Elysian Shadows

Why is it so hard to find good artists that aren't working on ES? =)

If I knew the answer...

We'd have more artists working for ES.

Maybe one day your website will develop into a community bringing coders and artists together in a blissful, harmonic utopia thus enabling the creation of great games.

mattheweston wrote:Maybe one day your website will develop into a community bringing coders and artists together in a blissful, harmonic utopia thus enabling the creation of great games.

[sarcasm]Pfft, that chance. What are the odds of Elysian Shadows building a community. And even if they did, who would join it? Not me, nope, no siree. Uh uh. Nope.[/sarcasm]

If you present your project and introduce it to one or a few artists in a good manner in such a way you'd write a newspaper article (title and short introduction sparking interest in the reader) and perhaps share them a demo on how far you've gotten (especially if it is at the state where art really is needed) you should get good response from sincere artists. This is something ES needs to work on, Falco has mentioned getting a new front page that is up to date, not only to get artists interested but to be able to showcase the project to anyone.

mattheweston wrote:Maybe one day your website will develop into a community bringing coders and artists together in a blissful, harmonic utopia thus enabling the creation of great games.

Jesus Christ, I certainly hope so.

GyroVorbis wrote:

mattheweston wrote:Maybe one day your website will develop into a community bringing coders and artists together in a blissful, harmonic utopia thus enabling the creation of great games.

Jesus Christ, I certainly hope so.

You forgot your sarcasm tags dude

Edit:

Oh shit I forgot mine.

Um... i did right up a new front page once. It was up to date as of AiGD 16... (never heard of ESRev yet). But yes, depending on who your going to for the art, you may need diffrent aproaches.

thbp wrote:Um... i did right up a new front page once. It was up to date as of AiGD 16... (never heard of ESRev yet). But yes, depending on who your going to for the art, you may need diffrent aproaches.

Ehhhh what?

mattheweston wrote:Why is it so hard to find good artists that aren't working on ES? =)

I just think artists don't tend to hang around the game dev communities as much as coders do. You might have more luck at TIGsource, or at an actual spriter's community.

Moosader wrote:

mattheweston wrote:Why is it so hard to find good artists that aren't working on ES? =)

I just think artists don't tend to hang around the game dev communities as much as coders do. You might have more luck at TIGsource, or at an actual spriter's community.

one of which is wayofthepixel.net

I think a lot of the problem stems from artists wanting to do their own game designs, they tend to become decent by practising - not something that tends to happen through working on an actual project. They just don't fit into the standard development team very easily, and I can understand why. Ideally, people would write the whole game using coder graphics, templates, then get the artist(s) to 'tighten up the visuals', which is very unlikely. Game designs change and adapt during development, which can often mean re-doing graphics or scrapping them completely - this must be insanely frustrating for artists.

I remember making a remake/inspiration of Jetpac (classic ZX Spectrum game) for a competition, I was in charge of code, level design and sound, and was working with an artist. So at crunch time I'm working like a slave, fixing bugs and level designs, worked through the night to get it done in time. Then this artist chewed me out because I never included one of his enemies!. If your gonna have a full time development team artist, then you need a buffer between the coder and artist, even if it's just someone to act as a go-between, someone diplomatic, who is not afraid to tell someone their work good enough, or not being used, or awesome. It works both ways of course, an artist will complain about a pixel being out of place - listen to them and appreciate that eye for detail, because it all adds up to a much more professional looking product.

These days I try to do my own visuals, but I have access to a freelance artist who has insane skill, and is used to working with coder graphics - my last game for Intel AppUp is so damn pretty, he's a total pro. One irritant is always getting an artist to use in-house tools, like a layout editor. That's the real sign of a pro I think - willingness to put in the effort, and make the graphics work to their best for the game even if it means more work.

I guess pixel art is just one of those skills that are hard to come by

I think the secret of where all these artists are hiding lies deep within the creators of Chrono Trigger