Freelance Hiring Expectations
polycounter lvl 18
I've set aside some funding to finally put together a prototype game. Since I don't expect to handle this entirely by myself, portions of the total funding budget will be used to hire freelance conceptual artists, texture artists, etc.
This is'nt a major blockbuster title, and I don't have millions for a budget. Is there any information on hiring freelance artists any of you can reccomend? I don't plan to start hiring until this summer, and my major concerns are for a dedicated concept artist.
I would only like to spend 1.5k US total on the project per artist. The prototype only consists of one scene/level/environment. Is this figure high enough to catch decent talent? I would only require 100 concept drawings at the extreme worst case scenario, realistically only using half the amount drawn after critiques and such. I have had professional volunteers in the past, so there are examples to go by, and interest in the project.
I guess the question is, are my expectations realistic? Will a fairly skilled environment/character concept artist work for 1.5k US for the totality of the project? Estimated project completion is based on an object basis, not time.
This is'nt a major blockbuster title, and I don't have millions for a budget. Is there any information on hiring freelance artists any of you can reccomend? I don't plan to start hiring until this summer, and my major concerns are for a dedicated concept artist.
I would only like to spend 1.5k US total on the project per artist. The prototype only consists of one scene/level/environment. Is this figure high enough to catch decent talent? I would only require 100 concept drawings at the extreme worst case scenario, realistically only using half the amount drawn after critiques and such. I have had professional volunteers in the past, so there are examples to go by, and interest in the project.
I guess the question is, are my expectations realistic? Will a fairly skilled environment/character concept artist work for 1.5k US for the totality of the project? Estimated project completion is based on an object basis, not time.
Replies
I guess it depends of your definition of quality and 'fairly skilled artist' and finding the right people. There's a lot of unemployed talent working on non paying projects, those would be sure interested i suppose.
Paid freelancers wouldn't be too interested.
There are a few of them around, some free game mods have awesome concept artists - I'm sure they wouldn't say no to a little paid work on the side...
But StrangeFate is right, you would have difficulty getting an established professional for that amount of money, unless you only want a few concept images, or they REALLY like your ideas so are prepared to work for less...
Alex
The money isn't the only factor, though. It's time. How long is your development cycle for this prototype? If you're asking someone to work 8 months for $1500, then yes, thats quite low. If their services are only required for a month or so, then I'd say more people would be open to it. It's a little bonus cash, for working on a new game
One or two textures is maybe pushing it a little, but 4-5, yeah, that can be worth over $1500. There's money to be had in freelancing.
Takng my salary and usual workload, I'd say I normally get about $500 to $1000 per model at current exchange rates.
/Palm
Alex
Red Eye Motion Capture Studios has donated some excellent motion capture data for the project. Robert Cirrilo of Core UK was the first professional concept artist to volunteer to assist the project. Artificial Studios has donated free use of thier Reality Engine for the entire prototyping phase, in exchange for some publicity and tech demo artwork.
I appreciate all of your replies. My conclusion is that perhaps I should be "borrowing" mod artists for some paid side work. I should also have some tangible effort already put into the prototype, as to draw interest. There will be some video demonstrations availible by the end of Feburary. It's good to know realistic expectation, and that I'm not entirely crazy with that dollar figure. Perhaps I should recruit volunteers and hold the payment as an end of project bonus?
Well, I don't think any person one earth deserves $1500 for one or two textures, or HALF a model. That's ridiculous, Strangefate.
[/ QUOTE ]
Welcome to RealLife(tm) then. You're not very well informed.
While we talked about how much you can get for a model, no one really shared any experience on how difficult it is to get actual work.
Lets say you are a decent modeler, skinner and animator... not super quality but about average, and not well known.
Is it possible to get a work assignment for 1500$ once a month?
Will it be easier to get lowpoly or highpoly work?
Funny thing is that I asked this over on conceptart.org, and no one seems to want to answer.
StrangeFate, if i'm doing the math correctly, the average artist makes 45k per year. After taxes, that rounds to about 1300 every 2 weeks. Your telling me that it takes 1 month to complete a model in the professional market? I highly doubt that's possible.
Perhaps I should invest the money into improving my skills to take on the work myself. Thanks for the replies, I was just curious.
(I dont know how it works within the states).
I spend max a week on a full char, therefor I the 1500. After taxes and everything it really isnt that much.
/Palm
Alex
i think you should tell us a little about the project and maybe post some pics (even if they look like stick figures) just to get people to understand what it is all about and get people excited.
like i know for a fact that if this is another WW2 game then i think $15k per 2000 poly and 512 texture is a decent price
oh and by the way great engine choice
I'm putting together a teaser site to go along with the video demonstrations availible by the end of Feburary. My "development studio" should be finished by July, and I plan to use all spare time availible to start the prototype production. The total budget for this one environment project is around 10k. Half will be spent on development equipment and software. The other half will be spent on c# scripting talent and artists. It's all being funded out of my pocket. Since breakinng into the industry is not a valid career option for me, since I already have a Sr. level IT position with the department of defense, I was hoping to start my own game art studio. This initial prototype is the experiment project, designed to see if quality work can be accomplished via freelance artists and my direction and funding. Startup funding has been limited since the scale of the project is limited. The goal is obviously to attract a publisher.
The prototype is an opening scene, and single player "learn the controls" style level, focusing on the production values and art quality set for the final game. I won't divuldge the entire game design principal, but it's a SCI-FI combination FPS and RTS, similar to Battlezone 2 by Pandemic Studios. Pandemic has already been notified of the similar gameplay elements and have approved and commended the projects continuation.
I guess I'll get more feedback upon the teaser site launch day. All concept art assests, and screen shots will be availible for viewing then, this was just more information gathering.
That said, if $1.5k is all you can afford, that's all you can afford. If you make sure you spend your money wisely you should be able to get something decent out of it. Plenty of talented people devote their time to mods with no pay at all. Best of luck to you.
That depends of course, of the quality you can deliver. Contracting single decent artists isn't cheap at all.
Even if you have a fulltime job to cover all your stuff you will still demand the same high contract rates for your freetime contract work.
But like said, there's some great talent working on mods out there for free that are probably better than some people being paid for contract work, and they wouldn't say no to doing basically the same they do now, but getting paid something for it.