http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18b2zyf3zsypfjpg/original.jpg

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=skulls+of+shogun+animation&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=702&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=gr9eVbKQAczq8AWjtoOgDQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ

I just dont know what to ask them, what is this art style( talking about the units)? do i say draw me an illustration to be used in game? or vector or stylised model?

how can i be specific, what is the terminology of these models

They aren’t models.

Show your artists those images and tell them to draw high-quality sprites in that style. They will likely be drawn as vector art in Adobe® Illustrator® and then converted for your game. Any real artist will know what to do.

L. Spiro

Looks like some sort of stylized vector art that got inspiration from Chibis.

I doubt that all art actually has a name. But I'd imagine you just show examples of the art style.

Also I suggest that you tell your artist to draw this in Vector first, than convert to raster. This looks like something that was done in illustrator.

thanks a lot guys but why should they be drawn in vector first and not straight to raster?

also why doesnt it need to be raster at all ?

excuse my uneducated questions :)

The Vectors give it a very smooth and crisp translation between all geometries. Which is what you see for the units that you showed us.

From the cell shading, outlines, right down to coloring. It's an art style that's difficult to authentically create by regular raster art.

Now the reason you convert from Vector to Raster, is because vector is literally just math. It'll be put some overhead on the CPU just to keep it that way. That was the old reason anyways. I'm not sure if you can actually use vector now.

Eventually it is going to be rasterized anyway, as modern displays only deal in pixels. Whether you want to rasterize on the fly in-game to allow flexibility in scaling, or rasterize ahead of time and save that computation power, is up to you.

thanks a lot guys but why should they be drawn in vector first and not straight to raster?

also why doesnt it need to be raster at all ?

Most engines take bitmap/raster so it doesn't matter how the art is created but you'll want to make sure that it's designed for the highest resolution you're targeting and you scale down from there. The exception to this are engines/libraries like Flash that specifically use vector in which case you'll want your artist to supply you with that format.