Artwork question

[talesien]

Hey everyone. I am starting to do some research on artwork for Conquest! and I have a few ideas, but am not sure the best way to go. This game is VERY artwork intensive (for the first set, we will need roughly 500 pieces of artwork, since this is a CCG driven game). I have thought of approaching all of the art departments at the colleges throughout the state and even a couple of neighboring states to see if they would want to make this an assignment  that would provide their students with real world experience and get their stuff published. Wanted to get feedback on that idea. Also, wanted to get some type of an idea of what kind of cost we are going to be looking at.

Last but not least, one of my other ideas was finding a few artists to do the work, and coming up with some kind of revenue sharing, or stock option for payment. All of your thoughts and responses are greatly appreciated.

Gary

[Julian]

Hey everyone. I am starting to do some research on artwork for Conquest! and I have a few ideas, but am not sure the best way to go. This game is VERY artwork intensive (for the first set, we will need roughly 500 pieces of artwork, since this is a CCG driven game). I have thought of approaching all of the art departments at the colleges throughout the state and even a couple of neighboring states to see if they would want to make this an assignment  that would provide their students with real world experience and get their stuff published. Wanted to get feedback on that idea.

It seems unlikely to me that you'd get much cooperation.

But advertising work to art students may get you a stable of artists.

Also, wanted to get some type of an idea of what kind of cost we are going to be looking at.

If you can get it done for $50,000, you're doing pretty well. And that's an up-front cost.

If you want the copyrights, expect to pay more.

Last but not least, one of my other ideas was finding a few artists to do the work, and coming up with some kind of revenue sharing, or stock option for payment. All of your thoughts and responses are greatly appreciated.

The artists need to eat. Revenue-sharing and stock options don't pay the bills. You still need to pay them something up front.

WotC apparently got it done for $50 plus royalties, but there are a lot more opportunities for artists in the industry nowadays. Also, if you have no track record, a lot of people will probably not want to bank on any promise of future payments.

Another thing: make sure you've got enough slack in your deadlines to handle it when artists flake out. A few will. If you're going the 'hire students' route, odds are a noticeable number will.

[talesien]

Sounds like the costs for the card artowork is going to be significantly higher than I anticipated. Would I have better luck going after artwork that has already been done, rather than getting new work made for the project? I guess what I'm saying is, would artists be more likely to liscense their existing works?

Gary

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Gary,

I can't answer your primary question, but perhaps this could be helpful to you. It has a bunch of pictures that are creative commons and open domain, perhaps it could give you something to build from.

[pells]

Gary,

I don't know if it's worth it, but maybe I could give you some insight on what I'm doing, since I do have the same concern.
I'm also looking at those figures (i.e. around 400) to illustrate my game. Lucky for me, it's not CCG, so I don't need all the illustrations done before beginning to sell my game. That said, I'm currently working with two artists. For the moment, I'm paying them out of my pocket, and they know that well (I guess it's important).

I'm paying around 30 for an illustration (in fact, 1000 for a 30 illustrations contract). A piece of advice : don't go on illustrators forum with that kind of offer, they will tell you you're looking for slaves. Professional artists are asking around 100 for an illustration.

I've just found out my second illustrator thru an art departement of an university, and I was quite surprised as how many responses I got. The advantage of students is that, even if they need to eat too, I think they consider that kind of contract more like a cool hobby with a small revenu. Julian is right about the fact that there are a lot of opportunities for artists, but for beginners, getting a name is very hard. So, I guess, you need to present them your project as an opportunity. I guess students might just be happy to add a coherent project to their portfolio. Just make sure it is clear how much you're going to pay them.

Maybe a last advice. If you can relate parts of your work together (i.e. cards representing characters and other cards representing their actions), it might be useful to regroup them and assign them to the same illustrator. That way, they work around the same theme, thus saving time for them. Also, I would suggest giving them a lot of freedom, so that they get the feeling to contribute to your project. For myself, I encourage them to try new things, instead of fixed, predefined orders.

I hope it could help.

[Jack Aidley]

What's the theme of the CCG? Would it be possible to get some of the artwork from public domain sources (i.e medieval woodcuts, renaissance works, etc.)? Or buy the right to use illustrations already done for other purposes (which I presume you could get cheaper)?

[daMoose_Neo]

Yea, you definetly need to pay them SOMETHING.
I work out similar arrangements as Pells does, but on a smaller scale. I shell out $40-$50 for artwork, depending on the artist and the work. First timers generally get $40 out of me, one of my last (and favorite) artists for Twilight got $50 per piece from the last set~ Course, I'm printing 6 to 16 cards per "set", in small preconstructed waves.
CCG products produced the way WotC produces them as independant products are incredibly unfeasable. Take it from me, been around that block (check the sig, Final Twilight). Before you jump into spending $50k on artwork, mind telling me what you printing and production plans are? Go ahead and PM me, cause there are a few things you should be aware of before jumping this deep into the pool.

[MatrixGamer]

How important is consistency of style to your project? The down side of having a lot of different artists is their pictures will be all over the map stylistically. A few artists, maintain a consistent style more easily.

By way of example - I play historical miniatures. I'm a fairly bad figure painter (it has been described as "grouty") so when I had some figures painted I had to have the painter paint down to my level so they would look right. Little men with every brass button painted on clash with the sloppy painted guys.

The other thing I've noticed about using art is that there are a thousand little details. Miss one and someone points it out to you. Very embarrassing. For me it is an ongoing learning process.

Good luck!

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[Jack Aidley]

Another idea, although I have no idea how you would go about doing it - how about getting artists in Eastern Europe or South America to do the artwork?

[talesien]

Nate,

I will PM you shortly:)

For everyone else who had questions about the nature of the project, check out this thread -
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18568.0

The goal with this game is to build it up (from a marketing standpoint) rather quickly, but with a highly concentric marketing plan. From a quality standpoint, the goal is for it to be as close to WotC quality as possible. Once the game is up and gaining momentum, we want to either sell or liscence it to one of the big boys.

As I'm seeing some of these numbers for artwork, I'm starting to try to come up with other ways to make it work, potentially having several peices of card art come from the same illustration or peice of artwork as well as using public domain materials.

Gary

[Jennifer Rodgers]

Consider using grayscale art. I know that most ccg art is full-color, but grayscale art would certainly cut your costs. (for me, color work is double the price of grayscale work.)

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

As long as we are spitballing ideas, I'll chime in:

Clyde Rhoer gave a GREAT resource to you. Open and public domain artwork (Jack Aidley's idea) is also a way to go, depending on the flavor (Color) of your game.

Something else to consider: photo manipulation. Basically, take (or acquire) consistently-framed and -saturated photos that suit the cards, then work up a sequence of Photoshop filter applications that will lend them a painterly or pointillist style. Apply those filters with an Action script to all the images, and you have a balanced library of artwork that cost you the price of digital pictures (i.e. free, if you do it yourself or go with Wiki Commons). Further, if there are "sets" within your cards, or different types of cards, you can use different themes of images (symbolic, portraiture, abstract, naturalistic, etc, etc) and different sets of filters to reinforce that.

Exs: One "set" of cards is for the "Naturals" faction in the game: that set uses natural settings, action posed people, and animal photos; it uses watercolor and stroked filters to post-process each image. Another "set" is for the "Technos": it uses photos of machines, buildings, city skylines, street scenes; it uses burn and saturation filters with pixilization effects to post-process. A third "set" is for the "Sewer Folk": it uses pictures of trash, junkyards, etc; its filters are a combination of "melt" effects and, maybe, "dust" (called grit, I think) effects.

Anyway, long example short: you could do all your own art, with maybe a total of ten minutes invested per image: taking or finding the photos, then working up an Action script for each set, then running it on each cropped and sized photo.

HTH
David

[Bryan Hansel]

Something else to consider: photo manipulation. Basically, take (or acquire) consistently-framed and -saturated photos that suit the cards, then work up a sequence of Photoshop filter applications that will lend them a painterly or pointillist style.

I have an action that turns photos into a comic book style look.  PM me if you want it.  I'll email it to you.

Bryan

[Justin D. Jacobson]

You haven't mentioned much about the specs needed for your artwork--most importantly the size. $100 per piece is in the ballpark for full-page pieces, but if this is for a CCG, you don't need full-page pieces. If you're willing to work hard enough and get a few virtual doors slammed in your face, you can get a decent stable of artists for significantly cheaper than that. You can find competent artists to do quarter-page grayscale art for $10 a pop. Two places to start are Pencil Jack and Digital Webbing. (Just add a www to the front and a com to the back and it will take you to the sites.) Mining the comic artist pool will often yield better artists willing to work for the less money.

That being said, you generally get what you pay for. (There are exceptions of course.)

And, on a tangentially related noted, Jenn aka Devil Bunny is a consummate professional and a brilliant artist. I can't recommend her highly enough. (She runs more than $10 a pop, but she's worth it.)

[Josh Roby]

Yeah, but if you want her, you'll have to wait in line.  I've got dibbs on April! ;)