hi, recently i have been seeking artists to work with me on my 2d MMORPG. however, i have looked for artists in the past, and they always turn out unreliable. i have started to talk to a few artists, but i just feel like i will never find anyone as dedicated as me to work on the project. anyway, ive been thinking about just paying an artist to do the work, but i have a few questions. 1) what is the going rate for artwork? the game is a top down, tile based MMORPG. more info at the site. i want to have customizable characters, which means we start with a naked sprite and then render different clothing combos on top of him. this means there is a lot of artwork required for the game, but im willing to sacrifice quality for it. this means very small frame counts and not very many animations (4 - 6 frame walk cycles). im looking for either pixel art or photoshop art, it doesnt matter as long as it looks good. please keep in mind im a poor college student [grin]. 2) how can i protect myself so that after the artist gives me the art and i make the payment, that he doesnt try to reclaim the artwork for his own? do i need some kind of contract? how do i go about getting one? does he have to sign it with his hand, or can it be done all via the net? the game i am making will be free, however i might decide to start up some sort of "premium accounts" type of thing, where a person could pay x amount of money a month to get special abilities and such. i want to pay the artist only for the artwork and that is it, i want full rights to do whatever i want with it and make as much money as i want with no strings attached. thanks for any help.

To really protect yourself, you need to hire a lawyer to advise you about copyright law.

I am not a lawyer, but I believe you can require an artist to assign the copyright on the art to you, before or when you pay them. From that point on, the art in question is a "work for hire" and they retain little or no right to it. It is yours to do with as you please. A copyright assignment would normally be in the form of a written document signed by the artist.

Alternatively, because your game is going to be free, you might be able to have the artist "assign" the art into the public domain, meaning they would disclaim their copyright on the art in writing. Then you and/or anybody in the world could do whatever they want with the art (anything at all, commerical or otherwise) and never have to worry about copyright law on that art.

Anyway that's my layman's interpretation of the law. Hire a lawyer to truly be safe.

1. My current deal with my artist is 50% - 50% royalties.

2. You will need a contract if you acquire art for money. In particular, you should claim all the rights to redistribute the art lest it appears in other games as well. My current deal with my artist is that he keeps his art and I keep my code, and we get them together into the finished game, which belongs 50-50 to both of us, and we prevent distributing anything without the other's consent (the code, or the art, or the game).

I think you basically wan the artist to sign a piece of paper saying he as the creator of the media agrees you are the sole owner to it, and he gives up all rights to it. You would either want one listing every pice of meadia or a more general one for the time he works for you. You need to clearly document what he has done for you.

This is just a common sense idea though not any legal information. But unless he actively plans to rip you of it should do the trick.

another question how much does it cost if i order a 3000 triangle playermodel with skin and bumpmaps? more than 2000$ ?

That price could be paid for a model, but I would not suggest it. There are alot of 3d artists around here that can supply you with very detailed models on average of 100 to 400$ including maps. Rigging and such runs more obviously. You should maybe put the model concept up in the forum and ask for bids to craft it. Require a few samples to see what the skill of the potential employees work will be like, possibly garner him or her to do the first model for free and if you find it to your liking, tell him or her, you will hire them to do all your models. I have found that people worth their weight will usually do the first one free of charge to prove their worth. This is not always the case though. Some will not and might even balk at the notion. I do not usually ask this myself because I already have a group, but I have had many modelers tell me that the first is free without my mentioning this. But please do not take what I have told you and (if you only need one model) try to get them to make the one, knowing you do not need others. So you do not contact them after that. That could and will ruin your projects rep and name.

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Quote: Original post by Sledge Hammer Productions
You should maybe put the model concept up in the forum and ask for bids to craft it.

Don't have much to add to this, but if you take bids be sure to stipulate in the post that bids must be submitted via PM. I'm currently in a labor job where I have to put bids in, and I can tell you from experience that if your competitors find out your bid they can easily under-bid you and screw you out of a job. There are many people who don't know that, and since this community is about helping each other, it would be good for you to come out and say PMs only for the benefit of those who don't know.

Granted, this scenario may work to your advantage, especially if some of the more desperate newcomers to the field of commercial modelling get into a bidding war that drives the final cost to an absurdly low price, but it deprives all interested parties of a fair shot and is generally very poor business ethic on your part if you take advantage of such a situation.

I agree, you do not want to rip people off but on the other hand you do want to get a competitive price that is within reason. Some people will give you outlandish prices hoping to get it, where others might see it as a chance to help some project out and give you an incredible price that you simply cannot pass up. In reference to DWMitchs comment about bidding. I also work in a company that relys on bidding and it is very annoying to loose a bid to someone who undercut you for 10,000 or more. Ive lost a bid to a company who could not have made a profit what so ever (given the bids numbers) just so they could simply pay their men on the job and atleast keep them busy until another profitable job came up for bid. Its a tough world out there.