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

Then watch some classical pieces of art and try to do it in a similar way they do it.

 

Just give them this.



They'll never make that mistake again.

 

I'm still waiting on the client to respond back, but I am hopeful that we will be able to get someone involved that can do this work in a proper way.

Is that Kirby? It looks about like my attempt to draw a cartoon bunny a few years back. Let's just say that Bugs doesn't have anything to worry about from me.

 

Do you like scope creep, cause this project reeks of scope creep.

"You can just change this [insert really complex thing] easily right?"

sure... i wont have to re-write half the code...

 

Yes. It is kirby. I draw poorly

 

That's a better attempt than I could make.

 

I had to go with kirby because when I tried to draw a farmer he stabbed himself in the face with his pitch fork to prevent his existence as a doodle of mine. Everyone already knows that kirby sucks, so any artist rendition is acceptable.

 

Well, she just agreed to find a digital artist, so I think as long as I remain confident and direct in my replies and quit trying to satisfy all demands, that won't be an issue that I can't mitigate. I may have to be extra careful to explain why some things wouldn't work easily though.

At least I recognized it! I would show you that poor attempt at a bunny, but unsurprisingly I never hit the save button on that particular bit of work.

The thing is, learning to draw is only economically valid if you are a lone indie who has no choice but to do everything themselves. Any Econ 101 class will tell you that specialization is better for all parties involved once money starts exchanging hands. The reasons are simple math.

A programmer and an artist can work faster than one person doing both. If the customer is paying for both, then the product gets done faster at nearly these same cost. An inexperienced artist will work slower than a seasoned professional. If the customer is paying me to do art, then the time it takes to complete the product will go up, both because I am doing two things and because it take me longer than the pro. Also, I cannot charge as much for my art as a professional could. So for the hours I spend doing art, I am getting paid less than if I were doing coding unless I cheat the customer. In which case, my producer welfare goes up, but their consumer welfare goes down. Even if you assume that I could become instantly as talented and as fast as someone who has been doing it their whole life, I still spend more time doing something that I don't like and less time doing something that I do like, all while increasing the production time for the client because I can't do two things at once. There is no situation that maximizes both producer and consumer welfare where I try to wear two hats.

 

This is very true, and drawing is only a small part about it. Mix in color theory, animation, etc and it gets much more complex. But I find myself in that same situation. I'm forcing myself through Blender, ZBrush, xNormal, the Substance suite because I'm a hobbyist who wants to push into something more but have a family to feed and not the funds to hire an artist. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the art part of it as well, I'm just not delusional enough to think I'm very good at it and would never at this point try to do it professional for someone else. That being said, I hope to do enough that I can get at least a decent prototype and maybe then seek funding or a partnership to do the production artwork.

 

Clarify with your delusional client how this works and advise the best course of action. If that can't be agreed on then there is no point attempting to work for her.

 

I don't know if you're being serious here XD

 

I really enjoy 3d art, and if I take my time and treat it as art, I'm pretty decent at it. 2d art is something completely different though. I'm still not a good enough 3d artist that I wouldn't prefer to hire someone. Though, even if I were and I could afford to hire someone I would still do it because the product gets done much faster. The trick for me I've found is to use whatever days off I give myself to work on the art for future projects. Because when I'm working on a current project I feel in too much of a hurry to get things done than my art skills (or maybe art in general) allows for. That kinda means it isn't really a day off, but it also means that I'm not worried about meeting a deadline and can take the time to make the art look as nice as I'd like and as within my ability. When I started working through the Blenderella tutorial just for fun I found myself losing hours just playing around with the way the face looked. I can also spend an hour or so tweaking a texture. I'm sure more experience will speed things up, but I'm also sure that adjusting my internal deadlines to match the requirements of creating art vs creating code would help greatly. So too would having a product release that doesn't sell just well enough to cover the sales backslide of previous products during its production, I'm sure.

 

Only half serious. There were basically two options that could be pursued. Work with the client to come to an understanding. Or figure out an alternative way to do the art.

As many people have indicated, learning to do everything yourself can be inefficient. However there are people who have done it.

I tend to generate ideas and solutions first, and evaluate them for usefulness later.

 

I'm not saying it's inefficient to do it all yourself. That's true, but only if you actually have the means to split the work with others. It'd also be faster if you had a team of one thousand people instead of just two or three. Technically, almost anything is faster with more people.
I'm confused because it's bat-crap crazy to think someone can learn how to create art at any effective level in a matter days (IE; Mid-project with a client).
You're making the same mistake as the client here in thinking that anyone can just pick it up and start doing it, which is the heart of the OP's entire problem.

 

It's shocking how many people don't do this and/or don't realize the benefits of splitting those two things apart.

 

Its one of the first things we learn in brainstorming 101. Keep the production of ideas separate from the evaluation of ideas. During brainstorming a bad idea can go on to spark a good idea. Ideas can also be generated faster when there is no fear of ridicule, or no attention is wasted on processing ideas.

 

Or a "bad" idea can turn out to in fact not be that bad at all.

I've been in plenty of situations where someone has suggested an idea that would typically be considered crazy/silly/too trivial only to have others in the room say "oh, that could actually work here because...".

 

In a recent brainstorming session for a fire evacuation scenario, this is the actual idea that led to the implemented solution.

"... we should track people's movement by having them leave a trail of breadcrumbs through the building, like in Hansel and Gretal..."

True story.

 

Sounds like you would end up with a lot of noise if you tracked everyone. After enough time, the floor would be 100% covered with breadcrumbs. And shortly after that, the floor would be covered with ants. And shortly after that, the office would be full of screaming and death because those ants would be carpenter ants :3

 

And they would be on fire.

 

Well, it looks like I'll be getting the original artist back on the project to do the clean up and coloring if everything goes right.