Ask HN: Ever hired an artist? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Ever hired an artist?

12 pointsbemmu13 comments

I've been making social apps for about two years now, but so far they have never used graphics. I don't know any artists, and don't really know where to find them, or even the right terminology. What I'd like to accomplish at this stage is as a test get a few simple drawings done, such as badges that users can get, and then expand from there once I find a relationship I'm comfortable with.

I've tried posting on DeviantArt and other forums, but when I browse the replies others are getting, the portfolios posted don't seem to compare well to the level of graphics in social games like FarmVille. Now I'm thinking that instead of trying to contact individuals, I should find some kind of an art company which has already gathered such talent. I've only found one promising company so far (http://animasia-studio.com), hoping they could help.

Have you ever successfully gotten something more complex than a simple logo done for you by an artist / company? Can you recommend anyone? Please share your experiences, thanks!

We shopped around for outsourced artists to make animated characters, backgrounds, etc when we were working on fuzzwich.com. The lowest prices we were finding for animations was ~$50 per second (for a simple, single character animation) and I think ~$100 for a static character. The quality often had issues (flickering, jumpy movement, etc) that would require in-house touch up. Those were from offshore agencies (China & India), so US is probably more expensive.

So for us, it wasn't worth it. We have an in-house artist, but wanted contractors on-hand so we could develop multiple campaigns in parallel. But at that price point, it was impossible to pass the cost off to a client and still make any money.

I mentioned we have an artist. Of the 4 founders, 1 is pure art (classically trained) and another is a designer/programmer. They've been invaluable, even now that we're doing no-art-required data/advertising stuff.

Extra art cycles are great for sales because you can go in with pitches that do all the creative work for prospective clients -- they just have to say yes. And if there's art downtime, they can also pick up a lot of the office management, PR, support, QA, etc work that typically cuts into development time.

Lots of people talk about getting art done via contractors, and it's probably affordable if your product isn't 90% art. The best process is to ask for samples. You can tell them what you are looking for (always send aesthetic examples) so the sample is relevant, but don't expect them to complete your task as a demo.

One warning: I'd recommend you pay extra for an artist who knows how to build art that works with your production environment, whether that's making webpage-friendly images, properly sized swfs, or whatever else. The last thing you want to be doing is having to format/adjust/whatever every file revision that arrives.

My brother, who is trying to break into comics with a book where all the art was outsourced (2010: we're living in the freaking future), apparently got most of his artists by looking for ones he liked on DeviantArt and PMing them asking whether they were available for hire.

(Having seen the output and heard what he paid for it I think either he is the most talented hiring manager in the entire world or the price on original artwork has cratered so comprehensively that the industry is doomed, doomed, doooooomed.)

> Having seen the output and heard what he paid for it I think either he is the most talented hiring manager in the entire world or the price on original artwork has cratered so comprehensively that the industry is doomed, doomed, doooooomed.

Or, amateurs don't know what they're worth, like it always has been.

As amateurs, though, they might not be worth much in most parts of the market, because a lot of potential employers / contract-art purchasers put a lot of value on the portfolio and previous gigs. There are huge swathes of the market that you're excluded from if your resume is essentially empty except for "posted a few things on DeviantArt", no matter how good those things are. Which means you can get good art cheaply if you're willing to find people with no resume who can provide it.

This is certainly true.

Another tip besides DeviantArt: look on forums for mods of games that use the style you want. These forums have tons of talented amateurs.

Most of the artists I know who do small-to-medium contract jobs browse the "gigs" section on Craigslist for their local area (you'd think location wouldn't matter, but a lot of people who contract out for art assets want to meet in person, so many artists don't bother searching outside their local area). It's mainly big in the U.S., so may not work well in other countries. If you're near a major U.S. city, though, a post with an outline of your requirements will almost certainly get multiple responses with portfolios/bids/etc.

I would love the opportunity to work on a project of this nature. I'm a graphic designer, illustrator, artist currently working at an apparel company designing t-shirts. My hours give me a lot of free time to work on personal or profit projects, but I haven't really had much luck landing solid side gigs, just random little stuff for friends and family. Craigslist is often saturated with out of work artists trying to scrape a few bucks together, and often people will give require a sample'project' to see what you can do, but I don't care to work for free when one could just as easily check out my online portfolio { http://lucasalbrecht.com } and see what I'm capable of. Anyway, just chiming in, check out my work and let me know if you're interested. Cheers

I know a pretty good pixel artist, if that's what you're looking for.

He made the tiles used in this game of mine: http://skirmishzone.com//data/maps/previews/office_126298036...

Inexpensive, professional, cartoony style, but he is incredibly versatile.

http://brianbarber.com

Assuming you're a freelance programmer, how do people find you? You have a site, you market, word of mouth, you look on CL, job boards, etc. It's the same for designers and illustrators. Google around for "illustration portfolio" and similar. A lot of professional illustrators use agents too.

Perhaps local students in their final year of an animation qualification that are looking for portfolio fillers - you can often check out their work on the college website. Perhaps not a quick way to get what you're after though.

There's a lot of good illustrators featured on http://www.drawn.ca

I once hired a professional to draw a caricature of a friend of mine, based on internet photos and some biographical info. He did an outstanding job in a short time: http://www.rickscartoons.com/

I am not affiliated with Rick, but would use his services again.

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