AuthorTopic: Difficulty in Finding Quality Artists  (Read 3533 times)

Offline ddustin

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Difficulty in Finding Quality Artists

on: October 19, 2009, 07:30:12 pm
I'm a programmer and I've struggled with this for years now.  It looks like the 'Work' section doesn't get too many replies.

How do you recommend finding quality talent?  All the times I have it has been through pure luck.

Best,
Dustin Dettmer

Offline blumunkee

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Re: Difficulty in Finding Quality Artists

Reply #1 on: October 19, 2009, 11:26:29 pm
Smooch, smooze, socialize. Find a place where game programmers and artists aggregate, make yourself known and make connections. Tigsource is an excellent starting point. You'd be suprised how many connections you can get when you know somebody that knows somebody who is looking for somebody.

Offline rikfuzz

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Re: Difficulty in Finding Quality Artists

Reply #2 on: October 19, 2009, 11:56:23 pm
I'm a programmer and I've struggled with this for years now.  It looks like the 'Work' section doesn't get too many replies.

How do you recommend finding quality talent?  All the times I have it has been through pure luck.

Best,
Dustin Dettmer

Well, most of the Work posts would be replied to privately. Artists are often flaky with free work, if it's paid there's no excuses really. A lot of people try to get artists onboard with promises of future royalties or great work for the folio - that just won't keep talented artists (or programmers for that matter) interested for very long, and amateur artists are probably young/flaky/both anyway. Just check for previous titles, if they have one or two, they're probably more reliable.

Offline ddustin

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Re: Difficulty in Finding Quality Artists

Reply #3 on: October 20, 2009, 07:01:29 pm
It looks like I got two responses that were pretty impressive.  Awesome!

I have to get into this networking stuff though.  Do you know anywhere I can find good musicians and sfx guys?

Offline #36005A

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Re: Difficulty in Finding Quality Artists

Reply #4 on: October 20, 2009, 10:00:48 pm
It looks like I got two responses that were pretty impressive.  Awesome!

I have to get into this networking stuff though.  Do you know anywhere I can find good musicians and sfx guys?
It depends somewhat on the kind of music you're looking for.
If you're not sure about a particular style, TIGsource is a great place to start for this too.
If you want chiptune-style music, check out http://www.8bitcollective.com/ for a great range of talent. Of course you could also contact some of the chiptune labels (http://www.iimusic.net/, http://www.8bitpeoples.com/) and see if any of their artists are interested in jobs. The chiptune/8bit community is really what I'm most familiar with.
Speaking of netlabels in general, though, you can also check out this site. And then of course there's always Newgrounds, but I can't speak for the talent as it's so huge in popularity.
You'll also find a lot of talented musicians in the demoscene, which has ties to both pixel art and chiptune. In fact, one could say both mediums grew in popularity at a certain time period because of the scene.

Good luck!