Advice for contracting out art?

[team23]

So I'm getting to the point on my current project where I'm going to need to get art into my game (External testing). I'm not artistic so I'd be contracting for basically everything. I have two big concerns, overall art direction and the payment/legal stuff.

I had a few questions you folks may be able to help answer:

1. Should I try to contract with different artists for different pieces(2D vs 3D vs UI vs Logo/Icon for example)? Or try to find one person for everything?
2. How are payments usually structured?
3. Should I care about getting specific concept art done or just handle that as part of the art process?
4. Are there standard contracts I can use for this? (LegalZoom for indie games basically)

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

[svero]

1. Dealing with fewer people is always easier. There's always a hassle of signing contracts/making payments etc.. As well the quality will be more consistent
2. Payments vary.. but if it's an artist you never worked with it's not uncommon to use a deposit/final payment structure. Like.. x% up front and rest on delivery. This varies with the size/length of project and whether its open ended or finite.
3. If you think you'll have more than one artist then I'd recommend choosing a main one to act as the designer/art director and having him set the style more concretely before bringing others on.
4. There are some floating around the net if you look.. Don't have specific links.

Extra advice

- avoid shared royalty deals if you're small time.. its too much accounting work. If you MUST include a % of royalties as part of the deal to get the guy you want attempt to limit it to certain milestone payments.
- make sure the artists you hire have a good track record. Get references if you can. It's not uncommon to run into problems like.. artists stealing work from copyrighted works and presenting it as their own etc...

[gamer247]

Never ever keep your eggs in one basket!
Unless the guy you pick is super duper pro with A list games background, but then again you'd need to pay huge $ for his service.

1. Hire different guys for different jobs according to the needs and their main skills or you get screwd.
I know it cause I've been there, I used to work as an artist, but funded my own game making company.

2. Almost all payments are usually 50% before the start and the rest after complition of the job.

3. Concept art is a must have! How do you explain a blind guy the color of the sky?
4. There are some typical contracts , but you shouldnt be that concerned many games fail, only few make it, the artists themselves are not dickheads, so dont be worried about being sued for something. However get a standart 1 page contract ready it's not hard to email it.

Regarding royalties no artist will ask for it unless they are newbies, it is mainly cash straight forward. The reason is simple they dont want to take risk, the risk is your problem.

[NicolasGB]

Here is my take : (I worked 4 years at a major game art contractor, Virtuos, and now run my own iOS studio where we've had to outsource some art on the current project)

1. The ideal option is to find one contractor that is reliable : good at all the different areas he'll work on, and that you can be pretty sure won't dump you overnight or rip off your stuff. If you can't find that perfect guy (hint : they are scarce and expensive ^^), don't hesitate to send out the work to different contractors.

2. Established contractors registered as a company will usually ask for a 20-30% downpayment. The remaining is paid upon approval of the final material on small projects (<1 month) or upon hitting certain milestones on larger ones. Sole traders will sometime not bother with downpayments and just accept payment upon approval. 50% downpayment sounds high IMHO

3. You should absolutely provide reference : it can be concept art, but also pictures, screenshots of other games that bear similar aspects to yours, text description, etc. So depending on the art you need produced, it does not have to been concept art. Explain everything. Let's say your reference is a picture of a lady with a dog. List what you would like the artist to reproduce and not reproduce from the picture : e.g. same hat, same dress, different dog (provide reference), etc.

4. For contracts I'd recommend asking around your close entourage, people doing similar business in the same country. Also contracts will often already have templates from previous assignments. There are mainly 2 types of contracts : projects with a fixed amount of work (2 characters, 3 environments, UI...) and retainer contracts (hire a guy full-time for x days, pay according to the number of days he actually spent). I tend to favour fixed amount contracts for small chunks of work that can easily be defined, and retainers for longer-term work across a large, less precisely defined amount of work. Our full time freelance programmer and artists are both on retainer, while our concept artist and our animator have contracts for a fixed amount.

I hope this helps ! Feel free to connect if you need further advice

[heavycat]

Break the project into milestones: 20% down, then 20% more on design/pencil, ink, flat, shading. If it's animated, 40% down, 20% more on approved animatic, ink, shading. Make sure you obtain all rights in the work. Get an IP attorney if you're unsure how this works.

Not a good idea to use one person for everything, as different artists have different strengths. For example, our studio has 12 artists, one is excellent at characters, another is a line animator, another is a costume designer, another is an environments specialist, another is a mechanicals and vehicles specialist, another is a creature designer, etc. Most of our game projects require the input of anywhere from three to eight artists.

All the best for your project! Sounds exciting!

[lennard]

My projects may be smaller than most... but I prefer one artist. One point of contact and a consistent look.

I try to get things as close to done as possible with placeholder art and then start working with somebody to make things look good. I find having a finite list of assets makes it easier for a pro to come in and make a bid. As far as royalties, if you are making a game that exceeds your budget then an advance against royalties is a viable option, under this scheme it gives the artist a project that is fairly far along and that they can play before committing, they get a known amount of cash and if the game does well then they have upside.