AuthorTopic: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)  (Read 32608 times)

Offline nvision

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #10 on: March 25, 2014, 05:07:55 pm
Artist #4: Very high profile / well known artist. Sent him an email asking if he had interest in my project. Received a reply after two weeks or so saying he was interested. Sent back specs, current tilesets, and suggested doing a few tiles so we could make sure we were on the same page. After that he disappeared and hasn't replied to me in nearly a month.

I just don't get the communication issues. How hard is it to send an email? Say you aren't interested, say you are busy, say something came up in life, just make sure to NEVER go MIA. A 10 second email is the best thing you can do to keep business in the future.

I'd try mailing them again, though one month with no word is a little strange.  Overaggressive junk filters have made me look the fool in the past, both with incoming and outgoing mail.  Also, a lengthy hospital stay had a couple of clients wondering about my status (I couldn't sit upright, let alone use a computer).  Emails with attachments seem to have a greater chance of vanishing into the ether, and if I don't receive a response with some sort of feedback in a week or so I'll usually send a follow-up via two separate addresses.

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #11 on: March 25, 2014, 06:00:27 pm
I feel like this also adds up to this thread here - imo one of the greatest and most truthful graphs:

y
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Offline robmpreston

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #12 on: March 25, 2014, 06:36:48 pm
Artist #4: Very high profile / well known artist. Sent him an email asking if he had interest in my project. Received a reply after two weeks or so saying he was interested. Sent back specs, current tilesets, and suggested doing a few tiles so we could make sure we were on the same page. After that he disappeared and hasn't replied to me in nearly a month.

I just don't get the communication issues. How hard is it to send an email? Say you aren't interested, say you are busy, say something came up in life, just make sure to NEVER go MIA. A 10 second email is the best thing you can do to keep business in the future.

I'd try mailing them again, though one month with no word is a little strange.  Overaggressive junk filters have made me look the fool in the past, both with incoming and outgoing mail.  Also, a lengthy hospital stay had a couple of clients wondering about my status (I couldn't sit upright, let alone use a computer).  Emails with attachments seem to have a greater chance of vanishing into the ether, and if I don't receive a response with some sort of feedback in a week or so I'll usually send a follow-up via two separate addresses.

Yeah, I followed up with him several times and no response! So weird, could be a spam filter, could be real life. I'm huge on communication, so I always follow up and try to give the benefit of the doubt first but eh. People are weird! Haha.

Offline robmpreston

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #13 on: March 25, 2014, 06:37:51 pm
I feel like this also adds up to this thread here - imo one of the greatest and most truthful graphs:

y

Heh! Makes sense. I haven't contacted you because I doubt I can afford you :P Amazing work.

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #14 on: March 26, 2014, 05:33:17 pm
I am also big on good and timely communication.
Communication needs time, but can achieve real wonders.

However Live sometimes is stressful and a lot of unexpected events can happen. I agree that it's not a big problem to make quick sure what's going on, but not just for the artist, the person who buys the art also has the responsibility to answer in time.
I already worked with some clients were communication wasn't great at all. This problem definitely occurs on both sides.

After all I suppose artist and client have to match together that something good will be the outcome.

Communication is a skill.
Also how a client communicates the asset he wants to have.

for example:
1) I want to have a character in your style
that's quite ambiguous and can mean a lot.

2)I need a character which works like the characters work in "insert game here" with a sprite size of "insert size here" and x and y "frames"
That's already better and tells a lot, howeve rif some of the parameters don't fit together well, it can turn out that the art won't be great, because the restrictions are just plain bad.
For example huge sprites and a really low amount of animation frames will always lead to choppy results.

There are many more ways, but I just wanted to adress that the quantity and quality of communication also can differ a lot.


And one more thing
Indeed it can happen that it's impossible to reach someone via E-Mails, because mails just vanish or an inbox is full, or whatever.
Then it's good to have another way for contact (via a social network, a program, a forum, a different mail account or whatever)

It's also good to agree on a timeframe between messages.
If one exceeds that timeframe, it's a possibility to just resend the last E-Mail, just to make sure, that it didn't vanish.


If I get an E-Mail from anyone, I usually answer it as soon as possible, since that's what I expect from other people too.
"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

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Offline yaomon17

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #15 on: March 26, 2014, 06:07:03 pm
I am also big on good and timely communication.
Communication needs time, but can achieve real wonders.

However Live sometimes is stressful and a lot of unexpected events can happen. I agree that it's not a big problem to make quick sure what's going on, but not just for the artist, the person who buys the art also has the responsibility to answer in time.
I already worked with some clients were communication wasn't great at all. This problem definitely occurs on both sides.

After all I suppose artist and client have to match together that something good will be the outcome.

Communication is a skill.
Also how a client communicates the asset he wants to have.

for example:
1) I want to have a character in your style
that's quite ambiguous and can mean a lot.

2)I need a character which works like the characters work in "insert game here" with a sprite size of "insert size here" and x and y "frames"
That's already better and tells a lot, howeve rif some of the parameters don't fit together well, it can turn out that the art won't be great, because the restrictions are just plain bad.
For example huge sprites and a really low amount of animation frames will always lead to choppy results.

There are many more ways, but I just wanted to adress that the quantity and quality of communication also can differ a lot.


And one more thing
Indeed it can happen that it's impossible to reach someone via E-Mails, because mails just vanish or an inbox is full, or whatever.
Then it's good to have another way for contact (via a social network, a program, a forum, a different mail account or whatever)

It's also good to agree on a timeframe between messages.
If one exceeds that timeframe, it's a possibility to just resend the last E-Mail, just to make sure, that it didn't vanish.


If I get an E-Mail from anyone, I usually answer it as soon as possible, since that's what I expect from other people too.
Can we sticky this is the job req board or make it a requirement to read before posting a job request. This truth in this post is overwhelming T.T

Offline Crow

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #16 on: June 12, 2014, 08:28:22 pm
Moved and stuck upon request.
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Offline AlcopopStar

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #17 on: November 12, 2014, 03:21:55 am
Good info Cyangmou.

I charge around $30 an hour, cost before hand, and ask for half the money up front with two revisions included in the price. (this can stretch a bit)

I try to cost reasonable hours for the work, not the actual hours it might take, ideally these will be the same but with areas i'm not experienced with I usually need some time to learn / wrap my head around the given thing and I don't think it's completely reasonable to charge for that.

I've been working without contracts up to this point, but i'm looking to take freelancing more seriously next year so if anyone has any information on how to set that up i'de love to hear.

As people have said, the most important thing is communication, manners and timeliness. Don't wait to be given deadlines, set them yourself and make sure you keep them. Work that drags on is bad for everyone involved.

Another question though, are testimonials a good idea? i've got a pretty good professional relationship with two devs I've worked with this year, and it would be fine for me to get  testimonials from them, but I wonder if having that on a website is a little... cheesy?

The other advice I've heard is to charge through paypal invoices (if your using paypal) this makes tax easier to deal with I hear and is generally the most professional method.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2014, 03:25:05 am by AlcopopStar »

Offline PikoInteractive

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #18 on: December 05, 2014, 11:46:06 pm
I been a Lurker here for a while, but I think a few Pixel Artist here have applied for project that we have posted on twitter or Facebook.

Just recently I had a problem and called out the pixel artist that I hired for a project. He would go dark for weeks and would not respond to my emails/skype messages (even when he was online).

This made me send and email saying we would make a paypal claim for our last milestone payment. He responded withing 2-3 minutes saying he miscalculated the quotes and yada yada. I told him is not really about the money, it is about the relationship we want to have with a pixel artist. Communication was crap on his end, and we could not trust him. A simple 2 second email a week or every two weeks saying "update, I didn't do shit this week" would have made me So happy and knowing I'm on the loop. At the end, and after a couple of emails, I felt bad and ended up giving him another opportunity, but I will be a bit more strict.

Anyways, We do something very different, we still produce games for home consoles that are defunct (NES, SNES, Genesis) so we can't really pay much! I always try to pay per character sprite sheet than per hour.

Still can't go to people that charge $20+ per hour because that's about our profit mark per cartridge sold.

However for these platforms you have limitations that sometimes help make sprites easier because you need less frames etc.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents.

Offline PsylentKnight

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Re: Pixel Art Jobs (and salary)

Reply #19 on: June 07, 2015, 11:30:25 pm
Does anyone have a sample contract template they could post? Also, is Paypal generally the standard for stuff like this? I've heard a lot of horror stories about Paypal, but I'm afraid potential clients would be wary of or inconvenienced by alternatives.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2015, 09:30:55 am by PsylentKnight »
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