Elysian Shadows

So for my current project we are looking for some art portraits for character selection screen, boss portrait for dialog box, and main menu screen background. We found a site with some art which we thought was a good style for us and contacted them with the following requests:

• I. Character selection screen portrait images.
  These images will appear on the character selection screen before starting the game. Non animated, 1 frame. Each will have a different theme or occupation. The frames should be roughly 125x250 in size (or scaleable).
  
  1. Soldier - Black muscular character wearing camo and a helmet. standing straight. cigar in mouth.
  2. Nurse - Skinny white woman wearing scrubs and holding 2 handguns to her sides
  3. business man - standard white guy in suit, machine gun in hand
  4. cop - a cop generic cop no specifics, holding a shotgun resting on shoulder
  5. schoolgirl - asian influenced girl wearing plad skirt/pigtails that whole thing and white dress shirt w a backpack with sniper rifle partially shown
  6. tough guy - meat head no shirt overly big, holding rocket launcher
  
  II. Dialog box portrait images
  These images will appear when the enemies are talking during the game in a pop up dialog box. Non animated 1 frame each. The frames should be roughly 100x150. This can be waste up shot.
  
  1. Cliffy (boy) - kid in regular clothes and a cape holding an m16 type gun. age roughly 12-16.
  2. Cliffy - beat up shot for after he is beaten, bruised eye, torn cape, you get the idea.
  3. Witch - Green toned attractive (if possible) witch with standard hat and robe, maybe holding a fireball (which is what she uses) or lightning (her close range attack) or both.
  4. Witch - beat up version, same idea as 2.
  5. End boss - In full armor version. we have a early model in the gDoc you can kinda see the look he is going for.
  6. End boss - without armor, scientist guy with lab coat and glasses , middle aged
  7. End Boss - beat up labcoat version
  
  III. Title Screen and box art
  
  1. this will be the title screen of the game. Elements from the previous 2 sections used and a box clear of art in the lower center for the menu options.

They responded a few days ago with the following:

• Thanks for putting together the list, it made things much clearer. We estimate it will take 9 hours for the artwork to be done, at 30/hr. For an estimated total cost of $270. We will adjust the total amount based on the actual time once the work is complete. Let us know if this works for you. Thank you.

Just because none of us have any experience with contract art, we thought it would be a good idea to ask around just to get a feel for prices and duration of time taken.

It seems like 30$/hour isnt too bad but what I'm worried about is the length of time they quoted. Does this seem reasonable? The images wont be very large. I just wanted to get an opinion first. I figured someone might have some experience in this area and might prevent any mistakes I make in deciding on an artist, because they know this is our first experience in doing so. I really appreciate any info. Thanks.

edit: or if you have any friends who do contract work i wouldn't be opposed to that either, would rather give work to someone supporting the forum.

Do you really plan to make that back on this project? If so, certainly make sure you will have full rights to use the artwork however you see fit before paying any fee whatsoever. Also, what happens if you don't like something? Do you have to pay another 9 hours worth for them to fix it?

dandymcgee wrote:Do you really plan to make that back on this project? If so, certainly make sure you will have full rights to use the artwork however you see fit before paying any fee whatsoever. Also, what happens if you don't like something? Do you have to pay another 9 hours worth for them to fix it?

No, making the money back is not a concern nor the objective for our project, just as a hobby but would like some of the things polished and no one in our group can draw... at all. If i did plan to choose this route I was going to see if they would agree w contingency that I see one of the character portraits (paid of course) before completing the rest. That is a very good point with the extra time that may be needed. I will take that into consideration. and yes i would have full rights as well. just curious if the time is reasonable, and maybe anything that I am making a mistake in before I make a final decision from someone who is familiar with the process. Just thought I would ask here , i dont really trust other forums. and as always, thanks for the post.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Small size doesn't necessarily mean less time - the fewer pixels to work with, the more difficult it is to get the detail you want in there. And you have 14 images in there, the last one I'm assuming will be significantly larger than the rest. Depending on just how much larger it is, that could be about half an hour per character, and the rest your title screen. I'd say that's a deal, especially since it's the style you want.

I don't know much, but it sounds pretty reasonable to me, if you do end up paying more it probably won't be a lot, maybe another 30... But in all honesty that sounds decent

aamesxdavid wrote:Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Small size doesn't necessarily mean less time - the fewer pixels to work with, the more difficult it is to get the detail you want in there. And you have 14 images in there, the last one I'm assuming will be significantly larger than the rest. Depending on just how much larger it is, that could be about half an hour per character, and the rest your title screen. I'd say that's a deal, especially since it's the style you want.

Yeah actually just for comparison i got a few other quotes and now this seems like a hell of a deal. The style is what i'm looking for and some of the other quotes were upwards of $1000.

Tbh, it sounds reasonable. Perhaps you could get a cheaper deal by posting on some freelancer art forums and hiring some 14-year-old desperate to prove himself...But if you are serious, this does sound like a safe bet.

Good luck! And, if you do go through with this, please let us know how it went! I'd love to see how this works out. Good luck man!

Arce wrote:Tbh, it sounds reasonable. Perhaps you could get a cheaper deal by posting on some freelancer art forums and hiring some 14-year-old desperate to prove himself...But if you are serious, this does sound like a safe bet.

Good luck! And, if you do go through with this, please let us know how it went! I'd love to see how this works out. Good luck man!

ok so i got all the portraits and map tiles back actually and everything went really smooth.
here is a playable character and a witch boss below in a bit lower quality





actually now he is going to do some of the sprites as well so the art should be getting a lot better very soon. I'm happy with his work though, he was very good with including specifics and doing them well.

Awesome! Thanks alot for the update--I was wondering what happened with this.

Can't wait to see the finished product, too.

Arce wrote:Awesome! Thanks alot for the update--I was wondering what happened with this.

Can't wait to see the finished product, too.

Exactly what i wanted to say :D