Pixelation

Work => Job offers => Unpaid Work => Topic started by: astraldata on May 17, 2014, 09:18:35 am

Title: Art/Multidisciplinary Team-Partnership
Post by: astraldata on May 17, 2014, 09:18:35 am
About me:

I've been doing pixel art on a professional level for more than 8 years, and in that time I have accumulated skills in a wide variety of pixel art styles and techniques, including animation. I've been composing illustrations most of my life (25+ years) in various media, so I know my way around asset-creation, composition and design too. More recently, I have been developing knowledge of making 3D games (and assets), programming tools, and developing new workflows to assist in daily game development processes in everything from programming down to art and animation in 3D games. However I love (and started with) 2D games, so I still do try to find ways to combine the two wherever possible! :D

For the past 15 years, in addition to art and animation, etc., I've been studying business, marketing, programming, and both game design and development nearly every day on my own time. I've been the lead designer, software planner, and project manager across a variety of projects, but I've since put this on the back-burner to hone my overall design skills across all many disciplines -- especially game design. I've got an extensive list of skills, but art and animation is one of my true passions, second only to game-design. Unfortunately, I can't afford time-wise to do an entire game's art all by myself, so I have to choose my projects very selectively since that time.

I have been studying 3d art and animation, as well as playing with unique visual styles and gameplay elements for years now. I'm really into experimental game concepts, preferably small (but robust!) concepts, so if you're interested in stuff like this too -- drop me a line! I'm also a huge fan of experimental games with little (but impactful!) story -- I enjoy using narrative with very limited elements (visual, gameplay, and otherwise!) and how that can still create meaningful experiences, not unlike how many games (now considered old-school) impacted me as a child. I was always a big Nintendo and Capcom fan, so anyone who loves their older games/designs might truly enjoy working with me! I've gotten these companies' approaches down to a science to understand exactly how and why they worked so well (and how and why they've botched them in recent years!) I'm interested in the future of the video game industry and would love to make an impact on that, however little, in my time here as well!



What/Who I'm looking for:

I'm looking for, at the minimum, a fellow artist who enjoys creating backgrounds, tilesets, levels and environments to work with me on creating fun and unique games. Character design and animation is my forte, but background concepting is also something I enjoy doing. A fellow programmer/artist who is also passionate about game design would be ideal too, as I haven't much time to offer either task myself, and it would be great to be able to swap tasks back and forth.

I aim to form a group of moderately-skilled *independent* artists, preferably with other passions (such as artist-designers or artist-programmers) with whom I can contribute my own art and animation skills to in order to publish promising game designs (with initially low asset-requirements) in order to ship many well-designed games to eventually position us as masters of game-design in the industry at some point. Yes, a lofty goal, but with the right minds, we can totally do this.

Ideally, the games we produce would be novel, have little overhead costs (both in project time-tables and asset-turnaround times), offset by top-notch design, planning, and execution by an overall highly-skilled creative team that we would be a part of. If you are wondering of what kind of team we'd be, think of what old-school Super Mario Bros. did with its bushes and clouds to save time and memory, and you're on the right track! Our development time would only increase from our own love for our projects, and of course, any sustained popularity of the games we create. We would aim for a Nintendo level of polish and quality at all times, but as indies, shorter projects would still be preferable to longer ones for a while, since each of us volunteer our time towards creating the greatest products we can create in the time we set aside to create them (i.e. if I can offer 16 hours this month to the project, and you can offer only 8, we may decide to tackle only a project whose scope would account for those 24 hours). Depending on the team we form, and the hearts and minds behind it -- this could very well become very lucrative for us all, as the things we create are, at the utmost-importance, a product of our own love and passion for the project and the time we have to create it. What separates us the most from indie startups today, however, is that we have the know-how to do it efficiently and we already know exactly what we are capable of! If you are an artist that has failed or has indefinitely-delayed projects under your belt, then you, my friend, are our partner.

Because you have experienced the soul-crushing defeat of a project of passion's failure, -- with that -- you now understand just what exactly will take a project of passion down the road to failure a hundred times better than anyone who has not failed so gloriously. So don't give up. Join us. We will make something great together.

If this kind of thing sounds like your cup of tea, then hit me up yo~!



The idea with any near-future projects I work on with our team, is to get a few very manageable projects off of the ground and make a name for ourselves in our spare time.

I'm a firm believer in the "you get what you give" philosophy.

The more work you put into yourself, the more work I (and I expect the team to) put into your development as a partner, a fellow artist, and as a friend. There isn't a lot of incentive to do other people's art for free, therefore you have creative control over the art you do, and, as a partner, we would only expect you contribute that to the project we are working on together, and ask that you simply don't offer us more hours than you will devote. We're all independent, and we all respect that in one another. We all pick the projects we do (as a unified whole) rather than as individuals. If we all aren't passionate about the project (through ALL stages of its development!) -- then it isn't a feasible project -- and we pull the plug. It is up to us to give all of our projects the 'shine' each deserves. Above all, we create the games we love ourselves. Nothing more. Nothing less. The world's full of shitty games already. Why add more to the pile?

I'll give more specifics as to how the partnership would work exactly, but this is an arrangement between independent artists and designed to empower you with the group's name and resources to help you make a name for yourself as an artist/designer/programmer/etc., by being part of a top-notch team who has shipped actual game titles. Monetary stuff should just be considered a side-effect. Our focus, at first at least, would be in creating a strong team to act as the backbone behind some very recognizable games.

We will need to see examples of your work as a game artist, so consider this as you would an application to any serious art job (in the sense that you'd not only be sending us your work (i.e. a portfolio), but the process/steps/tools in which it took you to arrive there). Regarding your secondary passions, please, show us whatever proves you are also passionate about these other interests as well. Remember, this is a small team, so we can only accept a limited number of people. If you're interested even remotely in a team like this -- now's your chance to join us! :)


Contact Info:
Send samples of your art to me via PM to apply. Tell me about yourself and your goals in art/games and in life in general. I'll get back to you asap.



Some info about my art:

mixed and newer examples of my artwork:  http://imgur.com/a/d4BR4

random examples of my work (very old art,  game-related art, and recent-ish art):  http://smg.photobucket.com/user/aceallen/slideshow/portfolio
Title: Re: [Offer] -- Pixel Art/Animation Mentorship
Post by: jams0988 on May 21, 2014, 08:26:30 am
You should upload your screenshots somewhere else - right now, you need to log in to that forum to see any of the images. You might also want to post some examples of your work, so people feel more motivated to do free labor for you in exchange for your guidance. I tried checking what you've posted on here, but all I found were a few health meters and a black blob, which doesn't tell anyone much about how much they could learn from you. You've worked on pixel art "on a professional level" for over seven years. What projects are you referring to? If you're allowed to post examples of your stuff from the games you've worked on, that would probably be best. If not, a list of projects you've worked on professionally would still be good to know for people on the fence about working with you.

Interesting concept, though. I can see someone jumping on this if you post a little more work! =)
Title: Re: [Offer] -- Pixel Art/Animation Mentorship
Post by: LarkoftheRiver on July 07, 2014, 02:57:20 pm
I agree with jams0988, I would like to see the examples before applying, and the forum doesn't allow guests to see images. I am, however, very very interested in this. I know the thread is old, so that brings me to my first question- are you still taking applicants?
Secondly, I'm still a student in high school, and in the marching band. This will (especially in the fall semester and the entire month of August) take up a lot of my time, so I might not be able to work on pixels until the weekend. Would this effect you taking me as an apprentice? (If that made any sort of sense, I was having trouble wording the question.)
Also, I mostly work on animals now, but I've been doing a bit of human anatomy practice over the past month and I've gotten a bit better, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to pixel human(oid)s yet. Will that make me inelegable for this?

I hope that this is still open, and I look forward from hearing from you about it soon!
Title: Re: [Offer] -- Pixel Art/Animation Mentorship
Post by: astraldata on July 08, 2014, 09:26:59 am
No problem. Added a link to some samples of my work. It's only fair that I show you mine if you'll show me yours. ;P

Most of my work is not available to share, but I have enough there to show you some sense of my skills. I don't have much animation to show aside from edits I do on here for people, but until I get more time to find and upload stuff, hopefully you can take my word that I know my way around it well.

---

@LarkoftheRiver
To address your first question -- yes, I am still interested in mentoring promising pixel artists. I will update the subject line / topic when I feel I've had enough.

For your second question, I would work my schedule around yours if you'll work yours around mine. The important thing is to keep your word about when you'll show up. Apparently some of the people I've considered taking on so far aren't even reliable enough to keep a schedule with this thing, so I'm becoming a lot more selective about who I consider taking on now. After all, I am past the point of making games for a hobby -- I treat it like a job, and I expect you to also (i.e. show up when you're supposed to, and do your best while you're there in order to progress long-term -- after all, you're learning skills that you can truly apply when you're done, and you'll have a game title under your belt when you do).

Though I do feel I need to point out that "drawing animals" alone isn't enough to help anyone truly grow as an artist. That means you need to be flexible and also willing to try and fail multiple times on uncomfortable subjects because I will require you to draw everything from scenery and backgrounds to characters and animation of all kinds. This is to progress you as both a pixel artist and as a traditional artist as well, and understanding animation will help you learn traditional illustration better, which is helps to learn how to render pixel art -- it's one big harmonious loop of awesome that's as difficult as it is fun (once you get the hang of it at least -- and that requires a lot of time and patience).

I emphasize the "promising pixel-artist" portion because it's not for true beginners or the faint of heart. This is an intensive course geared to train someone who truly and passionately wants to get into the games industry with a title under their belt that they contributed to significantly as part of a team. That means you need to learn some of the basics of pixel art yourself -- and when you're ready and have something to show me you know the basics at least, we can then get started.

Things like hueshifting and basic form through value/contrast and no longer needing outlines to draw decent sprites are all considered basic skills. I can teach you color selection techniques and other advanced stuff as long as you can manage basic form and construction via pixels on your own. We will generally start out on static objects and environments before we get into more advanced stuff like characters and animation, so you need to be a good bit comfortable with this sort of thing before we even begin. You also need to have some sense of basic shading down. I'll help you color and light stuff with specific textures / materials later on -- just basic form shadowing is all that's required at first.

Once you get some of these things down enough on your own to feel like you've got a good grip, then send me some of your pixel art examples and we'll see if we can go from there. Though, if you've done pixel art consecutively (i.e. a pixel every other day or two) for less than 2 months, it's a good rule of thumb that you probably still need more time to study on your own.

Just some things to think about before sending examples of your work.


Also Note:  I will no longer be accepting less than 5 examples of pixel art when applying for the mentorship.
Title: Re: [Offer] -- Pixel Art/Animation Mentorship
Post by: LarkoftheRiver on July 08, 2014, 11:38:41 am
Thank you for your reply! Glad to know you're still accepting. ^^

In regards to showing up on time, I'm a very reliable person in that. I always try to keep my word on when I'm going to show up anywhere, unless something suddenly pops up out of nowhere and I have to leave quickly. I'll try to let you know what's going on in my life, however.

Animals are what I'm good at, but I'm honestly not proud of that fact. I've done some pixel landscapes but danggg.. they were bad.  I haven't attempted a human yet, but I think I'll try so today.

I've always been looking at the game industry (I have no game programming experience, but I'm taking a computer science class this year so hopefully I got into the class [schedules aren't posted] and it will teach me some. It was in the syllabus so I don't see why that would change..) and maybe even animation and design. Even if I don't pixel in my later life, this will still provide me with skills for animation, art, design, etc that I might need in real life, besides its basically a job and even though I might not be able to put it on my resume I can still use the experience.

Thank you for your reply, I will send my work in once I have something amazing to give you! ;D
Title: Re: [Offer] -- Pixel Art/Animation Partnership
Post by: astraldata on April 24, 2016, 10:08:36 pm
I've updated this topic to note that I'm no longer offering free mentorship alone -- I am combining that with a partnership opportunity as well.

I am looking for ~2 moderately skilled artists with whom I could contribute my own art and animation skills to experimental game projects. These would be well-designed experiences (but with low asset-requirements) that would allow us to release many games that would eventually position us in a favorable light in the industry. Ideally, these games would have little overhead costs, both in project time-tables and asset-creation, offset by great design, planning, and execution by the highly skilled team that both you and I are a part.

If this latter thing sounds like your cup of tea, hit me up yo~!