How to explain to a client that a programmer is not an artist?

Firstly, I echo what @Dustin Horne said.

Moving on...

If you're going to work as a professional then not only you can, but you have to. A part of your standard risk mitigation for a project has to be making sure that the client understands what they're getting into, and some level of technical skills assessment is a key part of that. To be clear, I'm not saying you need to know or care how well they can draw. The question is whether or not they understand what you're doing and how to work with you. Implementation specifics are up to you, but the client has to understand a) the problem you're solving and b) your approach to solving it and c) the specific scope of your responsibilities.

The client almost certainly means well, but in and of itself that's not enough to make a project a success.

On the topic of risk mitigation, I'd suggest doing any form of standard risk assessment exercise for this project and deciding based on that if it's really worth it. You say you need the money, but with the risks in mind what might this job cost you in the long run? Don't just think about money (eg: could this end up being more work than you initially estimate and, if so, who's going to cover the costs?), also think about things like stress, reputation, and impact in your ability to find other work (eg: the more time you spend trying to keep this project afloat the less time you've got to find other work).

Finally, I have to echo what @hippocoder said as well - don't hang out your dirty laundry in public! That's in public for anyone to see forever, now - potential future clients, employers and team members - and you can't rely on anonymity. If you want advice on this kind of thing then either keep it to private channels with trusted people or ask project-agnostic, proactive questions. Eg: "Does anyone with experience doing projects with non-technical clients have advice on doing so effectively?"

 

Even then don't stop, you'll need a gig after this one.

 

I did a fair amount of freelance work, i also did some sort of traditional consulting.

The absolute most important thing you can do is manage the clients expectations.

If you have a client that is really out there, you need to reign them in. Assertively.

This does not mean being an asshole, or insulting them, or even saying no to everything. It means being assertive, direct and as unambiguous as possible. You need to make clear easy to understand statements, and reiterate where needed.

A really clueless client can be dangerous in a lot of ways. That they may think of you as a wizard capable of anything can be flattering and we all want to be seen as smart and capable, so it's tempting to not correct someone who want's to believe you're a technical superman. Especially if they're throwing money at you.

You may need to be honest and direct about yourself and your own limitations. If you don't know, or aren't sure, you need to be clear about this as well. Let's say that you aren't certain what exactly the final assets you need are, or what the reasonable possibilities are. You may need to be clear and direct about this also. Not just "I'm not an artist" but perhaps "I need the guidance of an experienced technical artist to figure out what I need".

From the way you describe the situation it just sounds like you're terrified of losing the client and you're dancing around all the problems to keep them happy. If that's the case, stop.

Figure out what you need to be successful. Be honest with them about this. Be firm in how you present it.

 

And charge accordingly. Make sure that all of your time is covered in your estimates. That includes time spent educating, explaining why things won't work, waiting for things to get re-done or re-supplied, any corrections you're likely to have to make yourself, any time they might change their mind about something, etc. etc. etc.

Also make sure that the initial scope of work is clearly defined so that you can charge for variations when they happen. If it's not written down then you can't easily say "this is different to this part of the plan, so I have to change things and it will cost you this much more" or even "this isn't want my estimate was based on, and I now think it will take this much longer".

Alternatively, make sure they're paying you per hour rather than for fixed outputs, though in my experience clients don't like that idea because it means they're taking all of the risk.

 

This also. If she is going to require a great deal of additional work in terms of client management, be willing to charge for this as appropriate.

 

Thankfully I only have to take freelancing gigs once every couple of years or so. The rest of time, sales from my products pay the bills. I don't envy people who have to do it full time. But I am getting paid by time and not by the project, so no worries there.

 

That's not "no worries", it just means you need to take a different approach because the issues are different to the ones I mentioned. What are the risks you see there, and how do you think they can best be mitigated?

 

Ahem.

 

Show the video of making a game

 

I didn't say "no worries" I said "no worries there", referring specifically to doing a bunch of extra work and not getting paid for it. I've already outlined my concerns about the project. My inability to properly convey the scope of what I am capable of doing may certainly come back to bite me. I'm also concerned about the delays we've had from the initial talks to the period of just getting started. So I'll need to discuss with her what sort of time frame we need to be working on once we get started and how long I will be expected to wait on additional delays before either finding another project or putting one of my own products ahead of hers unless she is willing to pay some sort of retainer. Also, whether I'm getting paid or not, I don't want to be thrown for another loop with additional features that may delay me from my own products longer than I would like. So I need to make sure that she is clear on what functionality she wants from the onset.

This isn't the first time I've done freelance. I supported myself on doing it for the first two years of my foray into programming for a living. It's just the first time I've had an artist change on me in the middle of negotiations. Perhaps it was naive of me to assume that the person creating art for computer software would know how to provide digital files. But it isn't something that I have ever come across before. Usually I'm the one making the initial contact with the would be client. This time it was the artist that made all the arrangements. Clearly, he didn't know that he was going to be replaced. There's a difference between having an initial consultation and saying "I need x, y, and z" graphics wise, which I've done with previous clients, and being ready to start on a project with an artist who knows your workflow only to have the client suddenly switch you to hand drawn art.

 

I always assume that anyone who questions my manhood is just jealous of my glorious beard. But I can see why a woman would be offended by such phrasing.

 

I've never done gamedev consulting before but I've done a fair amount of network and security consulting and I really feel your pain with realizing the perfect storm of last minute changes and misconceptions on the clients part.

I pretty much agree with everything Frosted said, the times where I was too weak to take control of the situation it never ended well. I wouldn't walk away from the deal, but I would be polite and firm and insist on a written contract after that conversation to "clarify" the arrangement.

edit: I would also feel no shame in simply admitting you misundertood what they were looking for when you said you would cut out the art for them. Taking the blame even though it isn't your fault is an acceptable method for the client to save face and keep working with you.

 

I've been burned in the past when I was just starting out by clients who suddenly grew the scope of the project after we'd agreed on a price or who delayed payment for whatever reason. So I learned that you can't really be a nice guy and just throw in a minor change for free, and that you need to set very clear payment milestones and dates ahead of time pretty early in my freelancing career. But I don't do freelancing regularly anymore, and haven't for a long time. So there are bound to be some things that throw me for a loop. Changes after you think everything is a done deal and you are ready to get started are one of those things.

 

....

In an effort to distract you from focusing on my culturally acceptable clichés, you are a great example of a freelancer with skills as an artist that learned to code when the need arose. If you are going to do this alone, it doesn't hurt to be able to do a bit of everything.

 

Unless someone capable feels like deleting the entire thread. It may still be cached by Google, but I would think that would eventually disappear as well.

 

I don't really care. I've supported myself just fine for five years as a programmer. I don't think one thread asking for advice is going to be my undoing.

 

I don't expect it will either. A knowledgeable client may realize that this problem is simply the result of you getting stuck with a less than knowledgeable client. And the less than knowledgeable client probably won't find this site to begin with.

 

I would understand the concern if I were trash talking the client, or talking about taking advantage of them. But for the most part, I've done the opposite. I don't fault the client for not knowing these things, and I've repeatedly said that I want to help them.

 

Maybe the Artist could meet with her and convince her that his profession is actually real

 

Heh... It seems like you really want to go with this. You'll gonna regret it, I've warned you. But this simple link may be of a great help to you.

 

Well, I disagree with the idea of simply "manning up" and trying to handle the graphics artwork yourself. I'm a programmer myself. I have programmed for over three decades. I have tried to develop art skills over the years. I have used Photoshop since 1996 with version 4.0. I have read books, read online articles, watched videos, etc, yet my art skills with Photoshop still suck. I can do nearly anything when it comes to programming, but I can do only the most basic artwork tasks with Photoshop.

I can crop a photo, resize a photo, and even do some basic layered work in Photoshop, but I am completely unable to do professional level artwork. I've tried unsuccessful to "man up" and learn professional level artwork skills. I have met several artists that have used Photoshop far fewer years and developed massively more art skills than I have. For example, a few months back, I needed to design a logo for a project. I spent days working on it in Photoshop and still had nothing usable. An artist friend of mine designed something in a matter of minutes that blew away everything I had done. With a few more hours of tweaking, the artist had an awesome professional level logo for the project.

I definitely agree that every programmer should learn some basic art related skills, and every artist should learn some basic programming skills. But I disagree with the idea that a professional programmer should/could simply "man up" and learn professional level art skills. It is simply unrealistic most of the time.

 

I'm decent enough at 3d modelling and texturing, but 2d artwork is something I've never been able to grasp. And not for lack of trying. Since I primarily make 3d games now and I only freelance once in a blue moon, and I have an artist that I work with, learning 2d doesn't really seem all that necessary. Especially for this job where the client is a former art teacher, her family member went to art school, and the artist he replaced not only went to art school but worked on major comic book franchises. My artist and the family member apparently went to the same school, but at drastically different times because the school (of course) teaches digital art at this point. The point is, it would be pretty insulting to artists to think I could just watch a few youtube videos and rise to their level.

 

That's easy: stop looking for an excuse to add features and solve the problem at hand:

I am not an artist.

Problem solved.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "adding features" the feature missing is usable artwork. Although it seems it will work itself out. Her family member didn't tell her about all the changes that wanted to be done, and she was already aware that I wouldn't be able to do those. So she's agreed to either do them herself or hire an artist to do it for me. (although she said programmer, I'm pretty sure she meant artist. If not I'll need to clarify that digital art isn't something that a programmer does again so we don't have two programmers and still no artist.)

Edit: I should note in case it isn't obvious that I will be pushing hard for the hiring of an artist and make it very clear that scanned artwork might not be useable no matter how well done the original is.

 

Yup, so why is this thread continuing? No offense intended, but it seems Hemi just wanted to vent and convince himself that this would work out. That is fine, but then it seems a waste of time to keep warning him if he is sure it won't be a problem.

 

Just to be clear, there may be a lot of stress in dealing with a client who doesn't know the ins and outs of things. There will surely be a lot of miscommunication and hand holding that needs to be done. This is all stressful. I get that. But this isn't what I do for a living. It isn't something I have to worry about dealing with on a day to day basis, year in and year out. If it were, maybe my reaction would be different. But since it isn't, I would feel far worse if I abandoned this client simply because they don't have the knowledge that I need them to have. They may very well find the next person who will take advantage of them. Or maybe their project never gets done. To me, I'd rather take the stress on myself than put that on them. I fully get why some of you wouldn't. If it is something you deal with regularly, then the lifetime of stress might not be worth it. That doesn't apply to me.

 

Why did you post here then? I am confused.

 

This is the first freelance job I've taken in over a year. I occasionally do need extra money, but it isn't my full time source of income.

 

I'd show them my portfolio of "programmer artwork". I think that would clarify things pretty quickly.

 

Except it really is that simple. Sure, you'll have to do some practice, but you could at least produce nice looking, if a bit simple, artwork for your game.

 

That was me mid-college. I know for sure this can work for other people, but no matter how much I practice (been drawing since age 5, I've tried everything!), my art is terrible.

 

Try that link I've posted earlier. Most likely your art isn't terrible, you just think it is.

 

Would it be quality enough for the investor though? That's the real catch.

 

That link is fine for simpe line art, I suppose. But it doesn't mention anything about light, shading, color, all of the things that are required for great art. So it's completely irrelevant to a topic where the line art is being provided to me (albeit in scanned form). And only marginally useful if you truly need to replace an artist in your production pipeline. Having worked with a real artist on several projects, I am well aware of the quality level they can add to one.

 

You should turn this into a strength then. Many really good artists are 'starving' because there are many good artists. Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, and so on did not try to compete on the grounds of artistic technical merit but originality.

And they found their niche; just don't mistake choosing to be shocking or grotesque for originality. It's a niche already filled to the max by the unoriginal.

 

If I were truly a fool, not a respected jester, I would suggest that my art was mediocre and then show it.

17 years of failure has made me not interested in further pursuing the hobby I am perfectly fine expressing everything I do in numbers. If something truly warrants a drawing and it has to come from me, well, GabeN help us.

 

Kind of my thought... the original thread was a plea for advice and then a tiptoe around every piece of advice given.

 

I'm not sure I tiptoed around the advice, since the problem seemed to resolve itself. It's just that when the client doesn't understand that the artist on a software project does more than draw on paper and that the programmer isn't the one that turns those drawings into "computer drawings", simply saying "I'm not an artist" doesn't solve the problem because they don't realize that what they are asking is the artist's job. The question was how to make that distinction clear. My learning how to draw doesn't make that distinction clear. Neither does me just abandoning the client. Maybe I just did as awful of a job explaining the problem as I did trying to explain the distinction between traditional art, digital art, and programming to the client.

 

Here are my experiences with watercolor and traditional hand-drawn solutions are:

• speed and time to deliver. I'm expected to deliver within days and hours over Skype and keep customer notified. On good days, customer gets 3 quick concepts in a day. It's easy to share screens to show progress.
  
  plug a web-cam and show parts of easel board?
  take photos from digital camera, print and scan them? (read that 100 times)
  

• revisions. customer expects revisions within hours and minutes, not complete re-draws. How would you re-draw water color painting?
  
  if you take too long, someone's going to get pulled and removed from project.
  

• animation. it's easy to use After-Effects, Illustrator and many animation apps to animate. I shudder of doing multiple of same drawings. If you make 1,000 similar drawings and art direction changes, all those prior drawings will be unused. will customer pay for 1,000 unused similar drawings?
  
  where's art director, lead artist, lead environment artist to draw off-line characters and make miniature props?
  are you going to make real-world Styrofoam cave and miniature forest as well?
  
  
  
• jagged lines. After you scan water-color, pencil marks look very jagged and unkempt on iPad, HD Android and larger 4K screens.
  
  it was very awkward to discuss about this, as you are to make best artwork.
  
  
  
• wrong angles when scanning. This was very awkward to discuss with <them>. I respect <them> for their creativity, however, if scanned at an angle, final result looks messy, colors looks off due to bad lighting, wrong prospective due to difference in DPI when scanning.

• art teacher mentality. I've heard this a dozen times. Can I please know about their students? Are they having full-time employment at (certain studios)? Can I meet them and discuss about the standards of teaching and knowledge gained? I hope it's not another for-profit school where they saddle students with tons of debts.

Further discussion is very awkward and I don't want to go into details.

If you want hand-drawn look, there are hand-drawn shaders (check Asset Store).

 

I'm sure you were trying your damnedest to not lose the job by being super respectful of this client's misunderstanding of what each person on the job does. I'm sure "Your lack of understanding is leading you to ask invalid questions" doesn't land the job every time

 

I share those concerns, which is why I'm trying really hard to convince her to hire a digital artist to color her relative's line drawings if she wants to use them. Particularly troubling is the quality of the scan. Scanners tend to have unwanted coloration unless the conditions are perfect. But it is a 2d app, so hand drawn shaders are less ideal than just getting a proper 2d artist.

Yeah, I did end up taking @Dustin Horne and @NomadKing advice from early on in the thread, because those were the ones that answered my question. I had tried that before, but I guess the 6th time is a charm. If her use of the word 'programmer' over 'artist' wasn't a typo then there still could be an uphill battle to make it perfectly clear what the difference is though. I guess I'll find out in the coming days.

 

I don't know if I could work for someone who didn't understand the difference. You don't know what kind of unreasonable requests will come up as the job goes along.

 

Yeah, I know. My artist did a much better job of client management I think, so having him gone is more than a loss of just a good artist. But she's really excited about the project and I figure most of my life is spent not answering to anyone or having to deal with any of the work related annoyances that other people have to deal with on a daily basis. A few weeks of stress to make someone happy is a small price to pay. Then I can go back to spending all day doing for a living what I would be doing on my downtime again.

 

As long as they're happy with the result

 

Maybe you could have your artist friend provide a 2D digital artwork example that is game ready to go along with one of the scans of the client's water colorings. That way, the client can see an example that shows the obvious differences between the images. That might be the only way for the client to understand the difference between what she is currently giving you and what you need to receive in order to complete the project.

Next, explain that there are different types of artists. I think she is confusing the term programmer with generic "computer guy", and she probably assumes that everything computer related must be handled by the computer guy. So maybe stop trying to explain the difference between a programmer and an artist, and start explaining the difference between different types of artists.

 

You've been given a lot of good advice already.

It is imperative that your client understands in no uncertain terms what you are able to do. I would try to convey, using very clear, simple, unambiguous language, everything that you have an issue with here.

Assuming they are not directly involved in the project, the client doesn't need to know what the difference is, or really, any other details that are irrelevant to their involvement. Were I you, even though it is late, I would try to push the client towards using your own artist. Explain to the client that with your established workflow, it will go faster and save her money, and you can have your artist look at her family member's stuff and integrate some of it into the game art.

It is important to set things like that straight right away. You could have avoided a lot of headache by making a statement similar to that early on. Don't accept all the customer's whims and flights of fancy. It's fairly easy, if you do it right, to convince a client to do things the way you want to. Determine how you want to attack the project, deliver rational arguments with eloquence and confidence, and you will get your way. People tend to heed the advice of someone they consider to be an expert and an authority on the subject at hand.

I'm a salesman, so this kind of thing comes easy to me. It doesn't to everyone. You might be afraid of the client taking their business elsewhere. That is usually an unlikely outcome. And you might not be at all willing to risk losing the commission from this job. If so, understand that you will be paying for that money with a lot of frustration. My experience is all from non-software related fields, but I should think the principles generally apply here as well.

 

Hmm, seems like a lack of communication. You appear to be dissecting her emails and attempting to read between the lines to see if she understands. You need to talk to her and be direct. I find that a lack of communication is a sure way to a bad outcome.

Sadly, I see this with a lot of people, especially those that are shy or are not comfortable socially. Not saying that is your problem, but my son and I have this issue all the time. I find I have to really make sure we understand each other rather than assume.

 

Just like me and my mom

Happy mother's day @Teila !

 

Thanks, Tomnnn!

 

Just tell her you're not any good at art, and that if you have to do it, it will cost WAY MORE than having the original artist do it. My guess is that she is trying to economize. My opinion (for what it's worth), is that this will be one of those nightmare jobs where they'll expect you to do everything, and then not want to pay for it. My advice is to work it until you find better work, and then run.