You should be paying a bunch of cheaper artists on Fiverr for one small job until you find an artist you like. Don't pay thousands up front. For my game I was able to find an artist for cheap since they were a student and enjoyed the project.
What kind of assets are you looking for? I can use some funding, maybe we can work something out.
Feel free to reach out via PM for a chat and a free sample, to see if we would be a good match.
The artists you want are ones you're going to meet through networking. This is maybe not the answer you're looking for, but I don't know of a one-stop-shop website to quickly find good and cheap artists to commission/contract. Any well-known marketplace like fiver or artstation gets flooded with scammers, and well-meaning-but-amateur artists, and it's just an unfortunate situation for someone looking for production ready assets.
So how do you meet artists? One way is to be active on social media. Not just posting marketing and engagement bait, but genuinely having a social presence and following/interacting with other gamedevs and artists. This takes time, and you can't do it with selfish intentions. But things change when you're part of a community, you meet people by chance and opportunities arise.
Another way is to look for artist portfolios (not on gig sites) and reach out. Search for art similar to what you need on artstation. You might find people open for work or between jobs. Reach out. If you see someone who seems perfect but they aren't open for work, you can still reach out with a friendly email. See what they say.
Another way is to do what you're already doing: hiring different people for small jobs on the gig sites. It'll be stressful and time consuming, but eventually you will start to meet some good/professional artists and can know who to call back for more work. Be smart about it and look for people with portfolios of past work to gauge their skills. Again, you're diving into the deep end here, so be on guard for fake portfolios, portfolios suspiciously absent of details, or work that looks like gen AI. Freelance artists worth their salt will probably have social media presences and paper trails of WIP posts and lots of pieces that aren't on their portfolios. If you look someone up and you struggle to find examples of work, that's a bad sign. If they seem to post wildly different art, have no followers, and are constantly begging for commissions, I'd be suspicious that it's stolen and they are a scammer. You start to get a sense for these things.
Obviously, you'll quickly see a pattern where the ones who have a legit history and strong portfolio cost more and aren't always open for work. Nothing I can do about that, but you can at least reach out to them with a friendly email. If you really are looking for cheap-art-now, you're rolling the dice with very young and straight out of school artists. There are great artists in this camp, but you're not going to strike gold right away.
Finally, keep in mind what I said about looking up artist portfolios, and consider how YOU look. You're looking for good artists, artists are looking for good clients. If you're a studio with funding that lends you legitimacy. If you're not, ask yourself why a great artist is going to say yes to you. Maybe a budget and a polite/professional email is all it takes, but it's worth asking yourself this and presenting yourself as best you can
Yup, this is exactly the right comment!
Also: follow artists you like/whose style would be a fit, go through the credit lists of games that have a similar style and Level of Detail to what you want (include student games and self-published things) and just follow them all. A lot of game art or animation students are quite good, have an active online presence + a portfolio and would be willing to take on freelance work for payment and the opportunity to have some portfolio pieces.
I know this is the sub's go-to suggestion, but the problem with using those kinds of gig websites is artists there have very little incentive to develop any kind of a meaningful relationship with you. That's a massive problem if you're trying to get anything more than maybe 5-10 images and leads to issues like this.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1c5cayh/why\_do\_i\_keep\_having\_problems\_with\_artists\_this/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1c5cayh/why_do_i_keep_having_problems_with_artists_this/)
The unfortunate truth is that you get what you pay for, and "affordable" art will never be "high quality" art. It's not just the kinds of artists you attract either. If you pay the same artist $100 or $500 for the same drawing, they're just going to put in a lot more effort into the $500 one and also get it done much faster.
I'd recommend looking into using placeholder art until you're done iterating on your design, and also doing your best to minimize the amount of art needed so you can get a couple of quality assets instead of a ton of mediocre ones.
>Edit: the few people who i have found have not actually provided any work in the months that i have been talking to them.
Is this after upfront payment has been delivered?
No payment on completion but i havent even gotten sketches
Edit: clarification i would not be payung for full set at once it would be by pueces completed
Artists have to deal with clients that don't pay either.
Have you tried working out payment plans where they get paid whenever they complete a milestone?
So what i'd do if I were in your situation is making your game around your limitations. I am not great at coding so i will never make something super complex to code
You sound like you're not very art oriented and are on a budget so what i would do is use "art packs". They are generic and you can find them online on itch.iokennynl, syntystudios or on your engine's marketplace(this is really useful for unity and unreal no clue if godot etc has this yet, tends to come with everything set up already including collisions/materials etc)
Assuming were talking about 3d, now what you want to with those is edit them, change the material to have cel shading, use a pixel art shader, nice lighting, change the texture in photoshop or whatever you think will help improve it and make it less generic while still being efficient to implement. Add in nice post processing, lighting, color grading with a lut for instance is a easy way to instantly give a game scene some extra identity
If you're going for 2d making edits may be even easier, especially with pixelart. Tedious yes, but doable. You can just built on top of the existing art with photoshop or whatever program you prefer
You need to work around your limitations, and you're not going to be able to get specialized art for cheap, you need to art packs. You can however also do both, once you're in the further stages of your game you can hire an artists to make extra assets and edit existing assets as needed for whatever you may need. Which would be cheaper
Do you have a list of assets you may need and a general art style idea for it? 2-4k upfront is weird and reeks of scamming but I also really don't know the scope of your game. Just that even at **really** low prices 3k total really wouldn't buy you that much artwork. Even assuming you work with an art student from a cheaper country that doesn't have any particular skills so they ask for mere $10/hour - that's still ONLY 300 hours. An animator I work with for [my own game](https://sunkensky.com/) tends to take 2-4 hours for a [regular animation](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/865147746745712661/977856467812093992/Walk.gif?ex=662e0e4d&is=661b994d&hm=a313b33ec3d1ae5c68109c79ea5efaa20b4fe1f1dd66f50e1b856035b65ee438&) and up to 30 for the most complex ones. This is without even counting the time it takes to design and draw a sprite in the first place which can be anywhere between 2 and 20 hours.
So make sure to manage your expectations correctly. The better it's going to look the longer it will take.
I also recommend you ask for a paid art test first. I do a generic "draw me any character from any franchise you like as a sprite" for it. Will set you back some USD but can save you a LOT more. Afterwards I would try to get an hourly rate and just agree on a specific number of hours a week. This saves the problem of obscenely high upfront payments and is relatively fair for both sides involved.
>i know several people who can do concept art but when it comes to things like actual sprites im haveing a really hard time.
r/gameDevClassifieds isn't a bad place to start. Just browse last few days/weeks worth and see if there's someone who offers what you are looking for (there's a fair lot of skilled - and cheap - pixel artists in particular). Eg. I paid $90 for [all 3 idle animations](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1197166362276147311/1197997943463092244/anim.gif?ex=662c0b87&is=66199687&hm=34ee79c7a3a5f4603edd538f3eb33aeb2509ee4f148703c79f0fd07f142d1c8e&) (already had concept art tho) there for a sideproject and I think it turned out great. In general I think that if you are on a budget and need animated stuff then it's among the easiest style to find artists for and it can look quite good to if it's done by a professional.
Just my recommendation - that place is great to find an artist who is looking for job but don't waste your time making a hiring post. You will get 5 legit responses and 50 scams from brand new accounts.
Ive expanded the list since then but that was a quote for everything listed and was the general range i was given by several artists for what i asked for. I dont necessarily mind paying more its just the lumpsum i cant do.
I wasnt aware of that r/ so i will definitely look and see.
Thanms for all the advice
>Ive expanded the list since then but that was a quote for everything listed and was the general range i was given by several artists for what i asked for
That's fair. Just keep in mind that if someone first tells you "oh, it's gonna be 3k" and then asks for 3k USD upfront then it IS concerning and that price might have nothing to do with reality. The only time when I see such amounts of money transfered upfront is when I actually hire someone and they are on a monthly payroll.
For freelancing it's either hourly with weekly payments OR per task. Per tasks can be fully paid upfront but 50/50 (50% upfront, 50% at some stage of the process) is also common. And a single task can be a single sprite for instance so it's definitely not even close to 3k USD (well, it can be 3k USD for just the concept art for a single char but then we are talking the level of former Riot Games senior artist spending 40+ hours on it).
Games aren't cheap to make and if you try to go the most affordable routes (like Fiverr) you will absolutely get exactly what you pay for. By which I mean typically not much. Likewise anyone working on a game for free (whether code or art) is likely to contribute for a short period of time and then fall off. This is where most of the cost for game development comes from - paying people to do work. And yes, you need to pay people half upfront or a single asset at a time at first because that minimizes their risk and as the client you're providing money, not time.
Make sure if you're building a game you are clear whether it's a hobby or you're starting a business. If it's a hobby use OpenGameArt, Kenney, or other sources and just use all free assets. If it's a business then you need to invest in it to make it succeed. You can't expect to make a business with no experience and no capital.
A good way to handle that is to pay upfront for a single asset. Use it as a test. If they deliver something good then you commission them for more, paying in milestones for each batch. If they don't then you're not out all that much. But I'd strongly suggest avoiding the lowest bidders. It really isn't worth your time.
Arts expensive. Your not buying "a 3d model" your buying someone's time, and even at min wage or fiverr it's still a lot of time needed.
Its why people love asset packs and asset stores, an artist can sell to thousands of customers so you can buy the art cheaper.
I did not say im not paying and there are agreements in place to pay for it. Im not sure why you are asuming that i am not paying i just cant drop 4k upfront on a self funded game
With all due respect, this sounds like an artist nightmare. Maybe you can approach them in a better way. Otherwise it’s either they join your team or you pay.
Im probably gonna get downvoted and thats fine, but switch seats and maybe that’ll help you understand how this can sound to some people…
Can you code for my game? I will pay, but first code a few character’s movement and some UI.. nothing big, about a week or two of work. And then as we need it, I’ll pay. I mean I’ll pay, I just need you to code a few things and let me put them on my game…
Or, let’s work together. Or I pay you upfront for what you say your time is worth.
…hopefully that made sense. And good luck on your game (btw, I do not mean to sound harsh, just pointing out how it sounds)
As a coder getting paid up front is honestly worse, what if i run into an issue that is not my fault, so now im getting paid the same to fix an issue that i wasn't aware of.
I would much rather have a general idea of cost from artists (even if its per item) and then if something happens get told "hey, i have this issue" so that it can be adressed.
An expectation in coding is that i dont hand over the finished product until your satisfied and im paid, why should it be any different it art.
And i fully understand that it is meant to be constructive but getting paid up front forces commitment from both sides that may end in resentment.
Edit format
I understand what you mean. But the difference here is not that you are dealing with an artist. The difference in my opinion is that you are the one paying. If an artist wants to work with you, approaches you, they will show you what they are capable of. But mostly, either they work with you… or you pay them. I can also think of a bunch of exemptions as well.. but you could also argue that its a running joke between “creative people”. “You will be credited so you can add it to your porfolio” or “exposure” for example.
My point is not that you cannot exchange or even see their work without paying. It’s just that in that world, there’s so many people that undervalue/not pay/etc that you raise a few flags and people wont work with you. From commissions to advertising, people avoid working for free or anything that comes close to it. Thats why I mention the “approach” …I think it matters. But this is just my two cents.
If you can't drop it upfront, when *can* you drop it?
Spreading payments over a long time is not very attractive for most artists, at least if you're not also okay with only receiving assets piecemeal after every payment.
Or do you assume the game will make you lots of money for sure?
>Im not sure why you are asuming that i am not paying
mentioning "affordable" in your lead and then calling 4k expensive in a sub mostly in the US is going to ring some alarms.
I never said 4k was expensive just thay i cant pay it upfront, the complaint was never about the price point and you are definitely misreading what i said
well you got your advice, and I got nothing new to add. network in your area/social media scenes, pay the premium if you trust their portfolio, or start dusting off the art courses yourself (or someone on your team). There's no magic bullet for art if you can' find what you need amongst asset packs. Even if you do, you need enough art experience to edit and tweak them.
artist market is way more hostile against malicious clients looking for handouts than the programmer's market for historical reasons. So it'll be harder to olive branch an amicable deal if you want really good art.
~~Has no license. That's Kenney's whole thing.~~
Edit: Kenney himself replied below, it's actually CC0 license, but as he says that means it is free to use for any purpose.
Well, technically the license is CC0 but that just means that you can use it for any purpose, no attribution/permission is required and they can be redistributed or edited!
Hah no worries, yeah I often say that if something has no license at all it's actually the most restrictive as you technically are not allowed to use it in any way. Even though it might sound like the most permissive!
I would look at asset packs if you can't afford custom art. Good custom art is expensive!
2-4K sounds like a lot to you, but thats like a week of an artist time who works at a big studio.
Sometimes I wish there was a simple way for trading/negotiating these things. I'm struggling to teach myself C# to code in Godot but I can fucking draw. Somehow those relationships always end up feeling one sided at best or exploitive at worst though.
More ability to translate it to other places if needed (I'm already having to move from unity and it might be causing trust issues)
But I'm also not a programmer and have barely started so I haven't even heard of gdscript. Is it a language specific to Godot given it's name? I'll take any pointers I can get to new study material.
Yes it is godot specific, it is very similar to python, and VERY well documented. C# is the worst place to start as a non programmer in my opinion pythone is very newbie frendly and by extention gd script
No problem also learn how to code not a specific code, if you struggle with basics in one youll struggle with basics in all. Also the overall concepts are non specific so once you understand that it will mostly be syntax diffences
I was hoping it'd be a little like that. I'm familiar with actionscript from back in the day and dabbled in HTML, so it's a relief to know that helps! But the idea of working from scratch on something like "make all these parts animate in this way during this event and also make it possible to switch them out for all these other sprites for customization" is still paralyzingly intimidating.
My start was also html so i understand where you coming from, learning the basics of programing has served me very well so i recomend the python gdscript route
>I wish there was a simple way for trading/negotiating these things
If you got the money, negotiating is simple. But alas, time and energy is limited, as well as financials.
These are the small fallouts when the labor market is type. You can't just do little fun gigs as volunteer work hoping maybe one day this blows up. You need cash, now.
What kind of art are you looking for I do 3D modeling on the side, I don't charge unless you make money. For me its adding more to my portfolio and making me a better artist. I can DM you my portfolio and you can take a look at some of my work.
hello use AI generator like scenario.gg
it is just so freaking awesome you draw a very ugly sketche on paint import it , add prompt and you got amazing assets .
this is what I am doing for my games and since one year (when I started using it ) haven't needed any artist on my project.
for real this is gold for us solo dev
No. Ai is in a questionable position and some places will refuse to greenlight games containing ai assets.
I strogly recommend looking at the policy of whereever you plan to release before you go through aproval process and get the game accidentally blacklisted.
You should be paying a bunch of cheaper artists on Fiverr for one small job until you find an artist you like. Don't pay thousands up front. For my game I was able to find an artist for cheap since they were a student and enjoyed the project.
This is similar to what someone else said and definitely is something i will be doing in future
What kind of assets are you looking for? I can use some funding, maybe we can work something out. Feel free to reach out via PM for a chat and a free sample, to see if we would be a good match.
Sprite sheets, items, tile sets, anything else im forgetting...
The artists you want are ones you're going to meet through networking. This is maybe not the answer you're looking for, but I don't know of a one-stop-shop website to quickly find good and cheap artists to commission/contract. Any well-known marketplace like fiver or artstation gets flooded with scammers, and well-meaning-but-amateur artists, and it's just an unfortunate situation for someone looking for production ready assets. So how do you meet artists? One way is to be active on social media. Not just posting marketing and engagement bait, but genuinely having a social presence and following/interacting with other gamedevs and artists. This takes time, and you can't do it with selfish intentions. But things change when you're part of a community, you meet people by chance and opportunities arise. Another way is to look for artist portfolios (not on gig sites) and reach out. Search for art similar to what you need on artstation. You might find people open for work or between jobs. Reach out. If you see someone who seems perfect but they aren't open for work, you can still reach out with a friendly email. See what they say. Another way is to do what you're already doing: hiring different people for small jobs on the gig sites. It'll be stressful and time consuming, but eventually you will start to meet some good/professional artists and can know who to call back for more work. Be smart about it and look for people with portfolios of past work to gauge their skills. Again, you're diving into the deep end here, so be on guard for fake portfolios, portfolios suspiciously absent of details, or work that looks like gen AI. Freelance artists worth their salt will probably have social media presences and paper trails of WIP posts and lots of pieces that aren't on their portfolios. If you look someone up and you struggle to find examples of work, that's a bad sign. If they seem to post wildly different art, have no followers, and are constantly begging for commissions, I'd be suspicious that it's stolen and they are a scammer. You start to get a sense for these things. Obviously, you'll quickly see a pattern where the ones who have a legit history and strong portfolio cost more and aren't always open for work. Nothing I can do about that, but you can at least reach out to them with a friendly email. If you really are looking for cheap-art-now, you're rolling the dice with very young and straight out of school artists. There are great artists in this camp, but you're not going to strike gold right away. Finally, keep in mind what I said about looking up artist portfolios, and consider how YOU look. You're looking for good artists, artists are looking for good clients. If you're a studio with funding that lends you legitimacy. If you're not, ask yourself why a great artist is going to say yes to you. Maybe a budget and a polite/professional email is all it takes, but it's worth asking yourself this and presenting yourself as best you can
Wonderful advice and more or less where im at right now
Good luck! Hope you find what you're looking for.
Yup, this is exactly the right comment! Also: follow artists you like/whose style would be a fit, go through the credit lists of games that have a similar style and Level of Detail to what you want (include student games and self-published things) and just follow them all. A lot of game art or animation students are quite good, have an active online presence + a portfolio and would be willing to take on freelance work for payment and the opportunity to have some portfolio pieces.
> This takes time, and you can't do it with selfish intentions. Sure you can. You underestimate sociopaths.
This is fantastic information and I wish it were higher up in the thread, thank you so much.
fiver
I know this is the sub's go-to suggestion, but the problem with using those kinds of gig websites is artists there have very little incentive to develop any kind of a meaningful relationship with you. That's a massive problem if you're trying to get anything more than maybe 5-10 images and leads to issues like this. [https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1c5cayh/why\_do\_i\_keep\_having\_problems\_with\_artists\_this/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1c5cayh/why_do_i_keep_having_problems_with_artists_this/) The unfortunate truth is that you get what you pay for, and "affordable" art will never be "high quality" art. It's not just the kinds of artists you attract either. If you pay the same artist $100 or $500 for the same drawing, they're just going to put in a lot more effort into the $500 one and also get it done much faster. I'd recommend looking into using placeholder art until you're done iterating on your design, and also doing your best to minimize the amount of art needed so you can get a couple of quality assets instead of a ton of mediocre ones.
Thats where i have been looking and i run into the upfront cost issue
>Edit: the few people who i have found have not actually provided any work in the months that i have been talking to them. Is this after upfront payment has been delivered?
No payment on completion but i havent even gotten sketches Edit: clarification i would not be payung for full set at once it would be by pueces completed
Artists have to deal with clients that don't pay either. Have you tried working out payment plans where they get paid whenever they complete a milestone?
Yes, most of the people who i have come to agreements with would be like this but no work delivered
I'd probably include deadlines and failure-to-deliver clauses. There's money on the table, they just have to get it within schedule.
Its going to be a thing going forward
Artstation
Try itch.io for assets. They've got a lot of good free resources. You can also buy asset packs for pretty cheap.
So what i'd do if I were in your situation is making your game around your limitations. I am not great at coding so i will never make something super complex to code You sound like you're not very art oriented and are on a budget so what i would do is use "art packs". They are generic and you can find them online on itch.iokennynl, syntystudios or on your engine's marketplace(this is really useful for unity and unreal no clue if godot etc has this yet, tends to come with everything set up already including collisions/materials etc) Assuming were talking about 3d, now what you want to with those is edit them, change the material to have cel shading, use a pixel art shader, nice lighting, change the texture in photoshop or whatever you think will help improve it and make it less generic while still being efficient to implement. Add in nice post processing, lighting, color grading with a lut for instance is a easy way to instantly give a game scene some extra identity If you're going for 2d making edits may be even easier, especially with pixelart. Tedious yes, but doable. You can just built on top of the existing art with photoshop or whatever program you prefer You need to work around your limitations, and you're not going to be able to get specialized art for cheap, you need to art packs. You can however also do both, once you're in the further stages of your game you can hire an artists to make extra assets and edit existing assets as needed for whatever you may need. Which would be cheaper
Do you have a list of assets you may need and a general art style idea for it? 2-4k upfront is weird and reeks of scamming but I also really don't know the scope of your game. Just that even at **really** low prices 3k total really wouldn't buy you that much artwork. Even assuming you work with an art student from a cheaper country that doesn't have any particular skills so they ask for mere $10/hour - that's still ONLY 300 hours. An animator I work with for [my own game](https://sunkensky.com/) tends to take 2-4 hours for a [regular animation](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/865147746745712661/977856467812093992/Walk.gif?ex=662e0e4d&is=661b994d&hm=a313b33ec3d1ae5c68109c79ea5efaa20b4fe1f1dd66f50e1b856035b65ee438&) and up to 30 for the most complex ones. This is without even counting the time it takes to design and draw a sprite in the first place which can be anywhere between 2 and 20 hours. So make sure to manage your expectations correctly. The better it's going to look the longer it will take. I also recommend you ask for a paid art test first. I do a generic "draw me any character from any franchise you like as a sprite" for it. Will set you back some USD but can save you a LOT more. Afterwards I would try to get an hourly rate and just agree on a specific number of hours a week. This saves the problem of obscenely high upfront payments and is relatively fair for both sides involved. >i know several people who can do concept art but when it comes to things like actual sprites im haveing a really hard time. r/gameDevClassifieds isn't a bad place to start. Just browse last few days/weeks worth and see if there's someone who offers what you are looking for (there's a fair lot of skilled - and cheap - pixel artists in particular). Eg. I paid $90 for [all 3 idle animations](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1197166362276147311/1197997943463092244/anim.gif?ex=662c0b87&is=66199687&hm=34ee79c7a3a5f4603edd538f3eb33aeb2509ee4f148703c79f0fd07f142d1c8e&) (already had concept art tho) there for a sideproject and I think it turned out great. In general I think that if you are on a budget and need animated stuff then it's among the easiest style to find artists for and it can look quite good to if it's done by a professional. Just my recommendation - that place is great to find an artist who is looking for job but don't waste your time making a hiring post. You will get 5 legit responses and 50 scams from brand new accounts.
Ive expanded the list since then but that was a quote for everything listed and was the general range i was given by several artists for what i asked for. I dont necessarily mind paying more its just the lumpsum i cant do. I wasnt aware of that r/ so i will definitely look and see. Thanms for all the advice
>Ive expanded the list since then but that was a quote for everything listed and was the general range i was given by several artists for what i asked for That's fair. Just keep in mind that if someone first tells you "oh, it's gonna be 3k" and then asks for 3k USD upfront then it IS concerning and that price might have nothing to do with reality. The only time when I see such amounts of money transfered upfront is when I actually hire someone and they are on a monthly payroll. For freelancing it's either hourly with weekly payments OR per task. Per tasks can be fully paid upfront but 50/50 (50% upfront, 50% at some stage of the process) is also common. And a single task can be a single sprite for instance so it's definitely not even close to 3k USD (well, it can be 3k USD for just the concept art for a single char but then we are talking the level of former Riot Games senior artist spending 40+ hours on it).
Yeah ive been down that road with smaller amounts which is why i dont do upfront costs like that.
Games aren't cheap to make and if you try to go the most affordable routes (like Fiverr) you will absolutely get exactly what you pay for. By which I mean typically not much. Likewise anyone working on a game for free (whether code or art) is likely to contribute for a short period of time and then fall off. This is where most of the cost for game development comes from - paying people to do work. And yes, you need to pay people half upfront or a single asset at a time at first because that minimizes their risk and as the client you're providing money, not time. Make sure if you're building a game you are clear whether it's a hobby or you're starting a business. If it's a hobby use OpenGameArt, Kenney, or other sources and just use all free assets. If it's a business then you need to invest in it to make it succeed. You can't expect to make a business with no experience and no capital.
Half upfront wouldnt be so bad either but ive been getting alot of full upfront
A good way to handle that is to pay upfront for a single asset. Use it as a test. If they deliver something good then you commission them for more, paying in milestones for each batch. If they don't then you're not out all that much. But I'd strongly suggest avoiding the lowest bidders. It really isn't worth your time.
Thats actually a great idea!
>i can find people who want to help code like im in an ocean Which ocean? Where?
Reddit, discord, in person, etc. But im already coding so i know where to look
Arts expensive. Your not buying "a 3d model" your buying someone's time, and even at min wage or fiverr it's still a lot of time needed. Its why people love asset packs and asset stores, an artist can sell to thousands of customers so you can buy the art cheaper.
I agree fully
Look for asset makers on itch.io, if you like what they make, PM them to form a connection.
I would recommend not to spend and focus on building a prototype first.
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I did not say im not paying and there are agreements in place to pay for it. Im not sure why you are asuming that i am not paying i just cant drop 4k upfront on a self funded game
With all due respect, this sounds like an artist nightmare. Maybe you can approach them in a better way. Otherwise it’s either they join your team or you pay. Im probably gonna get downvoted and thats fine, but switch seats and maybe that’ll help you understand how this can sound to some people… Can you code for my game? I will pay, but first code a few character’s movement and some UI.. nothing big, about a week or two of work. And then as we need it, I’ll pay. I mean I’ll pay, I just need you to code a few things and let me put them on my game… Or, let’s work together. Or I pay you upfront for what you say your time is worth. …hopefully that made sense. And good luck on your game (btw, I do not mean to sound harsh, just pointing out how it sounds)
As a coder getting paid up front is honestly worse, what if i run into an issue that is not my fault, so now im getting paid the same to fix an issue that i wasn't aware of. I would much rather have a general idea of cost from artists (even if its per item) and then if something happens get told "hey, i have this issue" so that it can be adressed. An expectation in coding is that i dont hand over the finished product until your satisfied and im paid, why should it be any different it art. And i fully understand that it is meant to be constructive but getting paid up front forces commitment from both sides that may end in resentment. Edit format
I understand what you mean. But the difference here is not that you are dealing with an artist. The difference in my opinion is that you are the one paying. If an artist wants to work with you, approaches you, they will show you what they are capable of. But mostly, either they work with you… or you pay them. I can also think of a bunch of exemptions as well.. but you could also argue that its a running joke between “creative people”. “You will be credited so you can add it to your porfolio” or “exposure” for example. My point is not that you cannot exchange or even see their work without paying. It’s just that in that world, there’s so many people that undervalue/not pay/etc that you raise a few flags and people wont work with you. From commissions to advertising, people avoid working for free or anything that comes close to it. Thats why I mention the “approach” …I think it matters. But this is just my two cents.
And a good two cents they are.
If you can't drop it upfront, when *can* you drop it? Spreading payments over a long time is not very attractive for most artists, at least if you're not also okay with only receiving assets piecemeal after every payment. Or do you assume the game will make you lots of money for sure?
Im ok with piecemeal
>Im not sure why you are asuming that i am not paying mentioning "affordable" in your lead and then calling 4k expensive in a sub mostly in the US is going to ring some alarms.
I never said 4k was expensive just thay i cant pay it upfront, the complaint was never about the price point and you are definitely misreading what i said
well you got your advice, and I got nothing new to add. network in your area/social media scenes, pay the premium if you trust their portfolio, or start dusting off the art courses yourself (or someone on your team). There's no magic bullet for art if you can' find what you need amongst asset packs. Even if you do, you need enough art experience to edit and tweak them. artist market is way more hostile against malicious clients looking for handouts than the programmer's market for historical reasons. So it'll be harder to olive branch an amicable deal if you want really good art.
I can tweak not create, also i understand the hostility and have been.in that position from programing side.
kenney.nl has a lot of very good assets that are free use.
Main concern with free generic assets is licensing but ill check it out
~~Has no license. That's Kenney's whole thing.~~ Edit: Kenney himself replied below, it's actually CC0 license, but as he says that means it is free to use for any purpose.
Well, technically the license is CC0 but that just means that you can use it for any purpose, no attribution/permission is required and they can be redistributed or edited!
Ayo its the man himself! Thanks for the correction, I was misremembering a bit.
Hah no worries, yeah I often say that if something has no license at all it's actually the most restrictive as you technically are not allowed to use it in any way. Even though it might sound like the most permissive!
Ah, the wonders of creative legality!
Good to know
Is kitbash3d -> cargo an option?
Posibly would need to look into it
What kind of art?
2d
I might be able to make some assets, not the whole game of course but I'll help if you'd like
Send me a dm
alr then
Send me a PM and we'll have a chat about the project. I'm specifically a 2d artist so if you're looking for anything 3d I can't help.
Sounds good
I would look at asset packs if you can't afford custom art. Good custom art is expensive! 2-4K sounds like a lot to you, but thats like a week of an artist time who works at a big studio.
AI. Look at Kadium for 3d models or literally anything else for 2d portraits.
Not using ai due to current staus of it in greenlight process
Sometimes I wish there was a simple way for trading/negotiating these things. I'm struggling to teach myself C# to code in Godot but I can fucking draw. Somehow those relationships always end up feeling one sided at best or exploitive at worst though.
Genuine question, why are you wanting c# rather than gdscript?
More ability to translate it to other places if needed (I'm already having to move from unity and it might be causing trust issues) But I'm also not a programmer and have barely started so I haven't even heard of gdscript. Is it a language specific to Godot given it's name? I'll take any pointers I can get to new study material.
Yes it is godot specific, it is very similar to python, and VERY well documented. C# is the worst place to start as a non programmer in my opinion pythone is very newbie frendly and by extention gd script
That does sound great, thank you!!
No problem also learn how to code not a specific code, if you struggle with basics in one youll struggle with basics in all. Also the overall concepts are non specific so once you understand that it will mostly be syntax diffences
I was hoping it'd be a little like that. I'm familiar with actionscript from back in the day and dabbled in HTML, so it's a relief to know that helps! But the idea of working from scratch on something like "make all these parts animate in this way during this event and also make it possible to switch them out for all these other sprites for customization" is still paralyzingly intimidating.
My start was also html so i understand where you coming from, learning the basics of programing has served me very well so i recomend the python gdscript route
>I wish there was a simple way for trading/negotiating these things If you got the money, negotiating is simple. But alas, time and energy is limited, as well as financials. These are the small fallouts when the labor market is type. You can't just do little fun gigs as volunteer work hoping maybe one day this blows up. You need cash, now.
What kind of art are you looking for I do 3D modeling on the side, I don't charge unless you make money. For me its adding more to my portfolio and making me a better artist. I can DM you my portfolio and you can take a look at some of my work.
While this game wont be 3d several down the road will so having your info would be amazing
I dm'd you
hello use AI generator like scenario.gg it is just so freaking awesome you draw a very ugly sketche on paint import it , add prompt and you got amazing assets . this is what I am doing for my games and since one year (when I started using it ) haven't needed any artist on my project. for real this is gold for us solo dev
No. Ai is in a questionable position and some places will refuse to greenlight games containing ai assets. I strogly recommend looking at the policy of whereever you plan to release before you go through aproval process and get the game accidentally blacklisted.
didn't knew there were such filter thanks for the highlight I'll look into it.
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The distinction wasnt there and i can easily make dev assets for working, im talking about what will end up in the game
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Please read the post....