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RentI'm always rightFuckin' deal with itRegistered Userregular
edited October 2009
Okay- just to reiterate- 500 bucks for 150 pieces of artwork
Let's say he spends 60 minutes, a huge, huge fucking lowball for "FF quality" work, on each drawing.
Assuming also you gave him specific instructions like you said, That's 150 fucking hours of work. 500 bucks. For 150 hours of work. That's like 3 dollars an hour. That's like half of minimum wage
You expect to employ someone to do at least 150 hours of work for at most half of minimum wage? Yeah. You're nuts
Okay- just to reiterate- 500 bucks for 150 pieces of artwork
Let's say he spends 60 minutes, a huge, huge fucking lowball for "FF quality" work, on each drawing.
Assuming also you gave him specific instructions like you said, That's 150 fucking hours of work. 500 bucks. For 150 hours of work. That's like 3 dollars an hour. That's like half of minimum wage
You expect to employ someone to do at least 150 hours of work for at most half of minimum wage? Yeah. You're nuts
Yeah, let me just point you back to this post up here :^:
Perhaps I can offer a little professional insight. I'm not an artist myself, but I work for Steve Jackson Games, and I know what we pay people. I'm going to assume that the art you want is color. I'm going to assume you'd be happy with relatively simple art (that is, shit that's way below what you see in Magic. They commission paintings, for christsakes).
For simple illos to put on cards, 20-40 bucks a card isn't unreasonable. However, multiply that by 150 cards and you're looking at a bottom line of a few grand. We pay our artists flat fees, usually with some of it in an up front advance. You might, maybe, possibly, maybe could get an artist to work for a slice of the profit rather than a flat fee. Maybe. But it's unlikely, and unusual for the industry.
The only conceivable way I can think that you might be able to swing "want to do this for exposure?" is if you get a lot of different artists to work on the project. One person will not illustrate 150 cards pro bono. 20 different dudes just might. Will your game's art suffer a bit from lack of cohesion? Perhaps. But beggers, choosers, and all that.
Another thing you might want to consider: is this a good time for a new CCG economically? I know businesses like electronics shift funding during recessions to R&D, but I'm not sure if luxury industries like CCGs do the same.
As someone who works in the industry, both on the publishing side and the retail side, I can definitively say that no, now is not a good time for CCGs. Nevermind the state of the economy, the market for CCGs bottomed out at the turn of the century. Unless your game is called Magic or Yu Gi Oh, don't expect the game to do well. Hell, don't expect to turn a profit on it. From a business standpoint, CCGs have been poison for years. And not only have they been out of fashion (so to speak) for the better part of a decade now, but the entire industry is trending away from collectibles of all sorts. Clickies, for example, aren't doing well either.
Right now, what people are buying (and what companies that want to say in the black are making) are high-quality card and board games. Premium board games are big dog right now, with stuff like Battlestar Galactica being king. Indeed, Fantasy Flight Games is easily an industry leader and trendsetter in the current environment. We've been doing okay because we have Munchkin, which despite all good sense still sells like mad.
I can not stress enough that you do not want to make a collectible card game right now. However! This isn't a bad time to try and break in with a non-collectible card game. They aren't doing as well as board games, but they are head and shoulders above everything else in the industry. If you can retool the game to be non-collectible, I guarantee your chance of success will increase exponentially. Keep in mind, too that, non-collectible doesn't mean non-expandable. Munchkin, for example, has a whole assload of expansions that can be added to the game. People don't seem to mind buying more of a game. It's item rarity that pisses people* off.
(*"People," as in, "the larger money-spending population of the gaming industry." Or "the people that actually fucking matter to the bottom line." I know there are people out there who get off on collecting stuff, and yeah, they're served by that kind of product. They do no pay the bills.)
Finally, I'd like to tie this back into your artist problem by asking this: have you considered submitting this game to an established game company? While some of us develop things internally, there are companies that accept submissions. I admit, SJG isn't looking for card games at the moment, but that's only because we have a backlog of our own ideas. I would highly recommend shopping your game around to established names in the biz to see if they're interested. Why? Because then all you need to do is put together a nice looking prototype. Prototypes do not need good art. (Or, in some cases, ANY art)
If someone buys the game, you sit back while they soak up the all the development and distribution costs. No, you won't see as big a slice of the pie as if you made it yourself. You also won't be like a friend of mine who is now $30,000 in debt because he self-published a board game.
Christ, I wrote a lot. tl;dr? Cheap art is doable, but the volume will kill ya. If you want a hope of hell in selling this, make it non-collectible. If possible, shop this around to names in the biz.
That is fantastic advice Psycho, thank you so much for your time. When we were discussing what the best way to sell the game was, the idea of releasing the game in sets came up and we really liked it, but we later got the impression that the only real profit would come from booster packs, mostly as a product of our printing process, and were sort of scared into doing it the yugioh way. What I reallllly want to do is release a box set based around a time period or hook in the game that features a deck from every race. To be reaffirmed in our earlier desires is really, really enthusing. Thank you for your insight. At first I was really against the idea of "shopping it around" to various companies, only because I feel like people just wont take us seriously or even give us a chance to present. However, I think that our game can speak for itself, especially with all of the great art advice I've picked up here, so hopefully that is not a problem.
Thank you everybody, I am really glad I came here for help on this.
Lower quality cards can also be changed with palate swaps.
Mind explaining?
think final fantasy games; you fight the same damn wolf a million times, but at the start of the game they're grey, and gradually work their through all the colours of the rainbow until at the end of the game you're fighting a purple wolf with pink polka dots
for example, if you have "fire/water/air/earth" versions of similar things (powerup, creatures etc.) then it isn't as hard to simply swap some colours around as it is to redraw them entirely
this can look kind of cheap and obvious with creatures, but if you've got cards with (for example) a rune representing water against a swirling blue background, you can change the swirls to orange, chuck a new rune on top and suddenly it's a fire card.
I mean they don't work for everything, but if you use palette swaps appropriately they can save you a buttload of time in the long run
Over the last five years I've followed the process of soliciting art commissions several anime convention's badge and book art, and I can say right now that art is not cheap. When it's just a job to them, it's an expensive job.
Palette swapping and background swapping are certainly good ways to get the most out of good illustrator art (assuming you stipulate that you want color, background, and subject layers separated) if you can afford a few pieces but not much else.
Another good option that was thrown out is to solicit art on deviantart with a one-time payment for use. Some artists will turn you down, others will be willing to deal, a few might even be won over and ask if there's anything else you'd pay for. One convention I staffed at did that for a few years until finally one of the artists we tried turned out to be super interested and joined staff.
Over the last five years I've followed the process of soliciting art commissions several anime convention's badge and book art, and I can say right now that art is not cheap. When it's just a job to them, it's an expensive job.
Palette swapping and background swapping are certainly good ways to get the most out of good illustrator art (assuming you stipulate that you want color, background, and subject layers separated) if you can afford a few pieces but not much else.
Another good option that was thrown out is to solicit art on deviantart with a one-time payment for use. Some artists will turn you down, others will be willing to deal, a few might even be won over and ask if there's anything else you'd pay for. One convention I staffed at did that for a few years until finally one of the artists we tried turned out to be super interested and joined staff.
Oh man, I probably would not have thought to specify that I wanted separate color, background and subject layers. Thank you
It's one of those things you learn really early on. Sometimes an artist will give you a flattened raster, sometimes they'll give you the illustrator file. Sometimes all the lines will be on one layer, sometimes the characters (the subject) will be separated from the background and other characters.
Murphy's law applied to art: if you need something and don't ask for it, you won't get it.
Like others have said, do you really need 150 cards to start? It might be more economically to create "starter pack" with say 15 cards and boot strap the rest of them with the sales from those. That will also let you "test the waters" of your business and marketing plan. If you fail, then you're only out a 10% what you would be if you sunk everything into all 150 cards.
Like others have said, do you really need 150 cards to start? It might be more economically to create "starter pack" with say 15 cards and boot strap the rest of them with the sales from those. That will also let you "test the waters" of your business and marketing plan. If you fail, then you're only out a 10% what you would be if you sunk everything into all 150 cards.
Or even better, try releasing on the "cheapass games" model where you have no art and everything is printed on bare notecards.
It's one of those things you learn really early on. Sometimes an artist will give you a flattened raster, sometimes they'll give you the illustrator file. Sometimes all the lines will be on one layer, sometimes the characters (the subject) will be separated from the background and other characters.
Murphy's law applied to art: if you need something and don't ask for it, you won't get it.
This is so true. Sometimes you need to be really clear. I received some art assets where I asked for a transparent background in powerpoint format once. I still have no idea why.
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Let's say he spends 60 minutes, a huge, huge fucking lowball for "FF quality" work, on each drawing.
Assuming also you gave him specific instructions like you said, That's 150 fucking hours of work. 500 bucks. For 150 hours of work. That's like 3 dollars an hour. That's like half of minimum wage
You expect to employ someone to do at least 150 hours of work for at most half of minimum wage? Yeah. You're nuts
$500 for <10 cards since the last post, actually.
Bwaha indeed.
Yeah, let me just point you back to this post up here :^:
Premium card plan is a go.
That is fantastic advice Psycho, thank you so much for your time. When we were discussing what the best way to sell the game was, the idea of releasing the game in sets came up and we really liked it, but we later got the impression that the only real profit would come from booster packs, mostly as a product of our printing process, and were sort of scared into doing it the yugioh way. What I reallllly want to do is release a box set based around a time period or hook in the game that features a deck from every race. To be reaffirmed in our earlier desires is really, really enthusing. Thank you for your insight. At first I was really against the idea of "shopping it around" to various companies, only because I feel like people just wont take us seriously or even give us a chance to present. However, I think that our game can speak for itself, especially with all of the great art advice I've picked up here, so hopefully that is not a problem.
Thank you everybody, I am really glad I came here for help on this.
Mind explaining?
Its the same drawing but with different colors
think final fantasy games; you fight the same damn wolf a million times, but at the start of the game they're grey, and gradually work their through all the colours of the rainbow until at the end of the game you're fighting a purple wolf with pink polka dots
for example, if you have "fire/water/air/earth" versions of similar things (powerup, creatures etc.) then it isn't as hard to simply swap some colours around as it is to redraw them entirely
this can look kind of cheap and obvious with creatures, but if you've got cards with (for example) a rune representing water against a swirling blue background, you can change the swirls to orange, chuck a new rune on top and suddenly it's a fire card.
I mean they don't work for everything, but if you use palette swaps appropriately they can save you a buttload of time in the long run
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Palette swapping and background swapping are certainly good ways to get the most out of good illustrator art (assuming you stipulate that you want color, background, and subject layers separated) if you can afford a few pieces but not much else.
Another good option that was thrown out is to solicit art on deviantart with a one-time payment for use. Some artists will turn you down, others will be willing to deal, a few might even be won over and ask if there's anything else you'd pay for. One convention I staffed at did that for a few years until finally one of the artists we tried turned out to be super interested and joined staff.
Oh, that makes sense. Thank you.
Oh man, I probably would not have thought to specify that I wanted separate color, background and subject layers. Thank you
Murphy's law applied to art: if you need something and don't ask for it, you won't get it.
Or even better, try releasing on the "cheapass games" model where you have no art and everything is printed on bare notecards.
This is so true. Sometimes you need to be really clear. I received some art assets where I asked for a transparent background in powerpoint format once. I still have no idea why.