General > General Discussion

Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

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Zizka:
Hello guys,

I realize this was discussed before but the thread goes back to 2007 so I figure might as well create a new thread instead of reviving a thread which is 7 years old...

I would like some clear guidelines regarding paid jobs. I'm reading on the net but I can't find anything clear about this. Whenever I apply for a job, the dev' will ask how much I want but since I have no reference point, I end up never knowing what to say and it's a bit frustrating.

I realize it's a case by case basis and it will vary and blah blah blah but surely there are some general guidelines?

For instance, how much do you charge when creating something and animating it? Do you consider the time it took you or the amount of frames or the size of the sprite?

In other words, I'd like to hear from people who do this for a living so that I can get some solid(ish) references whenever I have to negotiate a fee with a customer.

Also, can I upload art done for a game in my gallery (provided I mention that I don't "own" it anymore)? Is there a legal stance about this or is it just something you need to discuss every time with the customer.

Also, how often do you ask to be paid? Every time or after x amount of time or?

So you see, a lot of questions I can't find any answers for. I'm really looking for different answers here so that I can infer some sort of guidelines by comparing what comes back the most often in the various answers and thus know how to handle myself better when it comes to dealing with fees.

Thank you in advance.  ;D

Cyangmou:
1.) if you are professional always do a contract
2.) being professional means that you have to pay taxes - taxes are costly (and so you can take away around 35-50% of the hourly wages to get to a real rate) - most probably you also have to come up for your health insurance which also can get expensive (in some countries the company pays it, if you are employed)

Regarding to copyright talk with an lawyer specialized into that topic and he will tell you all the little details.

Since game art is mostly project based, the freelance rates compared to other graphical jobs are lower, however, since jobs can go on easily for hundreds of hours, the risk is smaller than like for web design (where 150-200$/h is a common rate, but yeah, there you don't know when you will get the next job and the briefings are usually more complicated as well).

The country where you live also plays a big role.

executive field / Europe/US:

hobby-sector:
0-15$/h working for free, first gig, deviantart offers (unprofessional field)
15-20$/h beginners, students (unprofessional field)
20$-30$ experienced hobbyists without business costs (basically they take some smaller jobs but can't complete projects and just do it in their sparetime)

professional-sector (30-60% of that will be costs for taxes, healthcare, etc. you have to pay for a professional business, you will get invoices, tax reduction and all the nitty-gritty business stuff):
10-25$/h young, talented artists (artschool only, freshmans who are motivated but don't know yt what they do)
25-60$/h junior artists, freelance (school experience, but not much real world / industry experience, no completed projects)
60$/h-100$/h senior artists, freelance (they have been through several projects and know what they do, usually many completed and released projects in their resume)
more: world's top class, freelance (open end, usually those artists make their own prices, have some kind of publicity, are known etc. - by hiring them you also hire advertisment and contacts, which also pays off differently than money)

some comparative values:
craftsmen (plumbers, electricians, painters) 30-100$ per hour
coders can range from 10-250$ an hour
doctors and lawyers can cost about 200$ an hour

there aren't really established flatrate values, those always depend.

why is it like that?
-quality/time (experienced artists produce better quality much faster than beginners, beginners will most likely need much more time and the result will be much worse in terms of quality than what an experienced artists produces in the matter of minutes)
-experienced artists will have established workflows and can completely switch between style directions, because they are perfectly able to control what they make - this leads to less revisions
Means in most cases it really pays off in the long run to hire an experienced artist, who knows exactly what he is doing.

design agencies:
up to 200$/h

art direction/art asset planning
40-250$/h (huge responsibility, one wrong decision in the art design process can lead to multiple thousand of dollars budget changes for a whole game project - usually you hire those guys to safe multiple thousands of dollars of wrong investment in a project down the road)

usually you will get down to a 65$ rate for a project-sized job which includes a week or longer of work, single hours or less work usually is also more expensive, which means the rate goes up.
Note that the rate in the link is not for freelance work, but rather from a company employment perspective.

art scene/popular artists:
100$/h and higher

G.A.G. Guide
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=36539.msg963792#msg963792

Old article on gamasutra:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AdamSaltsman/20090724/2571/Pixel_Art_Freelance_Best_Practices__Guidelines.php
note that the guy seems to have mostly acted as a hobbyist and didn't have many years of experience in the artstyle.

Game Budgets:
http://blog.mostlytigerproof.com/2010/09/18/game-budgets-a-powers-of-10-overview/

Art direction rates USA
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes271011.htm


Freelancing means that you have to do all your stuff on your own, all your bookkeeping, all your mails, all your working times etc. You are self employed, your own boss and you are fully responsible for what you are doing. Nobody will pay you for answering initial e-mails.



If you want to freelance professionally:

first compare your work made by other professionals

Basically:
a) how much do you need to make a living (with all costs included)
b) how much hours do you want to work
calculate hourly rate (and look if you are in your range)

do you get enough jobs?

does anyone pay your hourly rate?
if yes, great
if not, maybe you aren't working enough hours, your quality is to low compared to your concurrence, you lack something, you are working to slow...

Zizka:
Wow!

Thanks A LOT Cyangmou. Maybe this could be stickied or something, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been wondering about this.

Actually, I'd like to do this as a sideline as opposed to a full time job. Thanks a lot again, very insightful.

breakfast:
I'm not as experienced as Cyangmou but I like to think I've learned a little bit during my first year getting paid to make art for games!

Starting out doing game art on the side, I asked $16/hr for my first job (I live in the US for reference). I had made art for my own personal game projects previously so I knew a bit about it already and consider myself a pretty decent artist. The client agreed immediately to that price so that's when I knew I probably asked too little. I read afterwards that this is basically as low as you should ever go. If you have a pretty good concept of making art for games I would say ask maybe $18ish/hr for your first job or two.

The rate you ask should depend on a couple things. Feel out the client first and foremost, if they act like they've done this before you can safely ask a little more than from someone who is making their first game. If the job is just a short little project I usually ask less per hour and if the job is going to last for months or even years I make sure to ask more because your cost of living and your skill level will both likely increase during the allotted time period. My rate also varies depending on how badly I need the work at the time, if I already have several jobs lined up I will ask more, if I need the money in a pinch I will settle for less per hour. And this may not be the best to admit, but if I am not really feeling the game concept and the job doesn't get me too excited I will usually ask more per hour because at least $ will keep me interested in the job.

Contracts are very important, but they can't always save you from getting screwed. I have had clients sign contracts only to refuse to pay come the first or second month's delivery of work. The contract is broken but it is just not a large enough loss for me to consider taking them to small claims court. Then I am out several hours of work with these custom made art assets that nobody else will want. I prefer to receive down payments before I start the work, this shows me the client is serious. Sometimes it is hard to get the client to agree to this, but there is usually some way to ensure you don't do massive amounts of work before any payment is received. Also you should send work samples to the client as a .jpg so the work can't be stolen and placed directly in their game.

For new clients I try to receive payment once a week or twice a month, for trusted clients I usually just do down payments and final payments or once at the end of every month. I use Invoicera for all my time tracking and invoicing needs, it looks professional and shows the client as much info about the time I worked as I want them to know.

Do not upload any art you've done for clients without their permission. In my contracts I like to put a clause stating the work can be displayed in my portfolio, so if they sign that they've already agreed to this. I recommend doing some research on copyright laws and looking up example contracts to get an idea of what you need to include in yours.

Best of luck! Hope this helps some.

Zizka:
Hello Breakfast, :)

Yes, it's very enlightning especially regarding payment, I was wondering about that. Thanks for the input, it's super useful to me (and others too I bet).  :y:

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