[DanHowardArt]

***http://kaitol.com/how-to-hire-an-artist/***


People like this are everywhere in every field. As a freelancer, you'll find your fair share. Pass this link around while it's still up and be cautious of unscrupulous jobs that prey on your inexperience. And remember, ASK QUESTIONS. You're valuable and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!



EDIT: Should the above link not work, this is a copy of the blog entry:




Taken from http://kaitol.com/


"How to hire an artist

I’ve hired a bunch of people to do art for some of my largest games, I thought I would give a little insight on what do when hiring yourself.
How to find an artist:

I recommend looking through art sites such as Deviantart for an artist which suits your taste, or any other site that has a decent art community such as Newgrounds. There’s a few reasons you want to find an artist this way. First of all, they’re cheaper. These guys aren’t used to making a lot of money for their work so they will be more appreciative of the chance even if they are being payed slightly less than what professionals are payed. Second of all, they’re better. The quality of art you can find through this method is pretty amazing, and the vast amount of artists guarantee you will find something that suits your tastes and needs. Unless you have a specific price you want to pay in mind, ask THEM what they are willing to charge for the project. This usually causes people to give offers that are lower than what you normally pay, and will make them happy.
How NOT to find an artist:

Do not look for either professional artists, or an artist that has done a lot of game design work in the past. The problem with artists who do this as their full time job is that they’re usually expensive. Compared to what you can find through art sites, these guys tend to cost an arm and a leg. Artists who have done a lot of game design work are also bad for a similar reason, they know how much flash games can earn so they expect a decent percentage of the profit. It’s ridiculous to pay something 50% of a sponsorship when you can find someone else who would accept $500 for the same job. When your game sells for $10,000, the difference in cost is a multitude of 10.
Artist payment:

Make it clear to whomever you hire that they will not be payed until ALL the work is completed, unless it is completed by a predefined date, and unless it matches or exceeds expectations. Sometimes I have an issues getting all of these things, but if you give someone a job they’re expected to treat it as so even if they’re just a hobbyist. Paying prior to the completion of the project is a bad idea for several reasons. Only paying for the finished work encourages the artist to finish their job faster, if you pay up front the artist has no motivation to finish quickly. Similarly, if you pay up front the artist could disappear and you may never get what you payed for!
Keep them in the dark:

This relates back to what I talked about earlier. If an artist knows how much their artwork will increase the value of the game they will then feel they deserve that amount of money. This is not how a market economy works, you hire whoever is able to do the best job for the lowest amount of money, anything else is a loss of money on your end.
Timelines:

Give strict dates about when you need the art done (even if you don’t) and give consequences by deduction in pay if the art is not completed by the date. Unless the person you’ve hired happens to be very punctual, you will need strong motivation to make sure they finish the art in a timely manner. Try to only hire people ages 18+ (I may sound a little hypocritical here), kids are generally less reliable and have more IRL things come up that they can’t control. I’ve had several bad experiences with this."

[Arish]

Wow this guy is scum. Wish I could have seen this 10 years ago ... would have saved me a lot of heartache when I came up across scammers like him.

Thanks for sharing.

[Qitsune]

I guess this is why it's the artist's responsibility to get educated on these matters. No one but you has your best interest at heart. It's sometimes hard to negociate prices and conditions, but it's well worth it. And what he doesn't mention in his post, is that usually, the cheapskates are also more of a pain in the ass to work with, they don't know what they want, or they don't know how to say it, and it will cause you a lot of grief.

[DanHowardArt]

Link at the top should work now. stupid me leaving the asterisks in the URL -__- . sorry about that.

[kovah]

On the brightside that article is now front page on Deviantart its gone viral spreading via journals and art communities and both his alias and real name are now on encycopedia dramatica. It will be a while before anyone will work for him again, and even then if anyone googles his name he will now be associated with being rather a douchbag forever more.

[Qitsune]

Well, that is where I disagree with you Kovah, if an artist agrees to work for this guy for the amount they have quoted themselves and the conditions he stated, they can only blame themselves for not making enough money. At that time, that guy has done nothing wrong.
He might sound very harsh, but there are loads and loads of other people who do exactly the same, and you wouldn't know the first thing about it because they don't go out and made it known, but the result is exactly the same. If this guy offered me work, I'd state my price and conditions and I would have no moral qualms working for him if he met my conditions. I don't think he can afford my work, however.

[kovah]

Originally Posted by Qitsune

Well, that is where I disagree with you Kovah, if an artist agrees to work for this guy for the amount they have quoted themselves and the conditions he stated, they can only blame themselves for not making enough money. At that time, that guy has done nothing wrong.
He might sound very harsh, but there are loads and loads of other people who do exactly the same, and you wouldn't know the first thing about it because they don't go out and made it known, but the result is exactly the same. If this guy offered me work, I'd state my price and conditions and I would have no moral qualms working for him if he met my conditions. I don't think he can afford my work, however.

Your last sentence is the catch though, he cant afford/wont pay professional prices from people that *know* how much their art is worth and any cheaper art he may have got on Deviantart from young/naive artists (who will hopefully be much more aware about this guy and his counterparts) that are willing to use the fact that amateur artists undervalue themselves and will consequently charge higher rates. (And as the price of art on DA is already very very low this can only be good)

I dunno if you have read this response to the article but I think it says why alot of people are annoyed with the article: http://www.thejonjones.com/2010/08/0...ire-an-artist/

[Qitsune]

Well, I have been doing videogame art for over 10 years now. I wouldn't charge the same if I was just starting and I *SHOULDN'T* charge the same if I was just starting. I have seen a lot of artists think that they can do whatever and when they start doing the job, they realise it's much harder/longer/more complicated that they thought.

There is a reason why experience is rewarded. This guy clearly has no problem working with people who are very green. While it might be seen as predatory, it's useful experience for the artist (much more than anything you find in the "non-paying jobs" section of any forum, because the guy makes games that make enough money that he can pay artists (and he quotes somewhere that he sometimes pays several hundred dollars, which is more than many many jobs I see on forums) and he can go out and hire MORE ARTISTS. So even if you despise him, he's still doing something right. With more game devs going bust after 1 or 2 games, even if he's a small player, I think he's o to something.

How I see it, artists quote a price and agree to his term, they get experience and they are happy. The only reason they get unhappy is that now they see that the guy thinks he's getting away for underpaying artists, but they wouldn't be unhappy if he had'nt opened his big mouth. He's also hiring people who probably never would get job offers like that because they have no experience. The thing is, people underestimated their quote because of their own lack of confidence/experience so they only have themselve to blame.

Have you ever gone to a garage, get a quote and think:"Wait, that's way too low, I should pay more for this" ?

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Edit: I don't mean to say that his advises are good or recommend that anyone follow them. I just don't think he's the monster you are making him to be and I wish him well and hope this little media storm does some good to his business and teach him to shut the fuck up when he thinks he's getting away with murder.

[kovah]

I agree that if the artists are giving him an overly cheap price then it is their fault and that artists with little experience should be cheaper than professionals. What I think was more irking for me and the other people that disagree with the article is the tone of it and what he is passing off as advice for people looking to hire artists is riddled with bad practice that can make people very hard to work with.

For instance saying that they shouldn't pay until 100% of the work is done (I would run a mile at that now but perhaps 5 years ago I would have jumped at the chance to get paid for my art and alot of people get stung that way.) For any work there should be a small deposit and full amount when the work is completely done. He advocates reducing pay if its not done by a deadline, I have had a job where the client changed their mind so much that the deadline passed by several months because they didnt have everything else in place for me to do the work, if they were operating on this guys advice I would probably have ended up with nothing for their mistake.

I digress. Alot of the advice in that article is just bad practice that makes life difficult for artists and seems to install a sense of mistrust in artists from the clients point of view.

As you said in your edit hopefully he will learn from this as will the huge amount of artists that have read it and accordingly learned that they are entitled to ask for a small but fair price for their efforts and perhaps a little recognition where it is due.

fyi I've never been to a garage, I'm still learning to drive

[eclypse]

Thanks for the article. As an art student without too much work experience, I often wondered when it comes to compensation, is payment normally upfront before the project begins (after contracts are signed) or is it better to be paid in parts depending on how much of the work is completed? Or does it ultimately depend on the client? Thanks

[Marucha]

From my experience it was half in the beginning, half later since it's labor. Especially for large projects. You can't expect someone to put all that work in and not get compensated for it? I always thought that was the norm and irked me the most about this article. There's no protection for your time and labor then. I think a half/half payment method is fair.

You're also not supposed to produce full files of things (for example, when you're producing examples of what they might want) until the end, because then that client can then take your work and take it somewhere else for cheaper and use the same files (mostly for Graphic design work). Depending on what it is, it's like giving them work for free. These are things I was told and it's how I do things now too.

[love2u]

You've raised an important point here. The world is full of cynical people who want cheap labor. This is the reason why we have so many working poor today. Every artist, no matter how desperate he is for work, MUST demand a fair price for his work and never agree to do work without being paid a fair price. The same is true in other fields of freelance, programming, translating, article writing etc.; you have people who'll pay you $2 for an hour's work. I'm happy though to see these guy have their notice up for weeks on end and nobody answering them. Well, they can just go on waiting forever, hopefully!

[fernhead]

Oh man, maybe i don't want to be an artist after all if this is the mentality of the people i would be working for.

[heminder]

there are people like this in every industry and profession. it's just the way the corporate world works it seems.

a quote from Dave Mustaine: "Do your best to protect yourself from man."
or something like that.

[peterfernandes]

While there is no single answer, and not everyone will agree on a definition, involving your students in a discussion of this question can be .
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