to his own works.

And as both artist and coder mature neither one will tend to want to work for free. Although as a coder I can say that there are times that I've encountered things so poorly written that I feel the urge to fix it, maybe even for free. But that's not the issue here.

Very interesting point!
So the accessibility of the material at hand could be the issue here?
I might need to ponder a bit more about this and see how I can adapt to this specific notion.

Thanks for underlining that fact, this is incredibly helpful.

It could also be the nature of the creative efforts involved.

I tend to play in both arenas (balances the brain) and I can tell you that on the programming side, it's very easy to jump into an existing codebase and add your own additional elements without being too taxed for effort. There's a bit of structure already in place, you can work in small doses if it's a volunteer position, and whether you added 3 missing semicolons or an entire class hierarchy, you contributed to a (hopefully) more stable build if you decide to leave.

As an artist, however, you're faced with blank canvas every time you start a task. I think there's partially a perception issue here that producing solid artwork is a beginning-to-end endeavor. When you're finished, you have a stand-alone piece of work that you can put in a portfolio. As a team programmer, I can have a good day tweaking someone else's class to perform better, add functionality, or something equally incremental that doesn't stand alone.

It's akin to tinkering with a PC versus building an entire system. If someone asks me to tweak their home desktop, I can do that pretty easily and with minimal headache. If someone asked me to build them an entire box, I'd charge them for it.

Not to mention the aspect of "what could I be spending my time on?" that a previous poster mentioned. Programmers, well, yes, they could be busy coding up their own game or magnum opus, but it's arguably easier if you just "want to program something" to add your own effort to someone else's plan. It's also arguably easy to split your time in both. However, as an artist, if you're spending the time it takes to complete a piece of artwork, you spend the same time and effort if you're working on someone else's baby as if you're adding to your own portfolio, and that can absolutely mean food on the table for someone serious about being an artist. A creative individual is not wanting for inspiration, either, so your own project competes with their ideas for attention. Either you need to have an amazing concept that really draws them in, or you need to make it worth their while to put their own art on the backburner and work on your project. If you're paying them, that's the holy grail they're searching for in the first place (being paid to make art).

Something else that I don't know if anyone's asked: have you advertised on artist forums like conceptart.org? Gamedev is woefully lacking in the artist department, so your low turnout could be related to the pond you're fishing in.

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Original post by BCullis As an artist, however, you're faced with blank canvas every time you start a task. I think there's partially a perception issue here that producing solid artwork is a beginning-to-end endeavor. When you're finished, you have a stand-alone piece of work that you can put in a portfolio. As a team programmer, I can have a good day tweaking someone else's class to perform better, add functionality, or something equally incremental that doesn't stand alone. It's akin to tinkering with a PC versus building an entire system. If someone asks me to tweak their home desktop, I can do that pretty easily and with minimal headache. If someone asked me to build them an entire box, I'd charge them for it.

To add to this, in the case where an artist is asked to match existing art, the existing art may be actively repulsive, minorly annoying, or confusing due to the previous/reference artist having used unfamiliar techniques. If you find a piece of code you don't understand, you can look up the standard elements in a reference book. Can't do that with a piece of reference art, closest you can come is posting it on a forum and requesting people to guess how it was done or explain how they would try to duplicate it. I guess a coder could find a project's structure to be aesthetically repulsive...? I mean I've heard people talk about spaghetti code or garbage/dirty code. But I wouldn't imagine it happens that commonly? And I would think a coder would have more freedom to throw out and replace code they thought was ugly than an artist would have to do the same with the project's existing art.



And yes I am a she. [wink]

@ Sunandshadow
Actually, garbage code comes up very often, and its not always a question of what technique was employed, but how thoroughly it was employed. What is the degree of coherence applied to a certain logic, how good is the programmer at breaking it down into classes and function for example. IT is not something that can be recovered from reading a book. I've found out, myself, that if you're about to change programmer in an indie project, you might as well start from scratch, otherwise, he or she will want to get paid.
I think, for programmers, its as much a question of how much the programmer is also the architect.
A programmer that just has to do what you had in mind according to logics already preset will feel like its a chore and will want to get paid. Give them the freedom of logics, and suddenly, they're all up for the task.
Programmers are problem solver, they like a challenge, they don't want a laid down solution that just need more lines added to it. They like to think about the solution by themselves, and that, alone, seems to be enough to convince them to work for free, just as long as they have that freedom...

I've tried the same strategy with artists. I've basically started by giving them artistic direction, as I thought it was giving them something they wanted. It turned out that the artists that were interested were hoping I have a direction in mind, down to the smallest detail (odd?). I realized my system of reference was therefore off. I thought I had given them what a programmer would've wanted, but it turns out its not what they wanted. Isolated case? I think not...

@BCullis
I have also tried 3 artistic-driven communities (wayofthepixel, conceptart.org, pixeljoint) although with perhaps less insistance. I did not get a single reply. This is what led me to believe that artists spoke a different language:
On communities made specifically for artists, a rather popular message from Gamedev (a lot og PMs and Emails) did not yield any single result. I realize my reference table is quite off, and I honestly am starting to think I'm either:

1 - Bad with artists (communication-wise) aka I can't see to adapt my language to their own references, etc
2 - Don't understand their inner motives
3 - Can't seem to convince artists with my project's scope or my capacity to finish it.
3a - because my artistic scope is unrealistic (too demanding)
3b - because my artistic scope is unclear (based on my relative inexperience in that specific field)
3c - because of my lack of artistic communication skills (Linked to point 1)
3d - because my artistic scope is unappealing to an artist (I am a neophyte in terms of art, and perhaps, this isn't enough of a challenge or novelty to them, or perhaps, it does not serve their portfolio as well as another type of art)

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As for competitions, I've also seen game design and game dev competitions...

Game dev/design competitions tend to be geared towards getting your game a publishing deal. Art competitions are geared towards getting artists professional jobs by boosting and showing off their portfolio. Doing well in a major art comp = you are now hired at a professional studio. You can't pretend other types of comps for other professions work the same way.

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A programmer or designer can also work on his or her own stuff for the portfolio, but truth be told, companies don't hire people solely based on quality but on dedication to actual projects and team working

Very wrong. For artists, portfolio is the single most important aspect. Team skills will be judged based on your personality in an interview after it's determined you can create quality art (by checking your portfolio). Your ability to make art to specification can be tested with an art test.

Programmers would be wise to work on their own more, but the honest truth is they generally don't have the time/skill/work ethic/common sense to do so. It's a lot easier to make a piece of art than program an entire game. We're talking a few hours here and there in comparison to days/weeks/months/years of full time work. They could just make smaller projects instead, but... common sense is very rare.

Working for yourself is a much more efficient way to focus on the art instead of dealing with all the BS involved in collaborative projects.

Make art vs. Search online + find projects + apply for positions + talk talk talk talk talk + deal with clueless people (most everyone) + deal with constantly changing requirements + talk talk talk talk talk + make the art you're told to make whether it's useful for your portfolio or not + have your art scrapped + get yelled at by stupid team lead who doesn't want 'leaks' by showing it on your portfolio + an infinite number of other stupid, annoying problems that shouldn't happen but ALWAYS DO. Oh, and did I mention the endless talking?

EDIT:
You're also asking these questions on one of the worst forums possible. GDNET is very programmer-oriented. Go ask on art forums and you'll get a lot more "don't bother with anything but your portfolio" responses.
Okay, well you'd get those responses if people took the time to respond. You're getting 'this guy is not worth time on' silence instead.

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1 - Bad with artists (communication-wise) aka I can't see to adapt my language to their own references, etc 2 - Don't understand their inner motives 3 - Can't seem to convince artists with my project's scope or my capacity to finish it. 3a - because my artistic scope is unrealistic (too demanding) 3b - because my artistic scope is unclear (based on my relative inexperience in that specific field) 3c - because of my lack of artistic communication skills (Linked to point 1) 3d - because my artistic scope is unappealing to an artist (I am a neophyte in terms of art, and perhaps, this isn't enough of a challenge or novelty to them, or perhaps, it does not serve their portfolio as well as another type of art)

4 - You are not providing incentive. You think you are, but you aren't. Solo portfolio work is more productive for artists. Offer money or expect little support.

I have to disagree on the hiring part.
At least, the studio where I work does emphasize people with team based skills and experience working for 'someone else' over actual portfolio. I happen to be a project coordinator for a well known software company, and my own personal criterias for hiring are very similar, regardless of the profession.
So it may work like that at some places, but not all.

Also, I realized that I usually have more success with artists when I directly talk to them rather than advertise from a post, which can't necessarily be said of other professions.
Any thought on that?

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I guess a coder could find a project's structure to be aesthetically repulsive...? I mean I've heard people talk about spaghetti code or garbage/dirty code. But I wouldn't imagine it happens that commonly?

It is indeed rare. I, as a professional coder, seem to only find code to be ugly when it has been written by somebody else, or by me more than one month prior. [wink]

Coders have it easier, though, in that nobody but coders look at code. A different style (or quality!) can be used mid-program, if any one particular coder sees fit, without throwing off the look of the finished product to the end user. Other programmers may go into fits because of the inconsistency, but if it compiles and runs without bugs then the user won't care. No so with art style.

I would agree with the compensation arguments made thus far. Coders, in general, like getting into new and exciting code, especially ones like me who are stuck writing horribly dull desktop applications for the manufacturing industry. I like nothing better than to dive into game code for a while, as a mental treat. I can't imagine an artist would feel the same way given the restraints put on game art, and would therefore need to be paid, especially if they need to conform to an established style. Conformity isn't fun.

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Original post by Koobs Quote: I guess a coder could find a project's structure to be aesthetically repulsive...? I mean I've heard people talk about spaghetti code or garbage/dirty code. But I wouldn't imagine it happens that commonly? It is indeed rare. I, as a professional coder, seem to only find code to be ugly when it has been written by somebody else, or by me more than one month prior. [wink] Coders have it easier, though, in that nobody but coders look at code. A different style (or quality!) can be used mid-program, if any one particular coder sees fit, without throwing off the look of the finished product to the end user. Other programmers may go into fits because of the inconsistency, but if it compiles and runs without bugs then the user won't care. No so with art style. I would agree with the compensation arguments made thus far. Coders, in general, like getting into new and exciting code, especially ones like me who are stuck writing horribly dull desktop applications for the manufacturing industry. I like nothing better than to dive into game code for a while, as a mental treat. I can't imagine an artist would feel the same way given the restraints put on game art, and would therefore need to be paid, especially if they need to conform to an established style. Conformity isn't fun.

You've obviously not spoken with UI artists lately. They are the bulk of 2d art in nowadays next gen games, and can't wait to get their hands on some pixel art int heir spare time (anything unrelated to UI).

I suppose that's the resource and need in which I currently tap.