Pricing for custom models

This thread has been really interesting. I've been looking into 3D work regarding character models and animations using blender for my projects. From a designers standpoint I still have trouble figuring out the relationships between the assets I'll require and how I intend to get it all working correctly with the code.

I understand the process far more then my skills let me accomplish but I'm still surprised to see some of the prices given for the work provided. Thanks to all who have been more transparent regarding specific costs. The example given above by DesktopDaydreams was perfect, if not shocking to me personally, I'll certainly readjust how I think I'll handle art early on during initial concepts.

 

And people say 2D graphics are more expensive? What?!?! LoL... jk.

If I was a 3D artist (oh wait... I am! LOL!) I would create a system to simplify life for me.

For example, make a high quality base human model, and instead of creating a model from scratch every time--- work off of that.

I think a lot of artists aren't as efficient. Also, I work really fast, and although I don't know how long it takes others-- I assume I am much faster (I am fast at everything I do, even talking. I'm one of those fast talkers, lol...)

So as long as the person isn't so old they can absorb fast information, I usually don't ask ridiculous prices for what I do. Of course, I am also not an expert. I've done very simple 3D graphics. I mainly edit other's 3D graphics for my own use.

But the thing is... if I wanted to, I could easily contract out for a handful of characters, investing a few thousand dollars into extremely high quality-- and then use them as a base to make custom characters of high quality.

There's no reason to have to recreate the wheel repeatedly. And the beauty of Video Game Graphics (2D and 3D) is that you can often use what is already made, to save you hundreds of hours. Why recreate the wheel when you can use Unity? Why recreate a complex, time-consuming, highly detailed human body when you can reuse the same one, and edit it to be different?

No one will ever know. The end models will all look entirely different, or no more similar than some other guy's random high quality 3d humanoid.

 

sooooo....what about you show some of those intense awesome 3d-chars you already made (by changing the work of other people)?
Your post has some points, but how you try to explain them is the most (sorry for that) retarded way you could choose. Quality has it's price.

 

Speaking about qulity and reusing the same assets... Has anyone every player Enchanted Arm? I just had a look through the credits because when I completed the game I didn't really pay much attention to the credits and when I looked up I would have sworn there was only 1 programmer on that PS3 game...

http://www.giantbomb.com/enchanted-arms/61-11434/credits/

Anyways, check out these credits:
3 "lead programmers" and no "other" programmers
29 character artists
2 lead artists
awww heck, there are lots more artists like those working in "CG section" etc etc etc

And yet, with all those artists and designers etc they manage to populate an entire village with the same model and don't even bother changing the textures on them... Heck, in some cases they gave the models generic names like "Carnival girl" and some times you walk from one model to the next only to find the same face, the same clothes and even the same name, speaking back to you, even though you just walked down the stairs and clean across the yard...

I find it amazing that developers can get away with such 'tricks' and publish to the PS3... It's just not fair!
I think they understand the concept of 'reusing the same model' a little wrong... According to this thread, they could have spent upwards of 400 hours at a rate of up to $120 ($48,000) on a character to make it look good and then give it 6 default poses to assume during allllllllll conversations throughout the entire game...

Schlumsfsack was saying something about quality?
If I didn't like the game so much, I would have felt cheated...

Okay, that was mostly off topic. Sorry, back on topic, I have ben pondering the prices quoted before:

I am just amazed at how large a variety of enemy characters there were and how they jipped the main characters after spending so much money on creating them... I wish I were rich so that i may have money to throw away like that...

Anyone care to help me realize that dream?

 

I think this is a brilliant thread. Alot of clients have no idea at all of what 3D-art costs which can be frustrating at times to explain. I'd be interested to hear the same thing from a coderperspective. I guess its harder to make a general example when it comes to coding though.

For instance I been trying to create a custom fog that gets darker in color as it changes altitude. Maybe its a postprocessing script I don't know. But if I were to pay for a job like this what should I expect it cost? How long does a moderatly complex shader take to code?

 

i have no problem re-using elements in games, that is just good business.
I think we are not talking in the same range here. i guess many people think they are artists, because they managed to make 2-3 models that look ok. I am thinking of AA(A) quality. Of course i can make a model for 100-200 bucks, but many people won't be happy with it. (For that money you can't demand an optimized good working model)

I am talking about people that make a living out of being an 3D-artists and that have the skills to make a living out of it.
I am not talking about some guy/girl that model from time to time as a hobby.

maybe that is the reason why my comments sound so"fail".

 

Coding is about the same, hourly rate. Which can vary from very cheap prices 25-30 hourly, to costly ones 100-130$ hourly.
I worked for few companies doing some internal training and consulting, for most of them i charged 1000$ daily, could be between 8-10 hours per day.

 

Maybe I'm tight but some of these prices just baffle me. Charging someone $100 p/h for anything seems crazy to me. Each role in the industry has established a rough annual wage, most figures you'll find are taken from full-time workers in studios. I understand that freelancers charge more based on shorter spanned work periods and also the loss of benefits lost by not working in a studio but seriously this thread truly worries me.

Lets try looking at some new figures using annual salaries:-

Experienced Artist Animators ($80,000)
(80,000 / 52 weeks) / 40 hours = ~$39 p/h

I'm not sure if there is a standard mark-up rate for freelancers, I doubt it but I wouldn't imagine it to be so much to justify reaching $100 p/h for anything. I know when dealing with some freelancers that turn around time and ownership/rights to the work also adjust the prices.

 

@Robert-Glen. Yes but if you are a freelancer you have to double that amount because you pay business taxes (atleast in sweden),your own equipment, vacation a.s.o. The salary you get isn't what it cost the company you work at to have you employed

 

Filto is correct. When I pay 'salary' to an 'employee', there are a huge number of other contributions to the state and others black holes that can almost double my costs that don't even reach the employee. Some of these expenses show up on the pay-stub, but some don't. The 'employee' probably won't pay attention to them anyway. One of the biggest failures of freelance artists is to ask nearly the same wage freelance as they do on "paye" (uk term) or "employed". What can sting the freelance artist is often these state agencies line up at the end of the year and expect that cut they didn't get paid for*. Moreover, a good producer already had (employee paycheck * 2) in their budget to cover their actual cost, and when the freelancer comes along and asks for the same wage (or a little higher), the producer is putting the remainder back in their budgets.

*Or find themselves the victim of an accident and not covered by workman's compensation or any of the other safety-nets employees get and take for granted but need to be paid for by freelance artists. SS in the US. That's a contributory deal. You don't pay into SS. You don't get paid out when you're 65.

 

In-house studio salaries range from minimum wage to only a few on the freelance wages (for a key experienced role) These account for the majority of the game industry jobs. Other industries like architectural pre-vis or tv/film rely on more freelancers.

The whole nature of freelance work means you probably don't have work lined up for every week in the month, especially in today's economic climate. Freelancers in the game industry tend to be the more skilled experienced professionals who have worked in the industry.

 

Like any creative industry there is a huge disparity in cost of labour depending on a huge number of factors, including some product of (talent * experience * contacts/hunger * desire). Freelance work, even at low wages, can be a great way to get experience without being a minion. Freelance work with a high price tag can be the solution for a seasoned professional who's been around the houses and knows who's who and what's what. It really depends who you are and where you are. All these prices seem correct, but one shouldn't be shocked by a AAA artist asking for Footballer's wages. He could in-fact be worth it. Finding someone talented and affordable is also possible. You just need to separate the wheat from the chaff, and find someone who is working on your harmonic and understands and is interested in what you are trying to do.

 

Faces and bodies generally have the same topology. I made a standard anyhuman. I then made a tall female amazonesque model from the mesh, a big Marine overmuscled goon, a skinny old man, a short average lady and a male teenager. I then put those under a PoseMorph tag in C4D and I can select 0-100% of any of these characters via UserData sliders to create a new character looking entirely different from any I have created. I can then take any in-betweener mesh and recombine with any other using PoseMorph. This can save weeks of unwrapping, rigging and weighting and redoing shaders. I even made sets of "ethnic" skin shaders. My suggestion is to get one good topology oriented mesh and then tweak the vertices and polys till you get a new character.

BTH

 

A good base mesh is a no brainer, but it's only the starting point in the whole process.

 

The good base mesh is obviously a no brainer. That this is only a starting point is a no brainer. Thanks for pointing that out. I might have missed it without your input!

Best
BTH

 

Glad to help

 

hello guys! i´m from brazil, and here is a very small game industry, but i know a lots of friends wirking as freelancer for big games company.

how much you paid for this exclusive model ?







or this creature!

this is the quality of wath i want in my games! and you????

 

Just as a side note, according to Game Developer Magazine's salary survey (April 2010) average salary of artists and animators is $71,071 and programmer's $80,320 a year. Oh, and in Europe it's about a half(Art ~38k).

Btw, previously I used to work at a web solution company (as programmer), and one of the clients wanted a simple flash based side scroller, so my boss was sure it's easy money. When he found out how much costs an art, he freaked out and dropped the project. He didn't believe game art costs more than aligning pixels.

 

those are high poly models...i would pay 0$ for it if i need game models especially if the main char looks like Hugh Laurie

 

heheh looks like hugh!! but to get a good lowpoly model with normal map you need the highpoly model!! becouse this a custom model cam coust 10k + , easylly!!

 

you don't need to tell me that

 

Calling me retarded because you don't understand my explanation is quite immature and offensive. And no, you can't say "No offense, but you're retarded." and expect there to be no offense. Please grow up and try your post again.

I am currently making a 2D game, but these are derived from the same 3D model. These could be 3D models in an iphone or what not. Of course, I could enlarge them (they're small resolution because it's a 2D game) but I haven't got that far yet.


I guarantee you, if I was a professional 3D modeler instead of working on my own 2D graphics for my game-- regardless of what I charged, I would DEFINITELY reuse the same high quality base to work off of.

What you fail to understand that it is not *retarded* to work off of different templates, to speed up the process. And no, this does not hinder quality. You still have to make sure the model looks the way they want.

Reusing assets is a GREAT way to save time. Recreating the wheel over and over is pointless, and THAT is what is retarded.

Programmers don't recreate the wheel over and over, because THAT would be retarded. Instead, they use other programs, and edit them or improve upon them. They use base code to do things that would otherwise take a long time. They also use game engines, such as UNITY to save time.

Don't reinvent the wheel when someone just wants a better looking wheel. A wheel is still a wheel. Unless it's not human or humanoid, there is no reason to start from scratch every time.

 

maybe you reread my post, i never called you retarded, i said "the way you explain" your points is retarded. and maybe you read a bit more, because i said re-using stuff is good business. "grow up...mature" bla blubb. won't comment on those things.

And if you "were a professional 3D modeler" you would understand why it is stupid to charge 200 bucks for a quality models.
oh...and your picture...i see two brown splats.

 

LoL... you act like there is a difference? This is why I suggested growing up. Any mature adult would understand they are the same thing. It's a very simple concept: you're insulting someone for no reason, because you failed to understand what they were trying to say.

I fully understand why people charge high amounts for quality models. And people charge WAY more than $200 dollars.

I use to work for $5 to $15 an hour. Then I learned the average 2D artist makes 50-200/hr. They charge A LOT, even when it is easy work. It's not about hourly wages, it's about quality assets. I am fully aware of why people charge a lot of money. I also don't think it is ridiculous for them to ask for that amount. But it is ridiculous to pay for that amount. That's why I create my own graphics.

Then you need to get your eyes checked, because these are extremely detailed for such small resolution sprites.

If you want to try and make a highly detailed face in only a few pixels, and do better than me-- by all means, please do! Oh, and it has to be realistic, not a cartoon.

See if Diablo3's detail on sprites this small. See if my quality is really "two brown splats" LOL.


Sorry, but that is GREAT for low resolution, realistic sprites. Get your eyes checked and you can see the detail. Otherwise, I will assume you're rather lying because you are a very angry person, or you actually CAN'T see because your eyes or glasses fail you.


I am done with this. I don't argue with people who are oblivious to reality and call people retarded because of some insecurity they weren't smart enough to understand the concepts discussed.

*Done*

 

http://libertyeditions.com/Modeling.html

About halfway+ down there is some animations I did of the dynamic morphs. At any frame I can pull the figure out fully rigged, UV'ed and texture mapped..in literally seconds. There is also one to show the topology works in extreme poses regardless of how i shifted the underlying topology to body extremes. This mesh is about 6000 polys total.

BTH

 

After that i could call you an idiot, not retarded tho, but i keep with: "you are 17-18 maybe", right? and you still didn't read what i wrote. Pretty sad.

And wow...you must love yourself pretty much.

@BTH polys or tris?

looks pretty good btw makehuman?

 

I am a 25 year old professional game developer who is currently doing graphics for a professional game company. Does anyone else find it ironic that the same guy who is calling me a retard and an idiot is the one saying I must be a teenager?

 

6500 tris. A newer version comes out at 4800 and I have a low poly version at 2500. The MakeHuman puppets come out at 22K+ tris. A little too much for games but good for architectural render stand ins or generic crowd inclusions in cinematics. The older MakeHuman has better edge loops.. Some of them flow from foot to wrapping to spiral around the buttocks, up and around the lats to cross over the collarbone and spiral back across the face. Quite brilliant mesh deformation if rigged correctly. The newest MakeHuman is now just like Poser..Purely generic no matter how you mess with the controls. The best thing to do is.. Look at the best topology edge loop tutorials you can find, ( these meshes were created by following a Pan-The Dancer tutorial about four years back) create base mashes based on those edge loops, then snap knife cuts from edge loop to edge loop simulating muscle flow. Then knife again polys that are too long to be more square. You can keep the poly count down this way and end up with the proper topology for rigging effectively. I have a set of dragons I have done the same MorphSet with. Also a set of Gorgonized Sub-Marine Guards. I am going to do a generic set of cars next for the proppage for a large project that has been in the frying pan for a while and coming to fruition. I make two extremes from one mesh and then drop into PoseMorph and I can have dozens of distinctly shaped meshes and as long as I rigged and UV'ed the first correctly then the rest pop out of the pipeline ready to be used and abused.


edit..found the video.I can't find the original topology rigging link.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVucWc6kh-o

Best
BTH

 

I do.. The presumptuousness of some are a puzzle best left to the ghawdz to mitigate.

HTH
BTH

 

I just think its a shame the thread is being degraded like this. If your 25 and professional as you say then please just get over it and get back on topic. You have to expect to receive critiques and opinions that you might not like and also expect to deal with people who you might think are behaving like children, this is the Internet after all.

 

I heard someone say (many years ago, i forget who. some comedian) that for every 20 or 30 people he meets there are on average 2 he just can't stand...at all. So he doesn't want to have internet because this instant connectivity and being able to reach you from anywhere in the world means that whenever he turns on his computer he will be connected to over a hundred million people he simply cannot stand and they are all right there in his house and he can't chase them away. The way he said it was hilarious. I'm simply not doing him justice.

Bluster's workflow sounds like something right out of my mind. I love sliders... Whenever I complete a rig for my characters I like to build set driven keys that moves the various body parts between their extremes so I create my animations by dragging sliders around rather than clicking various parts then adjusting and then clicking other parts and adjusting and clicking other parts... I just drag... Takes some time to setup, true, but I just love seeing my model deform by the drag of a button

P.s. Bluster, since I originally asked for a price for CREATING a MODEL and never said anything about rigging or animations being done also, it seems that with your setup, if I pay you $150 p/h to create me a custom model the total cost would be around $10. LOL. Loving it. (p.s. yeah, I know I am over-exagerating )

I was also under the impression that you can start from a base mesh, but my past experience in modifying existing meshes has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I suppose I just had bad base models... anyways, what you said, being able to create custom models so quickly, that is a setup I would love to have on my end. I thought Quidam was the answer to that, but after trying the demo, I am not a fan any more. Now building your own custom models and attaching it to a morph slider?? Awesome idea..! Kudos to you

 

I actually only replied to his post once. After that, I was wondering if anyone else sees the irony in it, because it is hilarious.

I could say the same thing to you-- since your post continues it being off-topic. Otherwise, I would have never posted again.

My favorite thing is when people tell others to stop, after everything has already stopped. It's almost as ironic as the immature insulter claiming I am immature. I never once insulted him, but only asked myself, "Are these people for real???"

Anyways, I'm done. I limit myself to replying to others, not continuing off-topic. I also didn't really get off topic... I was defending my stance on custom models not requiring so much expensive on the artists end if they are just more efficient with how they handle their assets. Asking "Why is that retarded?" or wondering if anyone else agrees isn't really off-topic in my opinion.

Just because I am professional at my job doesn't mean I have to sit idle while lunatics make outrageous claims.

 

Haha, glad I'm not the only one laughing and enjoying this then

I love a good irony. (Wait... is that how you say it? I've never said it like that before.)

Hahahahha

Peace,
Ronny

 

@emergence You say.. "Damn..that pegged my Irony Meter right off the charts. I am going to have to send it in for repairs now."

Critics and second guessers are a dime a dozen. They do seem more prevalent around the gaming industry but places like CGTalk have their share of mouthlings trying to sound all smart and S*** by being low mouthed about everything. Myself... I never let a good troll go to waste and I never play their gambit. They want me mad, I am happy, they want me stoopid, I am a multisyllabic woo woo gun dynamo of incendiarily fulminative efficiency, roundly trouncing and pummeling their intellect into insensibility. The bottom line is..are you happy with your work? Was Leonardo or Michaelangelo ever totally satisfied that there was no further ladder of skills to climb?

@MrDude I love sliders! I do alot of autorigging like reverse feet and a special setup I refer to as a Kata Rig, which I am going to transfer into Unity and see if I can train it via hashtables as it needs only 5 position variables and two rotational percentage variables to create any pose and will Lerp or Slerp from pose to pose. So I just place a Key in the hashtable that says L_PunchChest and it spits out the position. I can then string these together with a timing array and it can simulate particular martial arts styles, ballet, walk cycles, weapons handling etc. It can also place the trajectory of limbs to make impact in upcoming frames so it is kind of AI as well for blocking and striking. That, with a good quasi-ragdoll switch for absorption of impacts, will give me a good semi automatic rig that won't need keyframing but can basically be procedurally driven. What 3D app are you using for asset creation?

Best
BTH

 

I am a maya user through and through. This last post sounds really interesting indeed! Both interesting and inspirational. If your work were food I'd be drowning in my own saliva now... but instead it has given me an idea of something I want to create in Unity...
Thanks for the inspiration...

 

I am very happy with my work (actually extremely--- I thought it would be 1000x worse, literally. It has not only met my expectations- but gone far, far, far beyond anything I ever could have imagined. I never thought I'd work as an artist of any kind, at any time in my life. What a surprise! And such a huge surprise I'm so good at it. I have only been at it for 3 months...and before I knew 0% about 3D models, textures, shaders, or lighting.

But yes, I also love a good critique. I love trolls, and I love playing with them. I love the fight, but most of all I appreciate the majority of criticism, because I use it to make myself better and better. I ask art communities what I can improve, and am almost offended at how much is stated can be changed, and by so many people-- but doing it repeatedly made me better faster than I ever could have alone! I love it. I never get offended, but sometimes it is shocking to see flaws in your work you thought weren't there, but can then see! "How dare they! It WAS perfect...before they looked at it!" LoL!

Of course, it is not criticism when someone says "Your work is crap. Just two brown blurs." when the work is actually quite good. That isn't criticism, that is blindness. Someone who states "you could use more [blank] or try [blah blah blah" and that is criticism. Saying something that is obviously NOT crap, obviously NOT blurs, is horrible is just lunacy.

I always want to improve as an artist and a game developer. But I can only sit there and laugh, becoming HAPPY with laughter in real life, when the best someone has is to say something so crazy as to just be a massive (failure) troll.

It does make me happy! They want me mad, but I am logical, reasonable, and hilarious, LOL!
I mean... come on... two brown blurs? I thought that was SOOOO funny since he basically made fun of himself and insulted himself, because it shows he obviously isn't even looking at the same image as me, LOL!

 

derail the thread more please. i sent you a PM, maybe read it and leave this thread alone now

i am dumb, you are a hero, end of discussion.

 

Reality check :

- https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/29/9222257/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-one-game-character
- http://www.siliconera.com/2013/02/2...-each-to-create-heres-why-squigly-is-cheaper/
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...aracter-can-cost-around-80000-make-180956492/

Generic models can be cheap but tailored 3d models with PBR shaders can be costly.
Don't forget to look if the artist own the rights on the model he sold you. Many artist get their model ripped on 3d model Website and saw them resold in others country. Buying a stolen cheap model can lead to a sales stop and lawsuits. A stealing artists can lead to a stolen game !

 

Thread is seven years old, but nice articles nonetheless.

I just did a little math -- and I'm very new to game character creation so take this for what it's worth -- but if I charged $30 per hour for the recent characters I've been working on, that would come to about $4,000 per character. And this is just the game-res model with textures. No rigging, animations or anything else. Usually takes me about two five day weeks working 8-10 hours a day, and I do have lots of time-saver methods, like kit-bashing.

Granted, I work a lot slower than an experienced professional, but I think about two weeks per character is what one of those articles suggested. So professionals probably just achieve a higher quality with more doodads in the same time it takes me to make a more basic character with beginner flaws.

But hopefully that should help totally clueless beginners realize how much time it takes to make a character. And if they think $30 an hour is too much, make it yourself!

 

It's way too little for pros in first world countries imho.

They also charge a lot more than 30$/h

 

$35 an hour is what I made working at a coal mine, so yeah, I'd expect a skilled job like 3d art -- which really takes years to get good at (not to mention talent) -- should make more.

$30 an hour is what I would charge -- if I was charging -- for my current work, which is representative of about 6 months of focused study, and may be suitable for beginners projects, it's a long ways from professional.

 

I have been struggling for a while not to locate a qualified modeler to make a custom life form for me and although I put 200 USD in escrow, it has been an ongoing battle not to want to strangulate the person on the other end for acting like a complete moron and making a mockery of my order by doing almost everything possible to make it NOT look like the reference drawings I sent them repeatedly.

If they fail to produce results by the deadline I will take my money back and be back in the market for a custom life form to be made which SHOULD be 'stupid simple' to make, even by the 'stupidly simple' of mind.

If I sound toxic, well, if you ask for a car to to work in and they give you a PIG, right out of the mud, are you going to hop on that smelly thing and ride it to work in your suit and tie or are you going to be a little upset and look for a resolution elsewhere?

I would not mind paying more, if the artist can accept monthly installments, but right now, I am still within the time range appointed for this project so I am still struggling to remain calm and try to make this work.

I am now to the point where I wonder if I could and should try to just build it my self on blender, des pite being cursed to fail at all computer stuff...

 

Although I can not speak for any nation other than the USA, here the law is, if you commission a work, you get full copyright to it, not the artist.

If an artist sells the same item to more than one person, if the original work was commissioned, then he is stealing from the original person who commissioned the work.

On the other hand, if the artist made the model and sells it as their own original creation, they are free to sell it to everybody who will buy it.

If you ask for a unique character to be build per your original artwork and they give you something based on something somebody else already hired them to make, regardless of how 'coincidental' the similarities may be, you could have serious IP lawsuits on you or worse.

On the other hand, if you plan on using this product for your own commercial for profit, [or even for nonprofit], works where you aim to hold and display it as a mascot or registered story character identity/franchise, you best be sure that the artist you are dealing with fully understands and obeys the laws on this matter.


Be sure the name, likeness and all relevant information are properly registered with the USPTO to protect your works from piracy.

 

200 USD for an entire character sounds low. As a refrence I paid 200 USD for this bomb prop

175 for these VR hands

 

Are you positive about that? Just asking because my own research suggests it isn't that straightforward.

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/06/...tatus-of-freelance-artists-on-commission.html
https://alj.orangenius.com/owns-works-created-freelancer/

 

Based on personal asking of artists the prices for a character go like this:

Time wise:
1 Month - That is quite universal, nobody is risking saying less than that since 95% of the times you will want modifications

Money wise:
Mid-level artist from Mexico/Eastern Europe: 800-1500$ per character
Mid-level artist from Western Europe/USA: 2000-2500$ per character
Film-level character: 5000$ per character

I've noticed that as the artist's skill is close to film-level the price is kind of universal, it's not based on country/location any more.

Having that said, at 1 month of work that means around 1000$/Month in less dev countries, and 1400-1500E in Europe/USA. I really wouldn't consider that a lot of cash, since a 1500E salary is really not that great especially for Europe.


Now, a little bit of precious 'internal' information. For our game, Wigmund RPG, the things can go a little different. We use some base character models, and we build on top of those. We don't need to build from scratch, and practically we are just developing the armors for the characters. Again, based on various facts, like that we already know the flow, we work for ourselves and we are very motivated... the character creation process can take between 10-14 days, even if your character artist has to go to highschool! That is 1/2 of all the estimations that external contractors gave us, guys that work full time on it. And yes, you can employ various tricks, to diverse your game. WoW and other games like that employed them heavily, just see how many armors are just variations of a base type/style. My advice is, work smart!

But if you need characters and can't do them yourself be ready to give out a lot of cash for one...

 

Learn to make the model yourself, make it, post the results here, and then tell us how "stupid simple" it was.

This is a somewhat common complaint I see on this forum and others. Somebody admittedly knowing nothing about a skilled job complaining about people not meeting their expectations. Maybe the failure is in your communication and unrealistic expectations?

Don't try to cover the world in leather, just make a pair of sandals...

 

And that is a very good price ^.

I'm guessing that model took at least 80 hours complete (by somebody who has a few years of experience in the craft). It easily could have been 5x that price.

 

Glad to hear thanks, I did spend some time browsing profiles on artstation