Another one bites the dust.

[zoombapup]

Bah. It looks like another "freelance" artist has basically disappeared. It was looking so hopeful too.

Being a freelance artist must be a complete nightmare, I understand that, but simply stopping work and not informing your clients is not the way to make it better.

I really need to find someone local. Who I can go and beat around the head to do work. Bah!

Just FYI: I contracted a freelancer to do a peice for me (just a character + animations) for my GDC demo's in march. Needless to say it started well and has tailed off. Right now I'm awaiting a response, but its a bit worrying that yet another artist has done this. I'm admittedly not paying a huge amount (but this guy actually took the contract, so I dunno what to say about that) but I wasnt desperate for a fast turnaround and I thought it would be an interesting gig for an artist to try out some new ideas.

[Applewood]

Not sure how much research you did on this, but I found it to be a minefield also.

There is a massive difference between a freelance artist and a guy who can do art looking to make some beer money on the weekend. Most of the guys on this board probably fall into the latter category as they won't be able to support themselves properly from indie work alone. (Note, I said "most"). After all, most of the programmers can't either.

That means they'll be doing a day job with varying demands on their time and it also means they can walk away when they get bored and not worry about getting a bad rep, as they don't rely on a good one to pay the mortgage.

If you're looking to get someone cheap, then I guess you're at the mercy of luck in finding a good and dedicated guy. If you want it reliable I'd recommend getting referrals from other full time developers, ideally those in the mainstream trade as any contact full-time programmers get with artists is with full-time "proper" ones that don't do owt else.

[AlexWeldon]

If you're looking to get people to do work cheap, I'd recommend breaking the work into bite-sized portions and ask that they be done on a fairly tight schedule.

Someone who has free time this week doesn't necessarily have realistic ideas about how much free time they'll have in the future, and we all know that it's human nature to put things off until close to the deadline. Also, excitement about a project decays exponentially with time. Put all this together, and it's obvious why it's such a common problem for someone to seem excited about a project, do 10% of the work in the first week, then put the rest off until a week before the deadline, at which point they realize that they're swamped with "real life," and either tell you they can't complete the project, or simply stop responding to emails out of guilt avoidance.

If, instead, you give them a small task, say "try to get this done by the end of the week, and I'll come back to you with more stuff as I need it," then at least:

a) You're guaranteed to get individual components 100% finished, instead of a dozen components each half-finished. Then at least you're not starting from scratch if you have to find a new artist.

b) You're helping the artist budget his time, and giving him tight deadlines to motivate him.

c) If the artist isn't going to finish something, at least you find out at the end of the week, not two months later.

Of course, best of all is to find someone with references, experience and a professional attitude... but then, of course, you're most likely going to be paying a professional fee. As the proverb goes, "if you want to pay peanuts, you're going to get a monkey."

[zoombapup]

Paul: Yeah, I did a bit of research, the guy takes part in a lot of these "game artizan" challenges.. the kind of thing you get on 3DBuzz etc. His stuff was pretty nice, which is why I went with him.

Alex: Yeah, I tried doing that. I only asked for one 3D character model. I broke it down into modelling and textureing and animation seperately, I gave a schedule of payment that had interim payment on completion of each.

At this point I really do think its not just a matter of money. I'm just not convinced that if you pay less, you should expect nothing.

My only option realistically is to find a reliable art service company and go with them. But I'd have preferred to work with an individual artist. My other option is to find someone fulltime, but I simply dont have the work to support that. A bit of a catch-22.

[RinkuHero]

This happens a lot, so always have backups and be prepared to finish the game when the resources are done rather than expect the resources to be done when the game is finished. I have three artists for my current game and three as backups just in case one or more of those three don't finish anything.

[Applewood]

It's about 80% that we'll be hiring an art guy in a month or two. We could probably sub him out to you at cost and I'd vouch for the work getting done personally.

[luggage]

Originally Posted by zoombapup

Paul: Yeah, I did a bit of research, the guy takes part in a lot of these "game artizan" challenges.. the kind of thing you get on 3DBuzz etc. His stuff was pretty nice, which is why I went with him.

Alex: Yeah, I tried doing that. I only asked for one 3D character model. I broke it down into modelling and textureing and animation seperately, I gave a schedule of payment that had interim payment on completion of each.

At this point I really do think its not just a matter of money. I'm just not convinced that if you pay less, you should expect nothing.

My only option realistically is to find a reliable art service company and go with them. But I'd have preferred to work with an individual artist. My other option is to find someone fulltime, but I simply dont have the work to support that. A bit of a catch-22.

You could try something like Elance, we've had some success on there, quality can be a bit variable though.

[Desktop Gaming]

Inherent laziness is just a trait of artists, I'm afraid. They can all talk the talk, but their "anytime will do" attitude has always been a pet hate of mine.

I know they aren't all like that, but the ones that are, give all of them a bad reputation if that's pretty much all you've experienced.

[zoombapup]

Originally Posted by Applewood

It's about 80% that we'll be hiring an art guy in a month or two. We could probably sub him out to you at cost and I'd vouch for the work getting done personally.

Thanks Paul,

I appreciate it. Whats his style like?

If you let me know if you take him on, I think this kind of thing would really help me out.

I've been trying to get our local development agency to come up with some money to help me fund a full-time artist, with the proviso that its only match funding for 12 months. They've done that for a few other places to help cushion the blow of taking someone on and getting them up to speed and productive.

I'm not entirely convinced I want to be responsible for someone else's livelyhood though. I mean its a big burden of responsibility and I'm much happier as a partner/collaborator than I am being a boss if I'm honest.

[Xathia Vastar]

Originally Posted by luggage

You could try something like Elance, we've had some success on there, quality can be a bit variable though.

I got so frustrated with Elance when I found out the only people (or most of them, anyway) who were getting hired were people overseas that were doing high-quality work for like 50 cents (I know I'm exaggerating). x_x

[Cevo70]

It's tough, but generally I've had pretty good experiences with artists (and the ones I find here in particular).

But yes the hard part is constantly wondering, "hmmm it's been 4 days since I've heard anything...wonder what he's up to..."

Communication is not a strong point often. Like if you go on vacation, I sort of need to know.

Did you offer split payment with some up front? I often ask how the artist prefers to be paid, and am open to offering payment upon early progress. Once the relationship is grounded, I'll even pay in advance if need be. It's sort of a reverse thinking of trust/respect.

Down-the-road thinking....maybe there should be a 'certified' status here on these forums. In otherwords, once an artist is vouched for, we can have a growing list of artists with different skills. I could name 4 off the bat that I would vouche for.

[Backov]

Originally Posted by Desktop Gaming

Inherent laziness is just a trait of artists, I'm afraid. They can all talk the talk, but their "anytime will do" attitude has always been a pet hate of mine.

Also they all smell bad and are poopyheads.

I like this game.

[jpoag]

+1 Freelance Vetting service for game devs/artists.

I would even pay for access to such a database. Free for artists/devs to create a profile and portfolio and all vouchers would be verified by a third party.

For instance, let's say I make a game with Tommy Two Toes and provide good feedback for him. In order to verify, the site would have to get a link to the work. Vouchers can remain unverfied until the link is provided. This way me and Accord can't strike up an... acord... and flood each other's profile with + feedback like they do on eBay.

What would be funny is when you leave negative feedback, that would me verified as well. For instance, your artist stops responding and you report him. The verification would be to email him and ask ( which he wouldn't respond to!) to explain. User comments wouldn't be necessary, just something like 'unfulfilled' contract or 'contract terminated'.

[Applewood]

I appreciate it. Whats his style like?

Seems he can turn his hand to most jobs, but he's pretty inexperienced - we're taking him on in a kind of apprentice role. He has all the basic skills and some of his samples were actually rather good, but how fast he can do it all in a production environment is our biggest question - and his too. I'll let you know when I know.

[AlexWeldon]

Originally Posted by zoombapup

Alex: Yeah, I tried doing that. I only asked for one 3D character model. I broke it down into modelling and textureing and animation seperately, I gave a schedule of payment that had interim payment on completion of each.

At this point I really do think its not just a matter of money. I'm just not convinced that if you pay less, you should expect nothing.

My only option realistically is to find a reliable art service company and go with them. But I'd have preferred to work with an individual artist. My other option is to find someone fulltime, but I simply dont have the work to support that. A bit of a catch-22.

...or you could hire someone you know, or someone with references that you know, like I said. Ask other people on the forum who they've hired in the past, rather than just posting to the Help Wanted section and going for the guy with the prettiest portfolio/lowest quote.

I really think this site needs more forums for artists than just Art Portfolios. That encourages any old artists (not specialized game artists) to come along, slap up their work, and never involve themselves in the community in other ways. Of course you're going to get a lot of unreliable people in that case.

I'm a regular here... people know my name, and I know theirs. You can bet that I take every contract I get extremely seriously, because if someone did have bad things to say about me, not only would I lose a lot of potential work, I'd lose a lot of friends, and the trust of people I respect. However, I'm only a regular here because I'm a developer as well as an artist... if I was purely an artist, I'd be hanging out elsewhere. If we encouraged more artists to integrate themselves in our community rather than just dropping in to trawl for contracts, we'd quickly learn who was worth their salt and who wasn't.

[zoombapup]

True, but from what I've experienced, artists simply dont have the right mindset to take part here. They want freelance work without any baggage like actually taking part in a project for instance.

I'd love to see more artists hanging around here. If nothing but to find a decent partner to work alongside.

But how many artists do you know who actively want to create games for themselves?

[Cevo70]

Originally Posted by jpoag

+1 Freelance Vetting service for game devs/artists.

I would even pay for access to such a database. Free for artists/devs to create a profile and portfolio and all vouchers would be verified by a third party.

For instance, let's say I make a game with Tommy Two Toes and provide good feedback for him. In order to verify, the site would have to get a link to the work. Vouchers can remain unverfied until the link is provided. This way me and Accord can't strike up an... acord... and flood each other's profile with + feedback like they do on eBay.

What would be funny is when you leave negative feedback, that would me verified as well. For instance, your artist stops responding and you report him. The verification would be to email him and ask ( which he wouldn't respond to!) to explain. User comments wouldn't be necessary, just something like 'unfulfilled' contract or 'contract terminated'.

Yup, this sort of thing, combined with Alex's thinking would be a pretty nice community upgrade. The sum would be a place where they not only felt more welcome, but had reason to partipate (for reputation, contacts, and of course $$).

Something like an "Artists's Corner" couldn't hurt right? The one on the XNA forums is solid. Then maybe there's a sticky with an ongoing updated list of verified artists...

[Bad Sector]

Originally Posted by zoombapup

But how many artists do you know who actively want to create games for themselves?

Almost every artist in tigsource's forums. Although there are many less-than-professional people in there, the forum is full of (talented) artists who want to make games (and lack programmers).

There are artists but usually they hang in other places.

Have you tried the polycount forums btw? Although i don't visit the forum frequently, they have a freelancing forum and the site is full of game artists (in contrast to generic cg artists which hang in cgtalk).

Basically look around for forums: like coders, artists, musicians etc use forums too and they tend to create communities with similar minded people. Which raises an alert: don't expect them to think like you. If they had a similar mindset, they would be here already :-).

[AlexWeldon]

Originally Posted by Bad Sector

Almost every artist in tigsource's forums. Although there are many less-than-professional people in there, the forum is full of (talented) artists who want to make games (and lack programmers).

Right. The problem is that right now, we get money-minded and not particularly passionate artists here, and all the passionate people end up in less professional, but more welcoming and inclusive communities like TIGSource, where they end up working for peanuts for hobbyist programmers, or doing mockups for games they lack the ability to make happen by themselves.

My attitude towards and experience with games has progressed in indescribable leaps and bounds since coming here. Really, although I might not always see eye-to-eye with the pro-casual crowd that are in the majority here, the education I've received in under a year of hanging out here and working on my own stuff is definitely far greater than what I would have gotten by spending a similar amount of time and thousands of dollars on classes. There are countless artists out there that could similarly be nurtured into highly effective freelancers if the community was set up for them... again, it's just my good fortune that I'm left-right brain balanced and equally interested in programming as art, otherwise, I never would have reaped the benefits of this community.

[Acord]

As an artist, I can tell you that it's extremely frustrating not to get paid for work for long periods of time. Instead, set milestones. That way, the artist gets paid as things progress.

Importantly, if the artist bails, this allows you to continue using the assets - even if they are unfinished. It gives you something to pass along to the next guy who signs on. Even if it's an untextured model, it's better than starting from scratch.

What point exactly are your artists bailing out on you? Are you trying to get them to do facial animations with bones or something?

[Acord]

Originally Posted by zoombapup

But how many artists do you know who actively want to create games for themselves?

That's how I started Blood Frontier... Mind you, the code was horribly buggy, but there was enough promise to attract a dedicated programmer, which makes my life much, much easier.

Mind you, that's not a way of copping out on something I'm not good at. I am in fact in school right now for software engineering, to get a better hand on getting into programming than a double handful of net tutorials that don't explain the very basic and very crucial parts.

[Acord]

Originally Posted by AlexWeldon

If, instead, you give them a small task, say "try to get this done by the end of the week, and I'll come back to you with more stuff as I need it," then at least...

Well, this works great in THEORY... But what often happens is that each small task is seen as a "job" that pays a little, and as soon as something more long term rolls around with promises of steady work they'll take it.

Look at it this way: Job C is done, you're waiting on payment. In the meantime, you get offered Job D, which is long term and pays okay. You take it. Job E comes along from the same guy who you did Job C for, and he likes your stuff, but now you have to let him down because you can't jeopardize Job D.

A LOT of people will simply decide to not tell you. It's just human nature, nothing personal. Look at it this way: In the days of yore, how many companies that you interviewed with called you back to say "sorry, you didn't get the job, here's why." ?

Practically none I'm betting. Same with artists. Well, most artists.

The unfortunate part is that this leaves YOU high and dry, and the artist may no longer have the time to dedicate to your project - paying or not. Freelancers do not give up stable long term work for bite size projects.

I think it's probably best to know exactly what you want, break it down into several small tasks, present the whole list to the artist and make sure that they are there for the whole duration. At least it will make sure that they don't leave you high and dry for what seems to be more stable work, because they know that when task A is done, they send it, start task B and get their money in a day or two.

I've fired a client for promising lots of work but not letting me know exactly what it was too. To me it means that the work will be sent back to the drawing board often and the programmer didn't really know what they wanted. That is what I've learned from experience. Seldom has it been someone who has a master plan - mostly, they've failed to plan and they're playing it by ear.

[zoombapup]

But isnt game design mainly about prototyping and trying things?

In my experience, a load of art is made and reworked, its just the nature of iterative development. Expecting a fully finished spec for something is just not right, given that most major studios have art directors that constantly send stuff back for reworking by thier artists.

Thats the real dilemma of freelancing I guess, you simply dont buy in to the project. You dont want any input and mainly just want a very prescriptive list when sometimes one simply isnt available.

I'm hoping that the development agency guy can give me some help here. I'd love to get someone in full-time but need help with that transition.

[papillon]

As an artist, I can tell you that it's extremely frustrating not to get paid for work for long periods of time. Instead, set milestones. That way, the artist gets paid as things progress.

Handing people money the second they deliver any art doesn't stop them from bailing on you, or at taking MONTHS to deliver ONE SKETCH.

(artists give me ulcers )

I know, not all artists are trouble. And a professional-minded artist who can give me an actual timescale that things will be done in is much appreciated.

[AlexWeldon]

Originally Posted by Acord

Look at it this way: Job C is done, you're waiting on payment. In the meantime, you get offered Job D, which is long term and pays okay. You take it. Job E comes along from the same guy who you did Job C for, and he likes your stuff, but now you have to let him down because you can't jeopardize Job D.

Um, WTF? The whole point of freelancing is that you're NOT just doing one job at a time. If you turn down additional contracts because you're getting full time work from one client, you're not a freelancer - you're an employee, but minus the benefits. Meanwhile, if you're getting so many separate contracts that you can't accept them all (even when you're spending all your time working on contracts instead of looking for them), then presumably you're not charging enough for the skills you possess, like a store that's always sold out of most of its products.

I've fired a client for promising lots of work but not letting me know exactly what it was too. To me it means that the work will be sent back to the drawing board often and the programmer didn't really know what they wanted. That is what I've learned from experience. Seldom has it been someone who has a master plan - mostly, they've failed to plan and they're playing it by ear.

In my experience, a load of art is made and reworked, its just the nature of iterative development. Expecting a fully finished spec for something is just not right, given that most major studios have art directors that constantly send stuff back for reworking by thier artists.

This is very true. I try to make it clear to clients that if they want a firm quote, they have to give me firm requirements. If they're not entirely sure what they want, they have two options - either I do what I think is best and they take it, or we keep a running tab and they pay me by the hour without a hard cap, so it's on their dime if they want to change their mind 30 times. It might be a bit unreasonable for artists to expect clients to know exactly what they want before they see it... but it's also unreasonable for clients to expect an artist to agree to work for an indeterminate number of hours for a fixed amount of money.

The problem with zoombapup's argument is that when a client tries to do "iterative development" with a freelancer, they're usually trying to take the art director role on themselves, which most programmers are not qualified to do. Good art direction takes at least as much skill as the physical act of creating the art, and artists will resent being forced to go back and change things if they feel it's making the final product worse, rather than better.

In general, I think another problem with artist-developer relationships is a lack of mutual respect caused by both parties having had bad experiences in the past. Artists don't have a monopoly on being stubborn, lazy egotists... a lot of clients are just as bad. This is another reason that this community would benefit from being more inclusive - it works both ways... the artists will also know who they do and don't want to work for after spending enough time here.

Originally Posted by zoombapup

Thats the real dilemma of freelancing I guess, you simply dont buy in to the project. You dont want any input and mainly just want a very prescriptive list when sometimes one simply isnt available.

This, I couldn't disagree with more. The reason I more or less quit doing freelance design prior to coming here is that I kept getting clients who:

a) Wanted to make all the creative decisions themselves,
b) Wouldn't trust my judgement,
c) Tried to obliterate any traces of my own style from the work, and
d) Wouldn't listen to any constructive criticism or suggestions I had regarding the project as a whole

The reason I'm so happy these days is that my experience working for developers here is that they're quite the opposite. They want me to be involved with the project on a larger scale, they give me clear guidelines up front, but then trust my judgement to fill in the blanks, they like it when the final result shows a mixture of my creative vision and their own, and they're very open to my suggestions regarding things I wasn't specifically hired for.

That is how developer-freelancer relationships should work all the time, but it requires two mature people who are capable of trusting one another and communicating well. Again, that's why we need to bring the communities together, instead of segregating them, which leads to both camps just sharing their horror stories and feeling like the other side is an unfortunate but necessary part of their job.

But isnt game design mainly about prototyping and trying things?

Yes, but you're supposed to use programmer art until you've got all the major elements pinned down. Even in my case, where the artist and programmer are the same person, I leave everything at first draft quality until I know the gameplay and UI are working in close to their final state.

If you need to change a rocket launcher into a laser gun at the last minute because playtesters found a balance issue, that's one thing... but you're going to frustrate your freelancer if he's just done a top-down tile set and you decide you want him to change everything to iso, or if he's halfway through the artwork for the game in a cartoony style, and suddenly you decide that you want everything more realistic. Not that I've had that experience working with a game dev, mind you - like I said, my experiences working on computer games have all been positive - but e.g. a board game publisher I used to work for would routinely send me back to the drawing board after the project was mostly complete, with instructions that contradicted what he'd asked me for in the first place.

[Reactor]

...when a client tries to do "iterative development" with a freelancer, they're usually trying to take the art director role on themselves, which most programmers are not qualified to do. Good art direction takes at least as much skill as the physical act of creating the art, and artists will resent being forced to go back and change things if they feel it's making the final product worse, rather than better.

I couldn't agree more with this.

[luggage]

I wouldn't be keen on working with a freelancer who's not up front about what projects they have on. If the work I'm paying them to do requires 8 hours a day for a week and that's the rate I'm paying I do not expect them to say "sorry, it's delayed because another customer paid me more to get their work to them."

Sometimes you can't give a firm idea of what you want and the spec should reflect this. The attitude of 'they either tell me exactly what they want or they pay me by the hour' I wouldn't be happy with. I might not know exactly what I want but if I say 'I want a male character blah' and you draw me a female character I'm not going to be happy about paying for that work.

And you're not "supposed to use programmer art until your prototyping is done". A lot of things are hard to get right with programmer art. For example, a main character running around jumping - until you have something that looks close to what you want you'll never get the right feel using a blue square.

Maybe we have just different ideas on what a freelancer is. I look at freelancers as people I'm employing on the short term to do a job. I expect a high standard and will pay well for that. While I'm all for feedback and take it all on board I wouldn't want a freelancer to get stroppy because I'm rejecting their vision for my game.

[hippocoder]

I used to be freelance full time, and my last job was probably Grey Alien's logo for his brand/site.

Speaking from a personal point of view, I feel communication is essential. I seriously hate people who can't be professional.

I would always turn down jobs I knew I wouldn't have time to see through to the end, and this brings me to my guide for you guys hiring freelancers.

How to get a reliable freelancer

1. When you contact them, they reply within ONE working day. If its later than a day, move on. Trust me. This is the number one sign someone isn't a "true" freelancer. A true freelancer who does it as a job, who will see your project through, is ALWAYS OBTAINABLE, and if he won't be - he makes it clear ie sat and sun.

2. when negotiating, he knows how much stuff costs, and how long it will take. If he is an amateur after beer money he will not have a clue what to charge nor will he have any idea how much it'll cost. An amateur won't know how long it will take him. Avoid people who don't know their own business. When I used to freelance I knew from experience how long it'd take me then I'd add one working day to the total to be safe. That extra working day isn't charged for, as I used to do work based on a milestone fee each time a bit of work was handed over.

3. Say you negotiate x work for y money. The final test for you is setting "milestones". If the work isn't done by that time, tell him he won't get paid. You are the customer, you set the rules (within reason). Always ask if they will be available for the full duration of the project. Ask, ask ask. It is a typically male thing to do to wink, nudge and say awight mate, its cool.. its not cool. It means your game won't be finished and he's happy and you're not. You pay for this, business is business.

4. Contract to sign over the work, and be liable for copyright infringements is necessary when you're making a published game. This cannot be skipped. If you are selling your game and you do not have a contract YOU are liable for damages, not the artist who is having a beer. So word a contract out saying that the artist is liable for any copyright infringements should the artwork not be original. Any freelancer who does his own work will not be worried by this. Back when I did work for the games creators, I had to sign such a document. A lot of people who contracted me didn't though. I didn't push them to give me a contract simply because its easier for me not to sign. I would always agree to a contract if I had to though.

I paint freelancers here as the bad guys, because they often are. There is a gulf between amateur who realises he can bang a few pixels out and a pro who wants to build a good solid rep up for repeat work. In the guide above, I lived by those guidelines. Often a customer would not ask for a contract though. That was fine by me because I'm not in any way liable. The onus is on *you* not the freelancer to get it in writing and signed over when the works done before final payment.

This means you can have peace of mind knowing you own the work outright and you likewise won't be sued if he actually ripped the textures from another game or non royalty free source.

As the indie market becomes more competitive, higher quality work is required, with a higher standard of professional conduct. If you want to compete then do it right. A TRUE freelancer will *always* expect these questions from you. Yes they will be a bit more expensive but you get what you pay for - and not just in pixels.

[AlexWeldon]

Originally Posted by luggage

I wouldn't be keen on working with a freelancer who's not up front about what projects they have on. If the work I'm paying them to do requires 8 hours a day for a week and that's the rate I'm paying I do not expect them to say "sorry, it's delayed because another customer paid me more to get their work to them."

Sometimes you can't give a firm idea of what you want and the spec should reflect this. The attitude of 'they either tell me exactly what they want or they pay me by the hour' I wouldn't be happy with. I might not know exactly what I want but if I say 'I want a male character blah' and you draw me a female character I'm not going to be happy about paying for that work.

And you're not "supposed to use programmer art until your prototyping is done". A lot of things are hard to get right with programmer art. For example, a main character running around jumping - until you have something that looks close to what you want you'll never get the right feel using a blue square.

Maybe we have just different ideas on what a freelancer is. I look at freelancers as people I'm employing on the short term to do a job. I expect a high standard and will pay well for that. While I'm all for feedback and take it all on board I wouldn't want a freelancer to get stroppy because I'm rejecting their vision for my game.

I think you're putting a lot of words in my mouth, or at least exaggerating what I was saying.

There are many possible ways to work with a freelancer, but the key things are that:

a) Both parties have to know how it's going to work,

b) The amount and nature of the pay needs to be appropriate for the way the work is being done, and

c) Neither side can expect to have the best of all worlds.

Here are the rules I usually recommend to my clients:

1) The more precise a quote you want, and the more control you want over the finished product, the more specific your instructions should be. Whatever you spell out for me, I will follow to the letter; if anything seems problematic, I will ask you about it before I start. Anything you don't specify, I will make a decision myself if one course of action seems clearly better to me than alternatives - presumably you would prefer this to receiving a dozen requests for clarification every day. However, if two options seem equally attractive to me and the decision is significant to the final product, I'll pause the work and ask you what you'd like to do.

2) I guarantee my quotes and deadlines provided there is only a reasonable amount of revision. If I make mistakes, I fix them on the house, no matter how long that takes (though it might mean that the deadline has to change, if it's humanly impossible to fix the problem in time... in that case, I'll offer some kind of discount, depending on how much of a delay there is). If something was ambiguous in the original specs and I guessed incorrectly about what you wanted, I will likewise make the changes for free within reason - e.g. if you asked for a dapper gentleman, and I decided to give him a top hat, but it makes the sprite too tall, I don't count the time I spent on the hat towards the job. However, if you ask for a change that contradicts your original specs, you have to pay for that. If you told me to give him a top hat and coat tails (or if I asked if I should give him a hat and you said yes), but then decide that the hat is too tall and has to go, it does count towards the number of hours I budgeted for the job.

3) If the job takes longer than I thought, I bite the bullet. If it takes longer because you're pickier than an average client, I'll likewise bite the bullet the first time around, but will take that into account when quoting on the next job. Conversely, if you ask me to reduce my quote, I will, but with the understanding that I'll be reducing detail and cutting corners in places that I think we can get away with it, in order to finish in a lesser number of hours.

4) If you tell me to trust my judgement on something, I want you to trust my judgement as well.

5) If you ask me for my opinion on something, I want to feel like you're actually taking it into consideration. I'll get grumpy if I feel like you were hoping I'd agree with you, and simply dismissing me when I don't.

6) I answer all emails within 48 hours at most, and usually within an hour or two during business hours (EST). I expect clients to be similarly prompt, or else be willing to accept delays if I need to clarify something and it takes them a week to get back to me.

7) Look at my portfolio before hiring me, or ask me for examples of something similar to what you want, and get an idea of the style(s) I like to work in. If all my cartoon characters have a certain "look" to them, make sure you want that look in your game if you're going to choose me for the job.

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P.S. Full agreement with hippocoder's post, above, except for one caveat regarding quotes. I sometimes have to answer "it depends," because the specs were very general. E.g. a typical quote request goes something like (this is made up, not quoted directly from a real email, though it's based on real emails):

Hi,

I'm working on a puzzle game that I want to distribute through portals. I'll give you more information after you sign an NDA. In the meantime, can you give me a quote for the following work:

* Main game screen (640x480)
* User interface (10 buttons)
* Main menu
* 8 backgrounds
* 6 sprites approx. 32x48 with three animations each
* 20 power-ups

I hope everyone can understand why I might not be able to say "Okay, that will take two weeks and $1250" based on that amount of information.

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P.P.S.

Originally Posted by luggage

And you're not "supposed to use programmer art until your prototyping is done". A lot of things are hard to get right with programmer art. For example, a main character running around jumping - until you have something that looks close to what you want you'll never get the right feel using a blue square.

So you ask the artist for outlines, rather than finished sprites. That way he spends a 40 minutes on the animation instead of several hours... then you make sure everything works, make your adjustments, then get him to put in shading and detail.

[Maupin]

Originally Posted by luggage

And you're not "supposed to use programmer art until your prototyping is done". A lot of things are hard to get right with programmer art. For example, a main character running around jumping - until you have something that looks close to what you want you'll never get the right feel using a blue square.

In that case you upgrade the square to a crudely animated blue stick figure. It's a bit harder to draw but if you PM me I can give you some pointers, one programmer to another.

I've commissioned a few artists for web graphics (no game asset commissions yet) and for me the hardest part is actually finding an artist whose style matches what I'm looking for. I tend to have a very clear idea in my head of what I want, and so when I find the artist who can match the style perfectly I go with him/her, but sadly the best artists seem to have problems with communication. And I hate excuses. Even true ones. (Probably as a result of working in Japan where no matter what happens, if you're late it's your fault and you apologize.)