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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Question How to get art...

    So after 5 years of a campaign, I am hoping to be able to get something to commemorate it - something for my players.

    I was wondering

    a) is is possible to commission artwork?
    b) if so, how do you do it and from whom?
    c) how much does it typically cost?

    Just checking feasibility really before splashing out.

  2. - Top - End - #2
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by MrStabby View Post
    So after 5 years of a campaign, I am hoping to be able to get something to commemorate it - something for my players.

    I was wondering

    a) is is possible to commission artwork?
    b) if so, how do you do it and from whom?
    c) how much does it typically cost?

    Just checking feasibility really before splashing out.
    1) Yes.

    B) I'd check sites like Deviantart. They've got people you can commission.

    Four) Probably not less than $10 for a basic picture, quite possibly a lot more! Depends how detailed and whatnot you want it.
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  3. - Top - End - #3
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
    1) Yes.

    B) I'd check sites like Deviantart. They've got people you can commission.

    Four) Probably not less than $10 for a basic picture, quite possibly a lot more! Depends how detailed and whatnot you want it.
    Ah thanks.

    $10 as some kind of absolute lower limit is reassuring (depending on the "quite possibly a lot more").

    Paying a skilled professional to do good work isn't something I would expect to be cheap - but I don't really know the time involved.

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    Default Re: How to get art...

    I've got a friend who is, in turn, friends with a lot of artists. If you want, I can ask him about pricing, timing, and whatnot.
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  5. - Top - End - #5
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
    I've got a friend who is, in turn, friends with a lot of artists. If you want, I can ask him about pricing, timing, and whatnot.
    That would be fantastic. Still early days - wanting to gauge feasibility before I make any commitments. This is not something I have done before.

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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by My Friend
    It all depends on what you want to know.

    I'll help in what I can, but unlike the art you get, there is no real art to commissioning.
    Exact quote from him.

    More details on what you want?

    Edit:

    Quote Originally Posted by My Friend
    Kay.

    I'll at least say, they should

    1. Set a budget
    2. Get and idea of what they want(the level of detail and what not depends on the artist)
    3. And pick a style and tone.
    Last edited by JNAProductions; 2019-06-04 at 08:35 PM.
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  7. - Top - End - #7
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
    Exact quote from him.

    More details on what you want?

    Edit:
    So looking for in the order of 6 to 12 pictures, each of a character in a scene. Hoping for a style that captures a lot of movement, expression and detail. Images in color.

    Style? Even if I knew what I wanted I would need the words to describe it - part of the challenge of having no artistic knowledge or skill!

    I have looked at Deviantart as per your suggestion, and love some of the images on there however I suspect my budget wouldn't cover them - I really am looking to keep costs under about $300 and these images don't look like they can be done quickly. I may have to scale my expectations or increase budget.

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    Default Re: How to get art...

    I'll refer your budget and requests to the friend of mine. He's offline at the moment, so I'll get back to you when he replies.

    Also, you might want to include details on what the scenes actually are. The more details you can give the artist(s), the better.
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  9. - Top - End - #9
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
    I'll refer your budget and requests to the friend of mine. He's offline at the moment, so I'll get back to you when he replies.

    Also, you might want to include details on what the scenes actually are. The more details you can give the artist(s), the better.
    Cheers. There may be some flexibility as well. Thanks for this.

  10. - Top - End - #10
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by The Friend Who Knows Art
    12?

    That's a tad too much for one for commission.

    I mean, again depending on the style I may know one or two, but I do more cutesy anime esque things.

    THe 300 budget can be a hit or miss. Some artist di discounts the more you get, but for 12 with 300, that's not something many artist would take.

    At the end of the day, the best way to go about commissions, is to find an artist, watch their account for a bit, and if they are one who takes commissions the next step is to open a dialog.

    Artist are peoplt too. Some are good, some are jerks, and with commissions you'll be working with them. So another part is commissioning someone you can synergize with.
    So yeah. That's the advice you have received.

    Edit: He can also provide specific recommendations, if you want.
    Last edited by JNAProductions; 2019-06-05 at 11:07 AM.
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    This guy offered character portraits some time ago here on the forum. He is not doing the free stuff anymore, but might be open for paid commissions or at least serve as a point of reference for the art style.
    Last edited by Iruka; 2019-06-05 at 11:42 AM.


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  12. - Top - End - #12
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
    So yeah. That's the advice you have received.

    Edit: He can also provide specific recommendations, if you want.
    Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
    So yeah. That's the advice you have received.

    Edit: He can also provide specific recommendations, if you want.
    Yeah, 12 is very much the upper limit - I wouldn't expect to get all of that for 300. Still, one image per character for 6 images for 300 is still less than I would like to be able to pay (but who doesn't have some real life budget limitations).

    Any tips on who to follow (especially if they know who might be within my budget!) would be appreciated.



    Quote Originally Posted by Iruka View Post
    This guy offered character portraits some time ago here on the forum. He is not doing the free stuff anymore, but might be open for paid commissions or at least serve as a point of reference for the art style.
    Thanks for this. I would probably feel a bit more comfortable paying for something - it seems right to recognise that you are paying for a talented professional, even if they enjoy it.

  13. - Top - End - #13
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    $300 is about the ballpark total for one full page of (quality) A4 line art, including reproduction rights.

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by weckar View Post
    $300 is about the ballpark total for one full page of (quality) A4 line art, including reproduction rights.
    That's not cheap.

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    That seems about what I was expecting. Obviously hoping for less, but if you want to engage a talented professional you pay those rates.

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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Gonna explain a couple of things here, speaking as an artist, based on my own pricing and what I've seen from other people.

    The question is whether you want to commission an amateur or an industry professional.

    The differences:
    - Level of skill: surprisingly, not one of them. Okay, not quite true, but for your purposes, there is no practical difference and your criteria are probably less strict than that of a game studio looking to hire a new concept artist. You want a kickass artwork and there are plenty of amateur artists who can deliver on that.
    - Amateur artists are people who have not had the time or opportunity or otherwise been able to establish themselves in the industry. "Making a name for yourself" as an artist is something of a full-time job and involves a lot of self-promotion, reaching out to clients and social media savvy in addition to a bit of luck and the actual work of painting and building a portfolio. Most people who do all that as anything but a full-time job (or part of art school) are amateurs in this sense. Amateurs are desperate in their pricing, their target audience is usually people in their peer group or private clients (like you), very often it's teenagers selling art to other teenagers. They will usually charge you in the 10-50 dollar range for a full finished colour image, maybe a little more, but definitely under 100. On the downside, they are less.. well, professional, and they don't have years and years of experience.
    - Professional artists have established themselves and their reputation in the industry and are able to actually negotiate for the compensation their work deserves (in terms of "am I being paid at least minimum wage for each hour I spend on this"), and are able to promote themselves to the clients who are both willing and able to cash that out. The pricing here is also strongly affected by purpose of use if it's for-profit. All together, it can easily mean hundreds of dollars per a single image. On the flip side, these people tend to be more professional, e.g. you're less likely to get an artist that flakes out on you or doesn't deliver or fails to complete a big project.

    So in short:
    If you're not looking to hire an actual industry artist on the same tier as people who, like, make art for Magic the Gathering and so on, then you probably don't need to worry about 300-bucks-per-image rates (even if, yes, in an ideal world that IS what you would be paying). On the flip side, cheaper artists have less experience and that extends to stuff like dealing with clients and general reliability, so it may be a bit hit and miss or take a few tries to get right, especially for a bigger project with several images.

    Still, I'd definitely aim closer to 6 images for a 300 buck budget than 12. 12 for 300 bucks would be a little bit ridiculous - that's 25 bucks per image, which is very little to pay for an artwork that will usually take multiple hours, at least (especially including stuff like preliminary sketches, thumbnails, getting feedback on sketches, and discussing with the client, all of which is time you're investing into it as an artist even when you're not producing the final product.)

    EDIT: Almost forgot. I was going to suggest an artist for you to get in contact with for no other reason than I came across their work and I like it: https://www.deviantart.com/patrisska
    Last edited by Kaytara; 2019-08-17 at 09:29 PM.
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  17. - Top - End - #17
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    In my school days, I get this artistic talent.

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    Default Re: How to get art...

    This is Talos my Champions character. I commissioned him with an artist at DA for $200 bucks. he lives in Malaysia - an American artist this good will go for $300 or more.
    ~~Personally I would rather save up and get really good art than go for cheap.

    There are artists who go for $40 to 60 a pop. But they are more cartoony than I like. Still open a membership at DA and cruise around. Don't just look at the gallery...look at the favs. Faves are a gallery of favorites members make from other artists...but each links to the artist. a good favorites gallery is a gold mine of great links to great artists.

    https://www.deviantart.com/black-fal...file-720520224

  19. - Top - End - #19
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    RedSorcererGirl

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    Default Re: How to get art...

    10 dollars sounds really unfesible for artwork for a full party, and I feel like that's underpricing a lot for even the most basic stuff. Stuff that's more akin to full on paintings will go a lot higher, so first of all I think you need to come to an understanding of what you want out of this piece. The cheapest way that I can think of going about it and pleasing all your players would be a group shot in a basic background, but even that would still depend on lots of different factors such as if you want clean lineart or something more sketchy, full color or not, shaded or not and also some artists will ask for more for things like characters with unusual anatomies and such that can be harder to draw. Also, it depends of the level of reference that you're able to give.

    Now are there any artists that will do this sorta stuff for cheap? Yes, hell I've literally drew like 6 characters once for what amounted to 2 steam keys, a currency that I've never even managed to cash in and even if I did would be worth about 5 dollars or so. But I really would advise against doing this, cause today I absolutely regret taking that job(Considering I didn't even got payed technically, I don't think I can even call it that), and it's probably the thing I've regreted most as far as art related stuff goes.
    Last edited by Morgana; 2019-09-09 at 12:39 AM.

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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops08 View Post
    ~~Personally I would rather save up and get really good art than go for cheap.
    That's a good attitude to have, one that doesn't contribute to the culture of underpricing and undervaluing art by not treating it as the skilled labour it is. If you wanted to get a new paint job for your car, you would probably save up until you could pay someone the industry standard instead of shopping around in back alleys and the like...

    To the OP, you could always the Deviantart Employment Opportunities forum (https://forum.deviantart.com/jobs/) - Job Offers subforum for people like you and Job Services for artists advertising themselves - though DA has been going down the drain in recent years so honestly I don't know what to expect there.
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  21. - Top - End - #21
    Pixie in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: How to get art...

    The list is you mentioned above is really amazing.

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    Default Re: How to get art...

    {scrubbed}
    Last edited by Peelee; 2019-09-24 at 11:56 AM. Reason: scrubbed

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    Default Re: How to get art...

    Yeah, as the others stated, I would probably check out deviantart or even reddit (though I think you'll have a safer bet for deviantart.
    You can also check art forums, or if you play online games, sometimes their forums will have art sections (actually pretty much any forum has an art section)

    Just browse around and see what art style you like, and remember, if it's a really good artist and they charge like 20$ or more, it'll still be worth it. Yeah people like doing art but it's also like a "job" for most that do commissions, you pay for their time, labor, and supplies basically.

    Don't get me wrong though, someone charging like 5$ doesn't mean they're bad, you can get some good quality ones for low cost as well. My fiancée sells her art at anime conventions and is usually one of the lower priced sellers and people love her art style (some chibi, silhouettes, movie poster styles, etc)

    Just look around and see if people have samples and prices listed if you're looking on forums, check their bio if they do commissions on DeviantArt

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