AuthorTopic: [Non Paid] Need A Beginner Pixel Artist For Mario Maker Like Game  (Read 4317 times)

Offline Chay Hawk

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Hi, My Name is Chay, and I am developing a 2D game inspired off of Mario Maker, Gmod, Contraption Maker and Scribblenauts. The game will be far more powerful, flexible and customizable than Mario Maker, allowing the creator to make any kind of trap, enemy, vehicle, mechanical object, weapon etc they can think of by using pre made assets. (Custom textures will be allowed later in the games development.) Also the player will be able to create and share their own levels and pre-fabricated items that they make.

I need someone who can do pixel art to create tiles for the game. The art style im going for is Super mario bros 3, or something similar. The game will be made in Unreal Engine 4, using UE4's 2D game maker, Paper 2D.

If you are interested please email me at: thundermountainstudios@yahoo.com

Please include samples of your work when applying, this can be tile sheets, website with your work on it, screenshots of completed projects etc.

Thank You

Chay Hawk, Thunder Mountain Games Studio
« Last Edit: April 26, 2016, 07:02:27 pm by Chay Hawk »

Offline Matwek

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I am hiring someone to make the game, development will start April 1st, so I need someone before then. Also the game will be very expensive to develop so every cent I have is going towards that, and even then there are some things that have to be cut out of the game for now, so, unfortunately, I can only pay in post launch compensation.
Can I ask why you intend to pay a programmer but not an artist?

Offline Chay Hawk

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Hi Matwek, sure, we'll basically I had already made a deal with the programmer that it would be around a certain amount of money around 2 months from the beginning of April, and by the time she gets the game done, i'll have saved that amount of money up so unfortunately I wont have any money to pay an artist, but I can do about 5%, maybe 10% royalties, if the person is really really good. I have already found a sound designer who has agreed to do 5%, so I just need a pixel artist at this point.

Hopefully that answered your question, if you have any more please feel free to ask.

Hi Matwek, sure, we'll basically I had already made a deal with the programmer that it would be around a certain amount of money around 2 months from the beginning of April, and by the time she gets the game done, i'll have saved that amount of money up so unfortunately I wont have any money to pay an artist, but I can do about 5%, maybe 10% royalties, if the person is really really good. I have already found a sound designer who has agreed to do 5%, so I just need a pixel artist at this point.

Hopefully that answered your question, if you have any more please feel free to ask.

Also I would like to mention that I plan to apply for an Unreal Dev Grant from Epic games, they can give you anywhere from 5k to 50k for your project if they like it, no strings attached. They state that if a project makes them say, whoa, then they will give you money, and i have a very very very good feeling about this project, so there is a chance you can get paid, however that's not a guarantee. I could also do a kickstarter, but I have to have something to show backers, and i would still need a pixel artist in the meantime. Epic Games stated, that even if you do a kickstarter, they will still give you money if they like your project so there are some options, but like I said, I need something to show first.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2016, 02:18:04 am by Chay Hawk »

Offline surt

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You have approximately zero chance of attracting a "really good artist" on the promise of royalty only.
Literally zero chance without a strong and demonstrable track record.

Offline Matwek

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Hopefully that answered your question, if you have any more please feel free to ask.
Not really. It's great that you're going to save up and pay a programmer up front for their time and work, I just don't get why you wouldn't do the same for an artist or a musician?
It makes you come across as thinking that art and music is an afterthought, and that programming is more important. Now you're entitled to think that, but I can't imagine its going to put you in many artists good books by doing so.

I would suggest waiting a few more months to save up for some art or cut back on the programming and use some of that money to pay for art assets.

Please bear in mind that I personally wouldn't do a profit share for anything less than 25/30%. In a profit share, the second party is taking the risk so therefore it stands to reason that they should potential be getting more out of the deal then if they were paid up front.

Offline Chay Hawk

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Hi Matwek, the programmer does not get paid up front, only when the work is complete. As for not paying an artist or musician,  I didn't meant to make it sound like they were less important, I certainly dont think they are less important. All are equally important, I just already made a deal with the programmer, although I do understand where your coming from.

How much does a pixel artist charge anyways? lets say I wanted them to make 4 or 5 different tile sets, and some backgrounds, an animated character, items and weapons, how much would some one on average charge me for all of that? I could probably pay someone if it isn't absurdly high. I have no experience with 2D artists so I have no idea what they charge, I mostly work with 3D artists on my other project.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2016, 12:58:43 pm by Chay Hawk »

Offline yaomon17

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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:
0-10$/h working for free, first gig, deviantart offers (unprofessional field)
10-15$/h beginners, students (unprofessional field)
15-30$/h young, talented artists
30-40$/h established experienced artists
40-50$/h world's top class

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
40-120$/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)

art scene/popular artists:
200$/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

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...

Offline Chay Hawk

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Ok thank you that info was helpful, so I would be looking for someone in the $15-30, $30-40 range, so how many hours would it take to complete a tile sets with lets say, 35-40 tiles, an animated character and some backgrounds? 6, 7 hours? It says the more experienced ones create stuff faster because they know what they're doing but that really doesn't mean anything to me because i have no idea how long it takes for an experienced person to create a tile set to begin with.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2016, 08:42:41 am by Chay Hawk »

Offline yaomon17

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Depends on if the tiles are 1000000x1000000 or 10x10

Offline Chay Hawk

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I need a pixel artist, looking for a beginner who would be willing to work for free, I just need some temporary art, something the programmer can use and something that looks decent enough to make a video with so I can post that on Kickstarter.