I don't liked complaining because it isn't usually constructive but sometimes you have to get something off your chest and more importantly ask around to see "Is it just me who have this problem ????".


Anyway, in the creation of our game and of my company, I've had to work with several subcontractor on more than one occassion but it seems that almost everytime we put something in their hand, unless we supervise what they're doing, they end up taking advantage of us.

Is it something common to all Indi ? Are mosts artists (because I've worked with a few very great one) so hard to work with ?

Our web designer, totally missed the point of the game, and more importantly, created a totally ugly web design structure.

Our graphical artist, although he did a totally great job, was and still is very hard to reach.

Another artist we worked with, although we sign a fixed amount contract him, asked us for even more money once he said he had put the number of hour he would say he would do regardless of the quality of the final product and even more importantly went totally in the opposite direction of what we ask him to do.

And I have a lot of other exemples, but it seems like most artist have an huge ego and expect big salaries regardless of the quality, or the profesionnalism, of their work.

Around here (I live near Montreal, Canada), we've figured that it was probably because there's so many Multimedia School where studient pay a lot of money to receive a diploma, usually regardless of their talent or their profesional attitude. And in these school, they are filled with idea like they deserve a lot of money, regardless of their talent or the quality of their work, that all of them are "gods" (or something like that).

Anyway, all this to say, are we the only company who apparently falls into the trap of trusting these people and signing contracts with them ??

Has anyone else ever had or heard of Indi having a lot of bad experience with artists ?

I would really appreciate any input on this, I'm curious to know if this is only a local thing or is something that affects other Indies as well.


Nick

Well I don't think thats really an artist thing but more of the kinda person you outsource too.

We have done quite a bit of outsourcing (for audio mainly) and large majority of which refused to quite working on the project or take any more money than what was agreed upon. Further more they wanted to make sure it was done right.

Thats not to say that some having wanted to renegotiate the fee for FUTURE work, but there isn't anything unfair about that.

I guess I've just been lucky. But being an artist, I don't think musicians and audio guys are that different.

You need to spell out what the deal is, and run those scenarios that you have dealt with already to them. Make sure you and they understand want is expected.

One problem is this, creative people have a need to do things diffrent. Thats a core element of creative folks. If it wasn't, then we wouldn't be all that creative would we? So you need to be stern on what is extremely important, and where you want a creative person to use thier own judment.

It's good to match the person to a style you are looking for, I probably wouldn't hire person known for thier absract art to do Anime style work. Otherwise you both are going to be really unhappy.

Lastly, ( and I don't know what you are paying folks) make sure the people you are working with aren't being too optimistic in their quote to you. Hopfully you have a pretty good idea what you want to pay them, but don't be unrealisic.

A lot of times folks with a track record already will be more professional in their dealings with you. Nothing wrong with taking a gamble on an unknown element, just understand what you are doing.

The hell i've been through with graphic artists...

The first project in which i decided to work on, was a small RTS to demonstrate my work for pontential work.

The first artist which i "hired" never came back to me.

the second and third started to do something, delivered me a character or two, and the went to work on something more interesting.

for my current project (Goose Chase (http://www.gilzu.com) ), I put messages for varius forums and recieved a large amount of offers. This time I did everything by the book.

all were eager to talk about money, some without even showing me examples of their work, just "lets talk greens" variations. I deleted those right away, and the most eager ones, i even wrote a "nice" letter back.

about 40% had a reasonable website and only 10% had shown more than 1 finished project (seems that artist have the same unfinished disease as programmers).

i ended up with three artists, and finally signed a contract with Erik Asorson (http://www.erikasorson.com) who werent only acting as a pro (and actually is a pro if you'll look closly into his resume), but also shown interest in the project and getting the job done.

for the entire 14 monthes I've been working on Goose Chase (http://www.goosechase.com), i took a day job after university (Burger King if you must know) saving just enough to finance this project. once the paycheck came, it was straight sent by paypal. imagine the rage i would of felt if something went wrong.

Each of the models came out more than i could ever ask for. Models, animation, textures, interface elements and everything on time, with the same dedication i've put in myself on the game. Drop him a line, the man can (and more importantly will) deliver what you pay for, he ain't cheap - but you certainly get what you paid for.

Did I have the luck of catching the right guy? I don't know, since I did a good screening of people (stress, people, not artists) who are commited to their job.

but then again, one of the other last candidates was Joe Szabo, aka bobsugar. (if you ever wonder, just go to maxforums and ask what happened to timpa's tablet)

Overall I've had excellent results working with contractors, almost all of which I'd gladly work with again. I've always interviewed each contractor in person face to face before beginning any working relationship. I dislike the idea of working with people on a game dev project if they aren't local. Face to face communication is just an order of magnitude better than email or phones, especially when you and the contractor can sit down together and watch the game running with the contractor's work. I've used remote contractors for very simple things like designing a business card or a logo, but never for complete content for a game.

Maybe being located in the same city as the contractor helps increase accountability too. But also I think I've gotten good at explaining the work that needs to be done, especially adapting to the style of the contractor. Some people prefer a lot of direction and detailed to do lists, while others prefer lots of flexibility. I've found that giving some flexibility is very helpful, especially if I'm not sure what I want. Often the contractor will come up with something different but better than what I'd anticipated. Sometimes I can use those kinds of results; other times I can't.

One of the best ways to pick contractors is via references and referrals from other developers I know and respect. When I work with a good contractor, I'm always happy to send referrals their way when the opportunity arises.

Also, before I do any work with a contractor, we always sign a contract spelling out the details of our working relationship. This is definitely critical. A good contract helps contractors take the project seriously. A bad or vague contract often leads to burnt bridges in the end.

Steve's comments are dead on. A contract is a must, it spells out the relationship in very clear terms.

In addition, I *strongly* recommend you pay your artist a flat fee, and wait to pay at least half of the fee when they have completed their work. I have seen countless projects go bad when the programmer and artist embark on a percentage deal. Come up with a very detailed asset list and agree upon a fair price- then pay them for their work. It will motivate them to finish, and will save a lot of hurt feelings down the road.

If you go on percentage, 9 times out of 10 it will go bad. Either the game will flop and the artist will be bitter about the deal, or the game will be a success, and you will realize you are giving someone 25% of the revenue for 5% of the work.

Regarding percentage deals... I've heard plenty of horror stories about them, but they've actually worked out beautifully for me. I doubt I'd be where I am today if I didn't take advantage of them.

One of the first percentage deals I did was with my girlfriend many years ago, who did some game design and music for our early games in exchange for a percentage of the sales. I ended up marrying her, so I never had to actually pay the royalties. But we still had a formal signed contract at the time. She designed the four games in our Fortune Pack collection, did most of the artwork for those, and composed all the music for Fortune Pack, BrainWave, BrainWave 2, and JumpStar. She still jokes about all the money I owe her. :)

Dweep's art was done on a percentage deal. In the long run the artist has been making a nice bundle in royalties. His work was completed over four years ago, and he's still getting checks every month. I've definitely paid way more for the art than it would have cost me if I paid a flat fee upfront. However, when I began Dweep I was dead broke, so I couldn't afford to pay a flat fee (even $100 was too much for me), and I couldn't borrow the money either. So the percentage arrangement provided me an opportunity I would have missed otherwise. It was a win for me and a win for the artist. It allowed me to create a hit game that enabled me to finally make a full-time living as an indie, and it gave the artist a residual cashflow that has lasted for years. Today I have the option of paying a flat fee for game assets, but that wasn't a viable option for me several years ago. I absolutely don't begrudge the artist the money he's making off the game -- he was an invaluable teammate, and I definitely couldn't have done it without him. He shared the risk for me, and he deserves every penny.

So I have nothing but good feelings about percentage deals. They're an excellent tool for the situation where you don't have the funds you need to pay for the assets you want. You do end up paying a lot more in the long run, but you also make a lot of money you couldn't otherwise make. If I give you $1000, would you be willing to give me $100 in return?

However, and this is a big however... I recognize that the typical reality of percentage deals in the indie world is pretty bleak. But these problems shouldn't be blamed on the types of deals but rather on the types of people behind them. If you work with unprofessional or dishonorable or undisciplined people, it doesn't matter what kind of deal you enter -- disappointment is the result (or worse). With the right people, virtually any kind of deal can work. Among the best teammates I've worked with, I can imagine having no trouble with percentage deals, flat fee deals, combinations, etc.... The exact nature of the deal doesn't matter as much as the character of the people entering the deal.

Your technical skills can be top notch, but if you don't have the people skills to be able to "read" someone and see behind their surface personality, then it's really hard to find good team members. This is why I value face to face communication so much. If something's wrong, you'll never notice it in an email. But when you can see a person's body language and hear their tone of voice, you can quickly tell if a project is off track. Problems and challenges are inevitable. But with long distance communication, they remain hidden for too long and often devolve into a crisis situation. With face to face communication, you can sense the true pulse of a project much more easily. You can nip problems in the bud before they fester.

I find that another advantage to face to face meetings is that they help raise everyone's enthusiasm about the project. It's a huge morale booster to get together and play a prototype, even if it's not much fun yet. It's very exciting for team members to see a new game coming together. I always feel a nice boost in my own morale after a team meeting. Unit integrity is absolutely critical if a project is to succeed. Software = Team.

I somewhat disagree. I know plenty of people who will do excellent work for the immediate reward of cash, but if the goal is distant and (in their eyes) uncertain, they will tend to slack off or not deliver. Most people have the "do work to get paid" mindset, so paying them for the art often works out quite well. Another drawback to percentage deals is that it's something you have to deal with for the lifetime of the product.

Of course, if you can't create the art yourself, and have no money, then you really have no choice. But be prepared, and do your best to find a reliable artist who is like-minded with yourself.

In our case, in most of the deal we've had, we've done everything in hope of making sure that the work would go smoothly.

We sign an extensive contract with a flat fee, which we paid half from the beginning. But usually, once the contract is sign, that's when the problem starts.

First there's communication problems. (Which you don't usually thing you'll have with a contractor). The person is hard to reach or impossible, regardless that it is by phone, e-mail or in person.

After there's the content problem. Since you haven't been able to easily communicate, the work itself is of course far from for what you wanted (not all the time but it happened a lot). And if you dare ask them to change something big, they'll say that if it wasn't in the deal.

You try to straighen things up because you don't want to end up loosing the money you already invested on this but finally, once the work is all over, all we can due is shrug and say that we'll be more carefull next time but it seems like for one person that will do a great job, 4 will do an horrible one. Regardless of how extensive the contract is.

And on top of that, we worked with people who were local and discuss all deals face to face.

We tried both telling the person exactly what we want and telling the guy to do as he wish and we've had very mixed result.

I must admit thou that we've never done extensive research when signing a contract, meaning we haven't done interviews or extensive background search. Usually, it was someone we knew that refer that person to us so we told ourselves, he must be good if he/she's refering him. And sometime we even look at some exemple of their work and some of them do look incredibly good.

What's frustrating is that it doesn't seem to do anything with the contract or talent but more with the school. For exemple, one of the first guy I worked with, I told him to draw me sketches for the game we wanted to design (not DFO but another one that will probably be produce when we manage to have a bigger budget).

The guy did a fantastic job and on top of that he had just finish High School.

The same goes for our sound/musician who did a great job in giving us sound FX and music for DFO and I don't think he did extensive studies in the domain.

But when I look at how horribly wrong the design of the web page went for exemple, it's really obvious that many see the Multimedia Industry as a source of $$$$ and that whatever school they went taught them that every second they work on something was worth $$$, regardless of the quality.

It's almost certain that whoever we work with in the future, we will watch his back on a daily basis (what we didn't do with others) regarldess of how much flexibility he will have (because It's true that it always depend on the artist). But it seems like it's gonna a very long proccess since most of those who are talented and profesional have find jobs in the bigger companies in the area.

One thing that amaze me and my partner even more is the fact that when you try to seriously talk with these people and tell them that they're off-track and should correct the problem they look at you like you're somekind of Space Chicken and you don't have any clue what you're talking about, regardless of the fact that you're a customer. As if for them small companies don't have anykind of power over them and you as a person have even less power.

One person told me that he respected the contract to the letter, regardless of the fact that his work was totally ugly. Which raise the question, how can you explain quality in a contract ?

It seems like there's really nothing you can do if someone decide to take advantage of you.

Anyway, it's good to be able to discuss these issue in a community like this. I'm sure there's some artist who come here and my point is not to offend them because I know there's a bunch of incredible arstist just waiting to be discovered with incredible talent but they seem to be an incredible amount of "so-called" artist with very limited talent or interest in doing something of quality and they're giving a bad reputation to all the others.

The worst part is that we can only blame ourselves because most of the time, we had somesort of feeling that this person was gonna cause us more trouble than anything else (except on one occasion, but it wasn't an artist, but an Advertiser who fail to deliver what we expected from them).

For those of you to whom it hasn't happen you either have been very lucky or very business smart (which is more probable I would say because it seems like we always have an hinch telling us not to hire them, in ou case, we hire them anyway because we want to give them a chance and not fall into prejudice but it's something we're not gonna do anymore).

At least, it seems that those who have not hire these people have at least meet them, so I don't feel so alone in realising that there are some artist who do have no talent or totally lack any sense of professionnalism and try to convince you otherwise.

Nick
ADDENDUM:

Regarding pourcentage deal, technically, although I produce DFO, I'm not the one who created it and me an my partner have a mutual % deal which is currently not paying off but we hope will be paying in the future and it's working great. So I think % deal works depending on who you work with.

It's true that there's also the fact that everyone who work on a project must feel like they're part of a team and must have the ability to work in team or at least realise that their contribution to the project will bring something to them in the long run.

Still, on many occasion, I've seen people say stuff like "cool idea.. ", "I love it", "It will ahve an huge success", "I'll be glad to help you with other stuff", and ended up just barely doing what was asked of them in the first place and finally showing that they didn't care anymore one bit about the project itself, regarless of how much you tried to involve them into it or how much flexibiliy who gave them.

Personally, I feel like I really lucked out in filling out a team. Despite being the programmer on our project (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1479), I actually went to an art school for my college years. As a result, I made a lot of artist friends, and the artists in our company are people I met at school. My brother and some friends from back home happened to go professional with audio production, and they do our sound.

I think the takeaway from my situation is a little bit like the advice others have already given. Try to deal with people you know; people you can talk face-to-face to. If you're a programmer with programmer friends, try to network a little more to find local folk on the other side of the fence. See if there's a local IGDA chapter and check out their meetings, go to any conferences you can, etc. Some schools occasionally have speakers or events that are open to the public (portfolio shows, forums, etc), too, which are a useful way of meeting new people.

Nick,
One way to deal with the lack of communication is to put that into the contract like has been suggested here. You need to get accountablity into the contract.

Something to the effect of:

>>>>>
Content Creator will call and email samples of weekly progress by 5PM EST Wednesday of each week.

Content Creator will have the Model for Space Chicken done by Oct1 for review, and it's texture on Oct 5th for review.

Pending acceptance, a milestone payment will be made for each completed character.
>>>>

Something to that effect.

The general feeling I get is that folks are yanking your chain because they can. If you don't like how they are interacting with you, put it in the contract and don't pay them until they deliver.

All the folks I've worked with we're on a mellow laid back timeline and they truly wanted to provide great work. But sometimes you just need to spell it out.

As a control freak, so far I'm only trusting and paying others to do very small parts of my games... But if I were hiring a full artist, the first thing I would probably do is make an agreement with them to do something small first, with no guarantees of further work after that, to be sure we were able to communicate and they were able to create the sort of thing I wanted. (The guy who did the wallpapers for Charm School is *fabulous* at reading my mind - I give him the tiniest scribble and he turns out pretty pictures with all the detail I would have wanted but can't draw myself. :) )

Of course, this won't help with the kind of person who's fine at first but gets bored and vanishes after a while. :)

Well that's without any doubt the main problem of every indie just starting.
I am really lucky because I can do graphics by myself, but that's only interface or small kind of graphics.
Now I am trying to add 3D cutscenes to my soccer game, but it is really hard to work with Truespace 3.2 :p

This also prevent us poor indie from making bigger games... it's easy to say make a 3D game, but when you have to do all those characters, bones, IK, etc, either you're able to do it yourself and spend 1-2 month only on it (and you still have to do the programming...arghh!) or you have to pay 1-2k $ to a 3d artist (I haven't found cheaper ones...)!

The only artist trouble I've got is worrying that one of you bastids will wave $10k in Chaz's face and pinch him off me for 3 months :)

He's a great mate I've known for nearly 20 years. He worked for a 20% cut of gross takings after swreg commission for AF and so far he's the only one who's made any money because I've paid for everything else. Next game he might be on a bigger %. Really he ought to be a full director of the company with an equal share in it.

Cas :)

Originally posted by Dexterity
I dislike the idea of working with people on a game dev project if they aren't local.
It's sad to hear that. Yes, face-to-face communication is good, but it is possible and profitable to work with developers even if they aren't local.

For example: my friend NeARAZ (http://www.gim.ktu.lt/nesnausk/nearaz/) is working remotely for IneraMotion (http://www.interamotion.com/) and both of them are happy.

A lot of hardware drivers are programmed in Lithuania too, just programmers agree to get double money for signing a contract about never tell anyone that those drivers were made in our country.

Unfortunately most remote projects (here in Lithuania) are not game development related and I have no idea why. We have good skills, we can work for reasonable price, but still we hear from such great people as Steve Pavlina, that it is not good to do remote game development. :(

either you're able to do it yourself and spend 1-2 month only on it (and you still have to do the programming...arghh!) or you have to pay 1-2k $ to a 3d artist (I haven't found cheaper ones...)!
And you looked only localy, right?...

If any of you would like to enhance your game development potential with power of remote development, please send me an e-mail (proninja@baltagames.com).

There's a 2 good reasons why people don't do businness locally which have nothing to do with quality of the people or of their work :

1) If things go wrong, and most project done without any "physical" contact tend to go wrong, it's really hard to fix it up. It's already hard enough to fix things when someone local decide to pull a fast one on you and do a cheap job, it's near impossible when it someone who love very far away in another country because the legal system is not the same and sometimes the first language is not the same either.

2) In the long run it will cost a lost less to do business locally for small projects because sooner or later, regardless of the project, people are gonna have to met in person. Add to that that it's 5 times easier to evaluate someone in person than over the phone or the internet.

So why are some big company doing it ? Usually, it's because these companies have a local office in that region and they're the one in charge of the deal. I don't know for what company your friends are making drivers but I'm sure that this company has a local office or have met these people in person before.

And the same things goes for those who are working. You should not do businness with someone if you can't reach them in person because there's a risk that you might be the one taking advantage of.

For exemple, in my region, I know someone did who a job for somebody in another country. He receive half the amount to start the job and he was suppose to receive the other half after the job was done. But the other guy never paid the other half and took what the work and used it anyway. And I've heard cases where some people don't even get paid at all and the guy who hires them gets away with it.

So you must always be extra careful with who you, regardless if you're the one paying someone or if you're the one being payed.

Nick

For game dev projects, I've never even considered working with someone who wasn't local. That's a fairly easy option for me since I live in Los Angeles, where you can find excellent freelancers for just about anything.

1) If things go wrong, and most project done without any "physical" contact tend to go wrong, it's really hard to fix it up.
It is common to see "money back guarantee" on shareware author's website. It allows for cheaters to use products for free.
So you trust all players, but not developers?
Yes, things can go wrong remotely as bad as localy and both sides should be careful: work on small tasks at first, etc.
but admit, that things can go good way too!


2) In the long run it will cost a lost less to do business locally for small projects because sooner or later, regardless of the project, people are gonna have to met in person. Add to that that it's 5 times easier to evaluate someone in person than over the phone or the internet.
Why there is need to meet? We all are talking in Dexterity forums and understand each other without meeting each other even once. I agree, it would be nice to meet and chat, but it is not necessary.
Players do not care was any part of a game made localy or remotely. They care about quality and fun.
As for developers, all of you want to spend less and make better games. If job is done well, does it matter who did it?


Usually, it's because these companies have a local office [...] or have met these people in person before.
True, but how this affect quality? In my eyes, it is just extra cost to make everything look safer.

For game dev projects, I've never even considered working with someone who wasn't local
Well, maybe you should consider. You should compare prices, quality, speed and then decide. Don't reject an opportunity without a good reason.

Any bussines is risky. Meeting face-to-face does not guarantee anything. Even body language can be learned and be used in bad way. If a person is bad you will not want to work with him(her) nor locally nor remotely.
If work is done on time and in good quality- who cares, where it was done?

I worked as a freelance artist a while ago.

The horror I experienced one time was akin to the stories you are relating here.

But let's start from the beginning.

The coders were two friends of a friend. I had met them once before, but not in relation to that product.
They worked on a program for a publishing company. The programmers had two choices: Pay a flat fee for the publishers artist or pay for an independent artist of their choice --> me.

We agreed on the same flat fee for me, being 150$.
The goal was the design of the GUI for a celebrity clipart package.

Inexperienced as I was, I happily agreed.

The following month, these people (who were not local with me, btw) were extremely hard to reach, neither by phone or email.

Every picture I sent in, was commented with "more colors! make it happy, make it colorful! more colors!"

Finally, draft 13!!! was accepted, and then they showed it to the publisher, who told them to stuff it.

The publishing company wanted a more serious, glamorous design, wood, gold and marble.

Well, that was the direction my first drafts had taken. 3 versions later we were settled.

Then, the next surprise came along, as they wanted PSDs with several layers, not the whole thing in one, as my 3D program would chrun it out, resulting in an all-nighter spent taking apart the scene and rendering all elements seperately.

Needless to say, I was quite upset, because all the time these programmers didn't know what they really needed and had me do extra work.

So, both sides considered, I agree with several posts in this thread.

--> Make a contract.

--> Specify EXACTLY what direction the artwork should take, maybe give examples (other games/artists?)
OR work it out together, using sketches, etc. Remember, to include that work in the price.

--> Specify what resources are needed, and which form they have to take. Jpeg? Gif? Transparenmt gif (whats the transparent colour?) etc...

--> Specify communication channels and, if needed, times.
(set up a forum if needed, 10 mins for that, forum software comes free)

:::emp:::

PS: I hope I learned something and future work will go smoother. :rolleyes:

Another tip is to try to get small samples of a contractor's work for the project you're undertaking. I don't mean generic samples from previous projects. I mean try to see if you can convince the contractor to create just one small piece of content for the actual game... sort of a try-before-you buy approach.

As a developer this is good of course because it reduces your risk. You want to know if the contractor can do thes work you need at the quality level you need before the contract is signed.

Now this may sound like a bad deal for the contractor, but it really isn't. If this is a rather big deal you're considering, it's worth taking an hour to create one small piece of content such as a simple sprite animation, a sample title screen, 30 seconds of music, ten sound effects, or a few story boards. A bad deal for the developer is almost always a bad deal for the contractor. So if you and the developer can't even reach consensus on the quality and style needed for some sample content, then that's a good sign that neither of you should enter a formal deal together.

Keep in mind that many professionals like attorneys and accountants will give out free one-hour consultations, so they and their new clients can get to know each other without obligation and decide if they want to work together. Often these professionals will give away plenty of free advice to give their clients a taste of the style and quality of their work. So if you're a contractor, don't be afraid to do this. Just give yourself a reasonable cap on how much sample content you're willing to create.

This approach has served me well over the years. For instance, I had a lot of contractors interested in creating sound effects for one particular game. So I gave each one detailed descriptions of ten sound effects that would be needed and asked them to make samples. Most did create the samples, so automatically those that didn't send any samples had no chance of getting the deal. This allowed me to pick the best contractor for the job based on seeing the quality and style of their work. And these sound effects were so unusual that it would have been impossible for people to just send stock effects from a CD library. At the very least some mixing was required. I could also learn how closely each contractor followed my specs. If I specified that an effect had to have a duration of 500-750ms, and someone send in a 2000ms sample, well then.... next!

I think for Dweep we had a character animation done and a few other pieces of art before the contract was signed as well. I think it's a really bad idea to go into a deal (both as a developer and as a contractor) if you haven't at least created one simple piece of content that you both agree is suitable in terms of style/quality for the actual game. It's hard to reach this point, but once you've reach it, it's a big milestone that makes the rest of the work go much more easily.

As a contractor the danger of course is that you get strung along with false promises from the developer after creating lots of sample content, and then they go with someone else at the last minute. And this is a real risk. But you can protect yourself a bit by limiting how much time you're willing to invest in sample content. If you feel the developer is being unresponsive, immature, or unprofessional, then by all means don't do the deal. Making sample content also lets you try out your communication channels. If your potential partner is unresponsive to phones/emails at the time when they should be most eager to move things along quickly, then it's likely only going to get worse from there.

Originally posted by ProNinja
It is common to see "money back guarantee" on shareware author's website. It allows for cheaters to use products for free.
So you trust all players, but not developers?I'm not sure what exactly this has to do with face-to-face versus over-the-internet, but if a player scams me, I'm usually out nothing. At worst, I'm out a chargeback fee if they use a stolen credit card. If a developer scams me, I can be out hundreds of dollars or more. I can be out dozens of hours of time spent talking with them, layout out the contract, evaluating and refining their designs, etc. If I had to give him some confidential info or some development tools, I'm in danger of him releasing that info (even if we signed an NDA).

Why there is need to meet? We all are talking in Dexterity forums and understand each other without meeting each other even once.For starters, it'll take me about 5 mintues to type up this post. If I were talking to you face to face, I could get these same thoughts across to you in 30 seconds. If I were trying to work out something with an artist, I could tell him an idea. If he's good, he could whip up a sample drawing in a minute. In another 15 seconds I could say "yeah thats basically what I wanted, maybe with some details around the edges here", he could scribble in a few lines, and I could say "yeah, kinda like that". Face to face is MUCH more efficient.

Well... I've been working percentage deals for some time. I do both percentage and contract. The main downside of percentage is the accounting. I usually try to work it out such that the accounting is done automatically through an affiliate system.

In general though I've been very lucky with the artists I worked with. I originally worked with Tom Grimes (who's now at Caligari) and he did a lot of great work for me and has always been a pleasure to work with. Lately I've been working with Mike Pillitiere and his work is really fantastic. He's fast and professional and the work, as far as I'm concerned, looks great. I think it basically comes down to finding and working with the right people.

I've worked as project manager for "Interactive Vision" and had to explain various things to programmers as well as to artists.

IMHO programmers and artist are in complete opposite in the way of thinking. Programmers tend to be more logic, specific and artists more abstract.

Be specific and describe the problem exactly. Do not take anything "by default". Resolution, colors, style, context and everything else related to the game.

Ecourage asking questions. Try to understand how other person interprets everything. Avoid negative reactions and show your positive impressions.

Make clear that you have final word, but avoid playing "I'm the boss and you will obey my command" role.

Be friendly, wise, diplomatic and fair to people you are working with and everything will go just fine.

If a developer scams me, I can be out hundreds of dollars or more
Avoid giving fatal tasks. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst". Give only small tasks at first until you know them better.

Face to face is MUCH more efficient.
True. If remote development was the best everyone would do this way. :) It is less expensive and good quality, but not the very best choise.

IRT ProNinja:


First of all, like I said in my post, it got nothing to do with trust.

Second, there's a big difference between one person cheating or hacking your shareware to play it for free which end up costing you maybe 20$/cheater but at least your product is out and it's up to you to find ways to prevent people from hacking it. While having to deal with someone who fail to deliver the merchandise after you've paid him will cost you a lot more than that since it might bring you down on your knees and prevent you from publishing your game if you're an Indi with very limited ressource. Why do you think I kept dealing with the artist who were causing problem once I realised that my mistake ? It's because I had to work with very limited financial ressources and couldn't afford to just push them aside and I had to make do with it.

A bad contractor can mean the dead of a project or a company in his early stage. We've been VERY lucky in our case to have people around us who trusted us enough to invest money into our project at the very last moment each time.



Third, there's a big difference between what we're doing here and working on a project. In a project, it's CRUCIAL that the Lead artist, Lead designer & Lead Programmer share a similar vision otherwise someone will have to pay and the project will never even lift off. And I can assure you that it's nearly impossible to share a vision when not communicating directly and more importantly, to be on the same "page".

We have a saying in french that says "Une Image vaut mille mots" meaning "An Image is worth a thousands words" but the same things is true for words because one word is worth a thousand images. That's where the importance to meet in person comes from. To be able to understand who you work with and what he's like. The problem sometimes has nothing to do with Quality but with vision.

Fourth, and most important of all, I've heard of countless people trying to work remotely to bring a project together, and to my knowledge it has never EVER worked right. Regardless of the size of the project or the role of the others who were involve. Down the road, something went wrong and the project went into the trash folders or someone didn't get paid or didn't receive the merchandise.

It's true that you can be fool by someone in person, but it's even easier to be fooled by someone over the internet.

I have a really "horror" story that fit into how things can easily go wrong if you don't at least try to meet face-to-face that I read somewhere else last year I think. A guy decided to create a game (a RPG if I remember correctly), so he posted a message in a forum saying that they were looking for an artist to hire.

Someone responded saying that he would be glad to do it. The guy asked for a sample of some concept art for the game and he receive a dozen great pictures in a weeks which were totally fitting what he wanted in the first place. He ask for a 3d Model, he got a great one the next day.

Very impress by the work done, the guy signed a deal with this person the next week for I think 2000$ US. Half to be paid first than the other half to be paid later. (I think they even talked over the phone).

Than after the deal was sign however, that's when everything went bad. The contractor became unreachable and the guy never receive anything in the following 2 weeks.

Finally 3 weeks after that, the guy thought he had been screwed up so he started to make a few phone calls, trying to trace back the contractor.

He first discovered that the phone call the contractor had done with him was from a phone booth and not from the phone number he had given to him on the contract which didn't reassured him. After that, he find out that there was somewhere else living at the address the contractor had given to him.

Finally, the guy decided to call the police I think or the FBI (I'm not sure) to make a claim for fraud. 2 Days later, that's when the bomb drop.....


The contractor he had hired was a 25 year old male who had died the very night the contract was sign in a car accident. So, after his death, the owner of his appartment rented it to someone else and the phone was disconnected. Nobody had access to his e-mail except him.

And on top of that, for some legal reason, he didn't manage to get his money back so he was out 1000$ for his project and he had to cancel it.

I know this is probably the worst thing that can happen and it must be an unique incident but my point is that working remotely is not recommanded because it doesn't take much to go wrong.

Nick

Originally posted by ProNinja

....

Be specific and describe the problem exactly. Do not take anything "by default". Resolution, colors, style, context and everything else related to the game.

Ecourage asking questions. Try to understand how other person interprets everything. Avoid negative reactions and show your positive impressions.

Make clear that you have final word, but avoid playing "I'm the boss and you will obey my command" role.

Be friendly, wise, diplomatic and fair to people you are working with and everything will go just fine.


I don't know exactly what kind of people you've had the luck to work with but doing everything you said here didn't prevent things from going wrong. And instead of having contractor taking us seriously, they treated us like we were their best friend and wouldn't mind if they were late, unreachable, or had problems with their personnal life that would delay the project or their work.

This is another thing I've learn, DON'T GET TOO FRIENDLY otherwise you'll end up having them treating you like you will understand everything and accept every excuses. This is business first and firemost. For the contractor, is long life project won't end if he fails to do this job for you, but for you, it means life or death of your Indie businness and it's very very hard to make them understand that (usually).

And the same thing can go around for the contractor, don't get too friendly either, otherwise the guy you're working might feel like he can ask you anything. The key to do anykind of good business is good COMPROMISE between what the artist or contractor can do for the amount he receive and what the person paying can expect to receive for this amount.

But the best way to do this remains a very good contract.



Avoid giving fatal tasks. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst". Give only small tasks at first until you know them better.



It's okay to give small task to evaluate but at some point, you have to take a fatal risk because there's also something called Artistic Vision associated with working on a project. When you start creating caracters for exemple, you can't just stop after 2 weeks (regardless of the deal you signed), and hire someone else because that person will have a very different way and give a very different looks to your characters and therefore to your game. The same thiings goes for programmers btw, (because programming can only be evaluated by the result and not by the content, it's harder to "find" a problem with a content problem with them, unless you're a programmer yourslef), you can just take someone's code and put it into another contractor's hand and expect him to just start from where the other one has left.
It just doens't work that way, so the better thing would be at this point to just start from scratch, but if you do this 3 or 4 times, you'll end up dead in the water eitherway. :(

Nick

I've paid a few contract artists before (not percentage), and it worked quite well.

*I find artists online by viewing their work, then I contact them with the following:

1. Tell them "are they interested in working for my development company, they will get a flat rate. 30% deposit, 70% completion"

2. Ask an artist to show a sample of their work based on your description (ie: please do a sample of this character that has a moody look,...)

3. If his/her work is satisfying and fits well, then I start an agreement via Paypal.

4. I send him 30% - saying: "You are [your name] and is obligated to complete the graphic requirments over X days. You also agree to make revision as deemed neccessary by me. All arts will belong to [my company] and I am obligated to pay you once the art is finished..."
-By accepting the payment, he/she is binded by what he needs to do.

5. He/she starts on the art based on the description I writes. It also helps that I give him/her the game to play with the placeholder arts.

6. Upon completion, I give him/her 70% and sometimes a little bonus. So far, this method has no problem

Hope this helps!

Morbid, but - meeting a person face to face does NOT prevent them from being hit by a car, you know. Might make it slightly easier for you to know about it, but...

Face-to-Face is actually trouble to me. Mainly because I have social anxiety, and also because I don't know anyone who hires locally (for some reason Oregon seems to be a void for game development houses, with the exception of someone like Garage Games).

Secondly, I don't do alot, I mean, I actually programming and do the art for my own games. Then I do a few things for others here and there, including a little bit of art. And usually I will do a sample or two for the person in question.

Thirdly, it seems that alot of the 'horror stories' people experience have to do with the developer paying the artist upfront, and even I don't recommend that necesserily. Usually a contract will specify payment on completion of contract, and personally that's what I prefer to work with. Also royalties (whatever i've done i've only asked for a really small amount of royalties, with one exception, and this had to do with a friend). In any case the fact that you can pay money should be enough to get people to work for you, then if it's on completion of the contract it means they finish the contract or they don't get paid.

One other thing that should be recommended is that in a contract it should state that the final artwork requires approval, and that reworking may be necessary. This way if the developer isn't happy with the artwork he can request the artist to redo it until he is.

btw if anyone wants some small bits of artwork, contact me ;-)

It's okay to give small task to evaluate but at some point, you have to take a fatal risk because there's also something called Artistic Vision associated with working on a project. When you start creating caracters for exemple, you can't just stop after 2 weeks (regardless of the deal you signed), and hire someone else because that person will have a very different way and give a very different looks to your characters and therefore to your game.
IMHO core development (lead programmer and lead artist) should be in one place. Regardless of project you are working on, there should not be unreplacable team members. You have to be prepared to change one person with another (find new one or redirect someone from other tasks) or your project is in great danger to miss dead-lines or even worse...
"Artistic vision" and overal mood of your game should be clearly and in details described in design documentation.
Just be prepared. :)

I just want to vouch for Uhfy there. I never paid him for his samples (mainly because personall matters got into the way and I couldn't finish the project, but he isn't mad are you ? :P) but he did the sample stuff I asked for and modify it after with comments from myself to bring it to what I was thinking. If you need some small 2d work, he may be your man :)


ohh and yeah, been burned a couple times, now I just try to avoid contract work with strangers and relay my work only to people I know or are highly recommended.

Paying a large advantage ($1000 or more) up front sounds very risky for remote contract work. I've only paid a small advance for local work, but even then what I usually do is split the work into mini-milestones, with a separate payment for each milestone. For instance, for a batch of music to be done for a project, there may be no up-front advance, but there's a new payment for each completed song. So if there are 10 songs for $1000 total, I pay the contractor $100 when each song has been completed and approved. These mini-milestones work nicely, since the contractor can work fast to earn the first payment very quickly. They only get paid after I approve and accept the work.

I once worked with a contractor who was extremely slow, but it didn't hurt me, since his work wasn't needed until very late in the project, so he had plenty of time. He was only hurting his own cashflow by taking so long, but I didn't care because he still got the work done by our deadline, and the mini-milestone payments were just spread very far apart. As soon as he delivered a final quality chunk of content, I would cut him a check right then and there.

Thanks Akura, and no i'm not mad...

I figure the ones that have been burned probably put money upfront, that's never a good idea, unless you know the person is reliable. However on completion of contract, means if he doesn't complete the work he doesn't get paid. For larger amounts of money, it could be split, completion of contract, and once the game makes money (or royalties)...

Anyways, yeah most artists are ego-centric so they think they're everything. But those are *real* artists heh... they think they're martars if they're starving ;-)

Originally posted by Uhfgood


... developer paying the artist upfront, and even I don't recommend that necesserily...

.. [contract] should state that the final artwork requires approval, and that reworking may be necessary.



Well, the problem is that down the road, it's not the developper who's gonna be taken advantage of but the contractor. And I haven't meet one contractor who would be ready to put that kind of clause in a contract because:

1) Most of the good one have had bad experience in the past where they didn't get paid period. So I can understand why a contractor would want to be paid a certain amount before starting anykind of work.

2) Putting a clause like that means that until the developper is satistfied you have to do has ask.

It's ironic because this kind of thing are imply when you work with someone who's really professional. He will do his best, and will get paid for it but what amazed me (and which is what I find frustrating) is the fact that for many of them this doesn't seem to be imply at all. They don't care about profesionnalism or about the quality of what they do but more about how much this is contract gonna bring them with the least amount of efforts possible or for "bad" developper get the max out of their money.

Which is why developper/Contractor have to come up with huge contract. But I'm realising that this thread is also rising awareness about this issue (for those who weren't aware or so far have been lucky).

I think that the perfect solution for both would be to work with a MileStone system, similar to the one used between Developpers and Publishers. So that way, you're only paying for what has been done. Still, it's a real pain when you have to replace someone who's been on a project for a while.

Nick

Originally posted by ProNinja
IMHO core development (lead programmer and lead artist) should be in one place. Regardless of project you are working on, there should not be unreplacable team members. You have to be prepared to change one person with another (find new one or redirect someone from other tasks) or your project is in great danger to miss dead-lines or even worse...
"Artistic vision" and overal mood of your game should be clearly and in details described in design documentation.
Just be prepared. :)

Well the problem is our situation that we also don't have a Lead artist but we've had to count on the help of contractors to do many aspect of the project. Reason why it's because we don't have enough budget to even have a part-time one, especially since we don't enough work for him/her right now.

Of course, if we had find one good artist contractor, we would probably be always dealing with him/her but it seems like we always run into problems. And that's regardless of what we put in the design document. I know that by now that I've probably be just very unlucky but the reason for this thread is also that I'm trying to figure out why.

I'm not to affraid to admit that we've made several mistake that are responsable in part for what has happen to us. Still, as you have probably notice, some people will barely write a 2-3 lines deal and that will work between the 2 of them while on the other hand, some people who write down the same contract end up being "burn" regardless of what end of the situation they are because some people are just not profesionnal enough. In our case, we had a very limited contract with or Sound/Music artist and it worked like a charm anyway because the guy was interested in doing something of quality.

In the long run, it seems to comes down to a few things.

1) Have a good contract, in case something does go wrong.

2) Make sure that the person you're hiring will get the job done on time and that he's profesionnal enough to care about his work.

3) Make sure he understand exactly what you want or that he at least will be reachable to discuss the project with you if there's a problem almost instantly and he won't be counting his money by the hour.


That seems to cover it all.
Did I forget anything ?

Nick

Well I generally don't like to work for pay upfront, because this means if I don't live up to the developers expectations that could lead to a bad reputation in the future. If I work on the contract and I end up doing the contract and I get burned, then at least with the contract I can at least seek a little legal counsel... This does mean saving any communications i have with the developer.

Now, this is the way I see it, if you are hiring me, then it's your project, and i'm just doing what YOU want me to do... So I have no problem doing what you ask because you're the one paying the money. Also if I do the artwork and it gets all long and drug out, and I don't get paid because the developer isn't satisfied, then even if I don't take action, I know not to ever talk to this developer again, and I also know to tell any of my artist friends not to talk to this developer either. If people trust me, and I get burned by you, then I can tell the people who trust me not to deal with you, and you don't get any work... On the other hand if I do a good job, and you like it, then i can tell people what a great person you are to work for.

You know the one that has the gold makes the rules... I take that to mean if you're gonna be paying me, then you make the rules, plain and simple.

IRT Uhfgood:

There's a factor you seem to forget in the equation: The cost of living. At some point, a contractor has to be able to live from the money he receive because doing it part-time could be problematic (make communications harder or force the contractor to put less time on the project).

It's not easy to start doing his if you're in it full-time and I can understand that some contractor won't want to waste their time but I just expect them to at least to have some profesionnalism in what he does.

But if you have the "luxury" of doing it that way, it's a very good policy.

Nick

I thought I'd add my two cents with regard to working with people long distance. Or even short distance if you don't face-to-face.

It does work, it just works differently to close quarters cooperation. Not taking this into account can be disasterous. The two main features that you need is talent and trust. By trust I don't mean in the form of whether they will take the money and run etc. but rather that you trust that their work will be satisfactory. That is largely why you need the talent.

It all comes down to autonomy. In a long distance project you cant really go 'Draw me a big crushing stone', 'Now draw me a small furry monster with big eyes'.

What you need is more along the lines of. The main character is fighting monsters from a water planet that all have a cutesy style but are all descenderd from squid (obviously a longer description for an actual game Size range/Framerate of anims etc). Make me 25 monsters for this.

You need to trust that the artist can do the work and give you the results and they'll have understood you and produced something that works.

Many of you will be going "Yeah, and where does this wonderfull magic artist live?"

Well, I only said how things work., not how to make things work.

Actually The things that Steve and others mentioned are good guidelines to help in the search. The two best things are prior work done on their own initiative and prior work done for others. Then ask them to do something different from anything you've seen from them to test their range.

I had one guy who did some little bits for Fitznik. I knew I could say to him "Do some stuff for this game, Make it cool" He did, It was. And it it weren't for those nasty people saying "come over to our country and work on Half-Life 2", I might have had a chance at getting him to do more. :rolleyes: Ahh well, his visa will expire one day.

On the topic then, can people recommend me some good artists (2d) that are able to work on small sprites (16x16,20x20,32x32). I'm currently not seeking, but am trying to compile a list of resources I'll be needing in the near future, and being able to get a feel of the artist and also talk to them to plan my budget would be nice.

Basically I'm looking for artists that can provide tiles, static sprites and animated sprites (either pixelated or prerendered, as long as they look good) that can do a good job on the sizes mentioned.

Originally posted by Lerc
It all comes down to autonomy. In a long distance project you cant really go 'Draw me a big crushing stone', 'Now draw me a small furry monster with big eyes'.

What you need is more along the lines of. The main character is fighting monsters from a water planet that all have a cutesy style but are all descenderd from squid (obviously a longer description for an actual game Size range/Framerate of anims etc). Make me 25 monsters for this.

You need to trust that the artist can do the work and give you the results and they'll have understood you and produced something that works.




On www.gamedev.net there is an article about how to handle a contract artist, it was a time ago when I read the article. So I hope it's still available. I am very sure that this article will be helpfull.

I actually prefer clients not in my own country:) im in canada and my 3 best clients are in New York, California and Holland:)

now that im into contract coding I like using www.rentacoder.com (they actually have art & game stuff there too), the great thing about this site is once a job is bid on and accepted, the money is paid to the website while the work is underway. Even with clients ive had for months I still use this system, it makes it safe for both sides. Once milestones are hit the buyer can release bits of the money, and weekly status reports can be made manditory.

i used to work in the art/graphic design industry, at my old work we got burned so many times even if we got a bit money up front. Meeting in person is fine and dandy, but I require people to put money where their mouthes are:) worse than that its hard when a client doesnt have the money to pay once the work is done, for a while we only got paid in things like food, gizmos and old cars:) it was pretty rough.

I found the article here it is http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article897.asp

Originally posted by SpikeSpiegel
I actually prefer clients not in my own country:) im in canada and my 3 best clients are in New York, California and Holland:)



Probably because the dollars is back to his old very low value ;).

Seriously thou, can I ask why ?

www.rentacoder.com

I've never heard about them until today. Seems like a cool idea. I'll check it out.

Nick

Originally posted by Stargamer_Nick
Probably because the dollars is back to his old very low value ;).

Seriously thou, can I ask why ?

I've never heard about them until today. Seems like a cool idea. I'll check it out.
Nick

Honestly its because the money gets held by a 3rd party, if thats the case then I dont care where my client is, and they dont care where I am:) (how well they know english is a factor though). I've never needed to use it, but if there are problems with the contract, the website will step in and they will resolve the problem so both parties are protected.

They do take a % off what the bidder makes, but honestly id rather that than not get paid at all (read my last post, i cant pay rent with army radios & boat trailors heh).

I know theres ELance too, but I've heard they dont hold the money, plus you have to pay for memberships.. ick:)

Is there any interest for Concept/3d art at the moment? Ive been lurking these forums for some time now and thought this would be the best time to post what I can offer. Im new to the whole gaming scene in general (fresh out of college) but I would love to get some more professional experience under my belt.

Well if anyone is interested I can do some professional art that wont break the bank, if your interested I can take the time to build some samples/answer questions about what I can offer to your project.

Here are some previous work samples if anyones interested (sorry about the layout):

http://www.gameshost.co.uk/hosted/farmergnome/

Thanks people

Paul Greasley

Fantastic artwork there Paul. Any chance to see any of those things animated ??

Sure ill render some animation cycles of some animated characters and animals soon and post a download link for all those interested.

Thanks again

Paul Greasley

Sorry to double post but the movies are in the same directory on the webspace now, ill add more to the zip file when I can find some more time.

Thanks

Paul Greasley

Hello, if you need good artworks for your games you can try us - http://www.300ad.com/graphic/. We are willing to discuss individual conditions. We are not working for money always ;)

Your art looks really nice Tovy. You may want to have someone with English as a first language proofread your page though. Some of the wording sounds funny and I noticed a few mispellings (illustartion and comix).


Jack

Wow, great artwork Tovy! Did you do all that yourself, or do you have a team of artists?

Thanks :) We are (300AD) three men, making games are our hobby. All of us have worked as graphic designers/illustrator/web designer during our university education, but two of us are programmers too. We develop games, but it is still our hobby so we must do graphic/programming for money but sometimes we do free graphic for interesting project as remakes of ZX Spectrum games etc. ;)

Well I've already worked on both sides: At the moment I am freelancer, but I were at a developer for some years and had to work with contracted artists.

Once I had to work with a contracted musician who also did the sounds for a game. The guy was a choice made by my boss, I did not have influence on that.
This was a was terrible time for me. He tried to deliver, but the results were always unfitting and ugly. I had to tell him again and again what I want, but the sounds never really fit the description or the game-style.
In this case it was even worse for me, that I knew him and he came by so that we worked face-to-face. This made it much harder for me tell him, how bad his work was. Well, I find it hard to tell something like that straight in the face to someone.
So a more "unpersonal" contact can have advantages too I think.

Luckily I had a icq-friend who was able to do the problematic sounds.

Bye,
Thomas

Since we really only deal with vector images, it makes things a bit tougher as most artists we talk with only can do work in Photoshop and other bitmap image manipulation programs.

The first two graphic designers were awful. The second was the worst in that they did half the work and then took off, leaving us in a rather large lurch.

As we don't deal with hard core games and aim more for the casual game playing market, it's hard to find contractors who can do family-friendly graphics that are bright and colorful. Too many of them want to do really detailed action-oriented graphics.

One thing we came up with, to better communicate our wants, is a graphical inventory which outlines all graphics, dimensions, and where they are placed in the game. This is normally in a spreadsheet that the designer can check off as they progress. We also hand them a spec sheet which in detail describes the game title, gameplay, look and feel, etc. This has really helped us secure some results that we like.

I've partnered with an artist. He also does design and helps with programming so we both feel 50/50 is fair. We've only completed one game together, but we were both very happy with the other person's effort. Near then end when I was sick of programming and wanted the game done, Dave, my partner, kept asking for features but I refused. So he did them himself. I often had to debug them but, for some reason, other people's bugs seem easy and I didn't mind. Maybe it's because I always assume my code MUST be right and the compiler or the langage is wrong when I code it. But with other people's code it's very easy to assume they're wrong. :) So our game ended up much better because I had a part time programmer with me. Overall we're happy with our first game, waiting for some registrations to start rolling in! (We've got over 200 downloads at download.com since it was up over the weekend!) If you have a friend who is an artist and can do more (programming is still the biggest chunk of these projects, right?) then you can easily have a fair partnership. I agree with other posts that the person is what matters most. When he gets lazy I know how to motivate him and vice versa.

Josh

I'm a game artist that does some contract work. I have to say that its not easy being a game Artist for hire and its not allways the artists fault that work ends up falling on the wayside.

From experience I have established certain rules and criteria required for me to do contract work for an indie game.

For me at least, the most important is the art path. I am a artist that uses 3DS max and simply will not work on level building if it requires that I use a CSG editor. That leasves out 80% of MOD tools and cheap game engines like Torque that have lousy support for 3D art assets.

So if I can't get a goos art path you can forget it no matter how good the game design and paymant package are.

More recently I met up with a guy that uses Blitz3D to write games, and surprisingly it has the best art path and stability over any other solution in the same price range. In the last months we have completed our first game, gotten a non exclusive contract with Garage Games abnd will be releasing to the publisc sometime next week through our own web page.


The one thing that worked best of all for me with this arrangement was that the coder listened to what I needed in order to create the art assets for the game. The engine had a good art path that developed over the time we worked on the game. And we both had a lot of respect for each others work and listened to one anothers problems. It probably helped that I have worked on several commercial titles and allthough I am not a programmer I have a good understanding of the technical side game engine development.

Not really a plug as the game will be moving to another server in the next couple of days :)

but the game we are releasing is called Aerial Antics and a temp web page is avaliable at:
http://wave.prohosting.com/antmax/aa/ and
http://home.pacbell.net/tysoe/Index.html

I didn't get anywhere as an artist until I started doing my own programming too. So I guess it goes both ways.

quick question Stargamer_Nick, i'm in montreal too, Plateau to be precise, sorry for hacking the thread but, where are you at?

And i 100% agree with you, NAD etc build big egos around the artist they produce. Alot of my friend went there, and when they got out, they were 'the shit', hyped up. Fact is, i'm a perfectionnist, so upon watching their demos i kinda destroyed that ego. If its not Blizzard quality... ;)

Smurf

South Shore of Montreal (Longueuil to be precise)


Do you run an Indie Company as well ?

Nick

We should move the thread after this last post or we'll be axed by the right-wing fascists that run the board ;)

jokes aside, i would, but i don't. I have a job in data warehousing/business intelligence for a small company. I program games as a hobby, but i am looking to publish one as soon as i find time to finish it. I had the same problems you had with artists, so on that i share your views. I lived in chambly for a while so i know longueuil pretty well.

If you need any help about finding ressources in Montreal, i know a couple sound guys and artists, but i dont know their availabilities as of now. You can reach me at smurftra@videotron.ca

Le Schtroumpf

Originally posted by Stargamer_Nick
That seems to cover it all.
Did I forget anything ?
[/B]
I'm just wondering...

Maybe you are offering too little money when you look for an artist? Such that the only artists you attract are 1. overconfident beginners that don't have any real idea of the work involved, so they want to bail out once the high work/reward ratio is demonstrated to them or 2. unscrupulous types that begin work thinking they can convince you to pay them more after they start. It seems that if you paid at the lowest level, you would end up with a certain class of people, and that it is best to pay at an average level.

It is just a theory. You've had much more experience with contractors than I. I hired a cheap art guy once (it went bad in the same ways you've described). I've worked as the cheap art guy a few times. (I was a big flake, but I'm much better now.)

-Erik