I would think that there are more pixel artists out there though, but I guess that skill is becoming rarer and rarer.
Hi, Asgarus, and thanks for still following the project, man! I think we've just been having a run of bad luck lately. There are people out there who have the skills and motivation to work on a project like this, but we've just been having some trouble connecting with them. If we keep trying, I'm sure we'll eventually find the right person.
I just did a bit of advertisement for Outer Colony on a different forum. May or may not get any hits from it, but I linked to both the forum here and the Outer Colony webpage, asking specifically for pixel artists interested in making a bit of money for their work.
Oh man, the biggest thanks possible! That's hugely appreciated. We really just need to find a motivated pixel artist that's the right fit for our team.
Hopefully you are able to get your money back from the flakes though. Stuff like that definitely needs to be put under contract. Ugh.
Yeah man, I actually use copyright transfer agreements and formal work order contracts with all the team members who are producing assets. It just helps clarify the deliverables for each batch of work, and it keeps everything tight and clear from an intellectual property perspective. Plus, defining work in discrete sets like this facilitates my paying upfront, which I've been told by team members is one of the nice things about working on Outer Colony.
The problem is that the dollar amounts on these initial contracts are low, to minimize risk if someone does flake out. But the flip side of that is that if a prospective artist decides they don't feel like working on the project anymore, they can disappear or deliver assets that aren't up to spec. They know it'll cost me thousands of dollars to hire a lawyer and pursue recourse, and it would be insane to do that to try to recover a couple hundred dollars.
The biggest issue, though, is the amount of time we have to invest in onboarding a new artist. We've got to bring them up to speed on the vision, familiarize them with the game and its themes, and jointly formulate a plan to make compelling visuals. So every artist we go through represents a loss of many, many weeks worth of time.
Would you have pictures of what you expect, arts wise ?
That's a great question, Tchey, and right now we actually don't – that's intentional. My goal is to find an artist who's a real master of the craft. Someone who understands color theory, mood, technical nuance, and all the things that go into making a game have a great look-and-feel. I don't know a damned thing about art, especially game art, so we want to give a great deal of creative freedom and general autonomy to whoever we bring on to produce the sprites.
In a sense, we're hiring less of a traditional artist, and more of a graphics director. Part of being a competent project manager is understanding what you can and can't do. I can write mountains of interesting code and try to exploit it to create novel gameplay. I can't create sprites for Outer Colony, and I can't really define its visual style alone, either. My aim is to delegate this to someone who does have the expertise and can do these things.
I'll keep you guys posted as we continue our search, and I appreciate everyone's continued support!
*And just as a final aside, everybody we've met on these forums has been great with their contributions to the project. The characters who've flaked out on us were not people we met via the DF boards.
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Topic: Outer Colony (Read 66743 times)