Hello all, These last few weeks I have been working on a project I envision that might be able to help the developing community in general. A key of this project would be to find the right artist or musician to go with your project. So generally I am trying to find ways to categorize each different art and music user my site might have. The problem is that I do not really know how. Apart from previous experience and knowledge of 2d art/3d modeling/animation e.t.c. I can not think of any other way of categorizing. That is why I come to gamedev.net and ask you people. I am sure that I can find a nice answer in here. Any ideas as to what sets apart one artist from another? How could I do that in my database? For now I have it with previous experience and knowledge of certain 2d/3d art software. In addition I have exactly the same question about musicians for games(don't think there is any other type of software that needs music eh? >_< ). But I think that posting an identical topic in the music forum might be considered double posting so I would like an admin's opinion on this if possible. Thanks in advance for any answer.

Well if your really asking about how to categorize artists who fit well with your project I would assume the best way to do this is to find out what style you want for each.

And example is drawing style, what look do you want the project to have. Cartoony? Dark? Maybe relate it to a preexisting game. Most professional artists can adapt to draw a specific drawing style. But I feel the best way to categorize it would be to see or ask for a specific look that people can understand.

Ex. Looking for an artist who can draw accurate and realistic anatomy.
Ex. Looking for an artist who can draw stylized and exaggerated characters that expound with various emotion.

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The same can be said for musicians.
Pick a music style that you are looking for. Either you want more of a techno type music or maybe something that has an acoustic or classical sound, if you ask for these genres of music it is easier to relate it to music artists since musicians are more comfortable with different mediums.

I'm not exactly sure what your asking for when you say categorizing. But I would just say use the words that you think describe what you want the most. So if an artist of any sort feels that is what they match closest with they can inform you that they fit in that category and are willing to work on the project.

Maybe tell people who are interested to give you a quick sample and see if it is similar to what you need for you project.

I hope this helps, sorry if I misunderstood what your saying.

Thank you for your reply friend. It has been helpfull. I would really appreciate more replies like that.

The reason why I ask all these? It is simple! I am attempting to make a matching site for developers/artists/musicians and would like to find various ways to describe each individual according to his skills. It is easy for programmers for me since I have some experience all these years. But as far as artists or musicians are concerned I am kind of ... clueless :)

So posts like yours really help. Thanks!

You may have already heard of these, but a good place to look is online sites that make it easy to browse between a high selection of amateur and pro artists and musicians.

For art, I'd recommend:
http://www.deviantart.com

Most of the art is pretty bad, but the good artists are easy enough to find. The search engine is nice, too.

For musicians, there's a similar site:
http://www.dmusic.com

All sorts of amateur/freelance/professional musicians, and they're all sorted by category.

Hope this helps!