Veteran Game Artists 4 hire - Asorson Studios
polycounter lvl 18
Name: Asorson Studios
Erik's Qualifications: 12 years 3d artist, 8 years game industry, 4.5 years freelance/studio manager
Team Qualifications: On average 10yrs video game development experience each
Website: www.asorsonstudios.com
Email: info@asorsonstudios.com
Erik's Qualifications: 12 years 3d artist, 8 years game industry, 4.5 years freelance/studio manager
Team Qualifications: On average 10yrs video game development experience each
Website: www.asorsonstudios.com
Email: info@asorsonstudios.com
Replies
You should make it clear in the post, just so you're not misrepresenting anyone (since you appear to be promoting yourself)
Either remove the image, or credit the other artists involved.
If SCEA made an account and pimped all the art from SW Galaxies with no mention of any artists, and just the Sony logo stamped everywhere, it would be frowned apon as well. Naming your studio after yourself only furthers the confusion.
Please, either post only work you yourself have done, or utilize other websites for your advertising purposes if you are posting as a company. Using polycount as a free method to pimp your business isn't really appropriate in my opinion. Not only that, but people on Polycount and the other communities routinely mistake all work for your own because it has your name plastered over every image, and you post using your personal name.
So, as you can see I am caught in the middle of two worlds with nowhere to go. Unlike SCEA I don't have thousands of dollars laying around to advertise in magazines or websites. I pay $1,500 a year to list in the contractor section of Gamasutra and that's about the extent of what I can afford. Besides, I am against the concept of invasive advertisement in general, along with many other standard practices of "big business". It was my disgust with the traditional methods of doing business that compelled me to strike out on my own in the first place, and I've been lucky enough to maintain enough work coming in for myself and a few others for several years. But the fact remains that I go to work every day and do the exact same thing as everyone else here and I offer the exact same services.
If I am not mistaken the purpose of this forum is to make art services available to people who need artwork for their games. I hardly believe that those people really care whether that artwork is provided by one person or a group of people working in collaberation (as most game art is) as long as the work is done to their satisfaction. The only people I ever hear complaining are independant freelance artists and the only justification I can concieve for their grievance is that I may be stealing business from them. Well this is a competitive industry, so let the best man, or men win. There are plenty of much bigger players than I who continuosly steal business from me (which I have no rightful claim to in a free market), but I don't begrudge them for it. There are a lot of very talented artists on this board and I don't feel that I have any sort of unfair advantage simply because my business is arranged in a way that doesn't fall into the black or white categorization of "rich corporation" or "starving artist".
Besides, when I take a job that requires more than one artist who do I go to? Independant freelance artists. So not only am I posting in this forum as a service provider, but also as a potential purchaser of art services.
The only people I ever hear complaining are independant freelance artists and the only justification I can concieve for their grievance is that I may be stealing business from them.
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Mark someone down who isn't a freelance artist and has no possible business reason to begrudge you.
The biggest problem is that you don't give credit to the other artists. Hiding them on your website under contributors is pretty lame in my opinion. I know whenever I texture someone elses model, I put their name in the actual image to make sure no one thinks I'm responsible for all work there. That's where my, and others, complaints lie.
If you aren't a business, and don't want to act like one, stop hiding your workers behind a corporate facade. If you are a collection of tallented artists, then prominently display their name so that everyone knows who did what. To do otherwise is not only unfair to the individual artists, but paints you in a rather poor light. It's especially poor form when you pimp things in the PnP section of Polycount and other message forums, because you can clearly tell that 90% of the viewers don't investigate in any way, and assume you are responsable for everything in the pictures. In my opinion that flirts dangerously close with plagiarism. You aren't openly claiming it's all yours, and someone diligent can find out who really did certain parts, but you don't make it easy for people to identify the aspects that were yours, and the parts that aren't. One would almost think you only want people to associate the work with your name, so that your tallent is replaceable. That's exactly how the bigger corporations you "disgust" behave.
I do everything I can to provide a positive experience to all involved and I do a lot more than many others where credit is concerned. I make sure that each artist gets credit for their contribution in the game and list them on the website if they wish. However, I do not give individual credit to each artist on each and every image because the artwork is a group effort and the purpose of displaying it is to promote the work of the group, which is more than the sum of its parts. When I do work for a Client I don't expect them to personally credit me, or Asorson Studios, every single time a piece of art is displayed somewhere because they purchased the right not to, and that is how I put food on my table. The same is the case for artists who have worked for me.
I do not appreciate being judged by some third party who has no knowledge of the inner workings of our arrangement and frankly has no business in the matter. A charge of plagiarism can only be leveled between the creator of the art and the plagiarist, and I have received no such complaints. I have both the legal and moral right to display this artwork for the promotion of our services.
If you think that I am attempting to establish some sort of revolving door policy where I can shuffle talent in and out while skimming all the profit off the top, you couldn't have me more wrong. I am unshakably loyal and absolutely unconcerned with profits or growth or any of the other priorities of most businesses. I have been working with the same two animators; Rod Stafford and Peter Aponte since the beginning. I also have long-standing relationships with three 2d artists who I have known and worked with for years, who wish to remain anonymous. The majority of modeling and texturing work is done by me but on occasion I hire other artists in this area to assist with larger jobs or certain art styles. Again, once an artist does a good job I remain very loyal to them and almost always become a repeat customer of theirs.
You seem to have all these assumptions about what I'm doing here, they are all negative and they are all completely wrong. I did not go into business to make money or take advantage of people. I did it to do what I consider to be the "right thing" in an industry which I thought was highly unethical. You're conception of what that is may be different from mine, and you are welcome to start your own organization along those lines. But I sleep very well at night, and I stand behind the principles upon which we operate. You can't possibly understand the intricacies of the system which I have developed over five years by reading a few paragraphs on a website, as evidenced by your statements here, so I would ask that you please refrain from your misguided attack before you have to put your foot in your mouth, along with the poop.
Normally when someone posts in freelance they are the little guy working at home doing some extra work. I think it would of been better to address yourself as Outsourcing company thats looking for new clients.
I have been kicked off of the Artists Seeking Work sections of other websites because technically we are a business and as a result it has become a lot harder to make our services known. As an alternative these websites usually want me to purchase banner advertisement with them, which is insanely expensive (try several thousand dollars for one week!). That type of advertisement doesn't give much space to communicate the message or show sample artwork and most importantly doesn't reach my target audience. It is true that in the past I have done work for larger clients but for the past year and a half my primary focus has been helping small entreprenurial indie developers with good art at discounted rates. This is the market which I am mostly interested in and I do not want to give the appearance that we are unobtainable to them by way of appearing too established or expensive.
So what I am trying to do is maintain the middle ground between being what is considered a company and a group of individuals just like yourselves who need to get jobs to stay alive. We simply do not have the option to advertise by way of traditional means because its too expensive, so if we are not allowed to advertise on forums such as these it severaly hurts us.
I have proposed in the past to other websites the idea of having a policy whereby small companies can pay a reasonable fee to post either in a seperate section of the forum, say for "premium art services" or something like that, or in the same section but as a paying member. I am not opposed to paying for advertisement, but there are not many options available for small businesses to advertise.
I think it would be best to keep this section of the site professional, and any greeviances you have seem to be matters of personal opinion and should be taken elsewhere.