Finding an artist for collaboration

Hi!

I'm writing this to discuss the actions required to find a great artist, it looks to me that it's really hard to find an artist willing to work for a profit share role.

I have built a portfolio, here it is "shbli.com", I have reached out to several artists on dribbble.com, and other websites, the issue is that I'm looking for a really really good artist.

One of the worst things is that where I live (Middle east), there's almost no talent, tried to find but here the talent is almost dead, the chance to find a local artist with the required quality is 0.1%.

I'm looking to make a game, with a focus on the game art, interesting game-play, I'm a programmer and a designer by experience only (No certificates, but I have programmed and designed 3 games, one which got over 100k downloads)

I want to create something artistic, but I'm stuck in where I live and not sure how to move forward!

 

Honestly, a really, really good artist isn't going to work for profit share. If they are really good they can easily get paying gigs with no risk to them. Ultimately, for quality, you are going to have to pay. Or have a half dozen big hits to prove your value. You are looking for an artist with an amazing portfolio, they are looking for the same, or to be paid up front.

Good luck.

 

@zombiegorilla I could not say it better I think.

 

Thank you for the responses, I am still trying to find an artist, contacting a few everyday.

If anyone have any advice, tips ... please share it!

 

I checked your website, and watch the trailer of one of your game. Looks pretty well done. Looking at it, and lets say you bought the full rights of the art, from what I see it would already be more than $10 K + and it's just a short part of your game. I assume you built this game with some stock models maybe. Why not trying to see what's on the asset store, and check if anything can match what you're looking for.
A decent seasoned artist can cost a lot of money if he's in Western Europe, USA you name it. I know there are some talented artists in some region of the world where they can afford not to charge too much for their art. Maybe you should look into that or stick with what's available in the 3D stock models store.

 

I paid for all the art, a budget artist though, as you see it's a bit rough around the edges and all.

I don't like generic stock models at all, I'm now looking to make something smaller than what I made, but with irresistible art and ideas, instead of focusing on making something big only.

What I really like is Momuntum valley, LaraCroftGo and some other games, these are games I actually enjoy playing myself, because of the art and challenge, so art is very important.

So now I'm just idle for sometime not doing anything.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my website and watching the trailer!

 

Yes zombiegorilla covered it pretty tightly.
If your looking for

you are going to have to pay, or have a sweet deal for the artist (50% of all earnings) plus you pay all development costs, and you must have an awesome design, a demo/prototype of the game would even be better.

I don't consider myself a "great" artist - but I think I'm pretty good, and I stopped taking contract work for promise for future profit in 2013. It's too risky and also motivation doesn't sustain itself on development progress and future profit outlook alone. It just doesn't work.

But I still wish you luck Shbli - I looked at your game also and it looked entertaining.

It's a long shot but you might want to look into some popular artist forums - see if you can find someone willing to take that risk - who hasn't been burned from past experiences.

http://www.polycount.com/forum/
http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/forum.php
http://forums.cgsociety.org/
https://www.artstation.com/

 

Indeed, most have. (unless the developer is a rockstar, or a close friend).

Part of the problem is that art is usually not the bottleneck, the blocker or the reason for the game to fail. (not in general, but in a small/indie/spec project). I have too many friends, that were either lured into spec projects, or new to the industry when it was all the rage down here in valley. They blew a lot of time they could have been getting paid.

Even before games got big recently, artists have been abused by spec work.
http://www.nospec.com/
"Collaboration" with respect to game artists is just a more friendly word for spec work.

Like I said, you are going to have a very hard time finding a quality artist to work for you for free, because basically, it's pretty uncool to be asking in the first place.

 

I'm already having a hard time finding a game development serious job because of the country I'm living in, it's all hard time and hard time lol ... But I just keep trying.

My previous game is worse than this, the one before it is even worse, at least I want to keep moving forward, not backwards.

I understand games can be successful without a great art, Flappy bird for example, but that's not just my style, I'm not only looking for money, but for a really respectful project to work on.

Why it is uncool to ask for such a deal, everyone can say no, I respect that, but there may be some artist who have their own ideas, and want to turn them into real games.

 

I'll check these websites then, thanks a lot!

 

Its because it is like going around and asking people to mow your lawn for free, but requiring they have extensive professional landscaping experience because you really want it to look nice. Sure you can ask, but it is kind of rude.

You are establishing that you place a higher value on quality art, but that you don't value that artist's time to create it. You should be looking for artist's that are in same situation as you, maybe newer or in the process of building their portfolio. You'll stand a better chance of getting a response.

Good Luck!

 

As an artist, I could whip up non-game related jobs that pay that allow me to do the same thing I would if I worked on a game.

I would call myself a beginning artist, not a great one, but painting a 'concept art piece' is not materially different from painting a magazine illustration. It allows me to paint either way. Artists are freer that way than coders. Coders are limited to specific roles. Artists aren't.

So, even intermediate artists are likely to ask for pay.

 

Partially true - If one of my close friends asked me to participate I'd probably have some prototype art for them by the end of the day - and be looking at the art pipeline we can use for full up development, but if a rockstar dev was asking, I'd wonder why the funding isn't in place already since he is a rock star after all.

 

I guess you would want something in a really minimalist style - like hitman go. Though I guess even that art would be expensive

 

Revenue share does equal free work?

And yes you are right, I don't mean the artist should have X years of experience, years does not matter as long as we can produce the work!

I agree, I have friends who are willing to work with me, but to be honest they are not able to produce the art I want, I keep looking though, I also found a very great artist online, I'm though waiting for her concept on Monday and I'm just hoping she's serious enough! At least most artist love the concept as its really a great piece to their portfolio and 50/50 share of revenue.

Yeah, exactly I'm looking for make something like these games, they focus on a new trend, a new art style! There's also momentum valley and LaraCroftGo.

Yeah sure, I'm not willing to hire for free, the artist owns 50% of the project and revenue, that's not free.

 

50% from zero is zero. You can't predict sales.

 

Laura croft go looks amazing. Somehow I like it better then most modern 3d games

 

I agree, some games are just wonderful for mobile!

 

It's a visually stunning game. The attention to detail is what really makes it work. If you really look closely at it, they put care into every little bit, motion, sound cues an just how everything works on the screen. Granted, have limited control of view allows for that, they nailed it. I love the foreground elements.

 

That's what I made wrong, working on big project, made it too hard to focus on smaller details, but I learned a lot about Unity3D at least!

 

That is pretty much the challenge. There is no guarantee you will ever make a dime. Odds are against you. Recent stats show 90% of published games never make more than 1k. And overall about 90% of the revenue is generated by 5% of publishers. (Mobile).

Now, I'm not saying that you won't succeed, you may very well be sitting on the next big success story. But that really isn't the point. The point is that for the most part any artist who is both a skilled artist, and is skilled in developing art for games is very aware of the odds of failure, and almost all have stories of being burnt. It is just unlikely someone with skill level you are talking about is going to wager the known value of their time on your ability to beat all the odds, and deliver a game that pays for thier time. It just never happens. Again, not saying you can't pull it off, just saying that skilled artists have probably heard it hundreds times, and avoid working on speculation.

I'm a professional artist and visual designer. There isn't a week that goes by that I don't get offered to provide my skills in exchange for something other than money. The earlier days it was a great chance to "build my portfolio". Later it was for stock, or points or exposure, for games it is rev split or exposure. Every artist has this experience, it's joke amongst us. Photographers, designers, web developers go through the same. The content we provide is expensive and time consuming and it takes years to build up the craft. And it's value is at the time of creation. Building on spec is like giving money to someone else so they can by lottery tickets and share the profits.

So again, to be clear, I am not saying you'll fail, or anything negative about you or your abilities at all. But most skilled artists are sick of being asked asked to work for free on someone else's idea. (Though they will probably be polite about it). Nothing wrong with asking, just don't don't be surprised at the lack of responses.

I might suggest building your game further with temp art,and have something really awesome to show an artist when you pitch them. It might convince them. Or try offering a skill trade. They'll do the art for your game and after you can build something for them. Something like that. Get them excited about collaborating with you.

good luck,

 

That's a healthy and very positive attitude! People often miss that many of the games that are successful, are huge games but smaller ones with a ton of polish and attention to detail. Max Ammo is another one that came out recently with a crazy amount of polish and a clean style.

 

I already started, and here is my blender art

As you can see, this is the only skill I got, modeling with plain colors.

 

I got this point long before finishing up Oraia Rift, but I wanted to stick to my promises and complete it, for the people who were waiting for it, and add it to my portfolio, at least not to come up empty handed.

 

I for now found 3 interested artists, with very respectful art skills (Maybe not game design skills), 2 are busy at these times but interested to join in some time.

The tips are

- Solid previous experience
- Have an interesting game design (Very important to respect the artist, something that adds big value to the artist portfolio)

 

It costs to make money, even when I make stuff for the asset store I know I have to spend a few hundred bucks on it for art(and its not even the best stuff), and if its real game that price is going to explode exponentially. I guess good luck if you can get someone else to go off the cliff with you -- just because the chance of any game succeeding is really low.

 

The issue is lots are thinking about it with money only, but I'm doing this in my spare time, and the artist is the same, only working in the weekend, it is a simple game, yeah a local artist would be better, but that's hard to find where I live.

 

Well i stated this in various threads. If it is a hobby, then expect the product to be on a hobby level, also graphical-wise.

If you want to make awesome games with great graphics as well, then you have to take it to a professional level and that takes a lot of money.

 

The issue, is talking here won't change anything, but let's discuss anyways I love discussion.

Doing projects on the side has been done by lots of developers and artists, and if you have a day freelance job as a game developer, you tend to learn a lot from working with clients, thus you can do a lot for a free time project.

Angry birds for example, we're working on several projects at the same time that they we're developing their game, yes it took them 6 months, more than what a full time dedicated developers can do it in, but I bet this helped them take their time to polish ...etc

 

Rovio had 51 games under their belt before they made angry birds, was a professional studio, and the first angry birds cost them €100,000 to make.

 

Rovio may be too big, but I still can see lots of indies going pretty nice.

For example, check out Meltdown, iOS and Android game, it is pretty nice, successful (Not millions of downloads properly, but I consider this pretty successful), one of my favorite fellow developers.

Now again, I need to make a game that people love to play, hobby or professional quality is not important, the most important thing is the players, players need to enjoy the product.

By creating a prototype together with a skilled artist, I can easily check and estimate people interest into the project, then I can invest more money into the project from my personal pocket, or any other person pocket.

I have been offered an investment earlier in fact and I refused duo to my experience level and uncertainty, it wasn't very big and nothing was going into my pocket, if you wish to grow in the app store, the best way is to be there, learn and iterate.

 

"Phenomenon Games was founded by a small, but experienced team of industry professionals with a solid track-record of producing top-rated games and successful IPs." from the creators of Meltdown...

 

Yes, they do have the experience, but if you do a deeper research you'll find that the team members have their day job still, which basically means they created a professional looking game in their free/weekend time.

Anyways if you got any advice for me share it

 

If you want a great artist on board you need to pay or have a really great track record (few years in the industry with a lot of shipped games). And even with a great track record it can be really hard. There is no way around it.

Ive seen so many people trying to get collaborations together. Without funding ive never seen it work out great. And thats for people with great skills and dedicated degree's for the games industry.

 

I'm improving my portfolio slowly, though I'm 24 years old and spent a year and half on my previous project, time move on and I have more and more projects under my belt.

On the side, continue to publish on the App Store.

Thanks for contributing though.

 

Really good artists are rare, much rarer than good programmers, who are also rare. As such, you will have trouble finding them just for that reason alone.

Set a hundred dollar bill and a venti white mocha down as bait and wait.

 

Actually one thing you can do, is to do work for hire for a few months instead of spending time on your game. Then use the money on art. Its double time i know, but its one possible way to do it for a lonely developer.

 

I'm already doing that, working on my game only if I got a free time from contracting, or the weekends!

 

Well then you get there eventually! Good luck!

 

Thank you!

 

This is so true. This reminds me Metroid 1 on Gamecube , it has lot of small effects and details attention making it wonderfull. Polishing , extra effects or some simple but polished graphic style are what makes great games.

If you want to get some 3D artist, you will have to show some really engaging game prototype running and as complete as possible, demonstrating you have a serious project and not some hobby game.
Also you will have more chances to attract a 3D artist that will the graphics style you choose for your game like realistic or cartoon characters and environment, realistic or stylized textures, Fantasy or modern FPS game.