Where to find 2D art graphic artist?

jchamplain - Your argument doesn't make any sense. It's up to the artists to decide on whether or not they want to pick up jobs. If they feel they are getting underpaid then why would they be on freelancer.com or anything else to begin with?

A site like that simply gives them more options. If they're in a 3rd world country for instance, they probably don't have much choice in their local market, whereas on something like freelancer they'd have the globe within their reach. Additionally foreign currency may be worth more to them, due to exchange rates.

It makes perfect sense. People are always more willing to accept lower paying jobs when they are desperate for money. It doesn't seem right to take advantage of that fact. At least not to me. Honest pay for honest work is always the best solution in my opinion.

A site like freelancer.com only gives more options for cheap people hiring cheap labor. The people bidding on jobs don't always get the job they bid for, but they always successfully lower the price of the next artist bidding. Even if the artist gets the job, it's only at a fraction of the pay they originally wanted. Where's the advantage in that? None that I can see.

Whether or not they live in a 3rd world country or that our dollar is worth more is besides the point. They could be earning a decent and fair wage for their work by our standards. Can't we extend that generosity to others, no matter where they are from?

By participating job bidding sites, you're doing more harm than good. You might give an artist a few more dollars than he/she already has, but you're still cheating them, and you're only encouraging a flawed and troubled system.

You can try to justify using sites like freelancer.com all you want. If it makes you feel happy that you saved a little money at the expense of others, and the artist you cheated out of money is happy with the pay, then that's your business. Just don't pretend you are doing anyone any favors. I don't believe you are.

It makes perfect sense. People are always more willing to accept lower paying jobs when they are desperate for money. It doesn't seem right to take advantage of that fact. At least not to me. Honest pay for honest work is always the best solution in my opinion.

[sarcasm]Yeah. I always think it is so much better to let the artists that are desperate for money starve rather than possibly run the risk of taking advantage of them.[/sarcasm]

This isn't a political decision. It's an economic one. If you don't like this type of site, don't use it. If you use it, use it with your eyes wide open, and take advantage of it as a way to make connections, develop relationships and build careers and businesses. If you find a project you really want to work on, you're willing to take a loss to get your foot in the door. As an employer you look for the best value to get the job you need done. You aren't going to waste money by choosing the lowest bidder if that bidder produces garbage. Likewise, if you find a talent that you really want to keep, you take care of him and work to ensure you can always get his attention when you need it.

The best of these sites provide a means to connect those needing work done with those willing to do it, and also provide a way to ensure that both parties are treated fairly by ensuring that the money is there to pay the worker and that the money isn't paid out until the work is complete. Yes, the sites get a piece of the action, but they service they provide is of real value, and they earn it.

EyeHawk

You don't describe what your game is, so it is hard to know how to answer your question about how long it takes and how much it will cost. Just compare the art requirements for a 1-person, but totally amazing game like tiny wings to some mega game produced by the big studios.

Rovio started out making mobile multiplayer RPGs in 2003 and grew to 100+ employees before market conditions forced them to scale back and switch to to smaller casual games (12 employees when they made angry birds, about 50 now). Huge difference in cost between the two. Took them 8 months while working on other contract projects to finish angry birds. (

)

Also, since artists are individuals and work at different speeds, it is often the case that employers want a fixed price for the job rather than paying an hourly rate.

That was a really long way of saying that it would help if you point to another game that you think yours is close to, and then you might get some estimates of the time/effort/cost involved.

In the meantime, have you made your game with placeholder graphics, and is it fun to play? If not, it may be early days to worry about where the art is coming from. If it is already shaping into a great game, you will find it much easier to attract a team and might even go to some place like kickstarter and get some contributions to help pay for awesome art using your working demo as a teaser (either video or actual play.)

jchamplain, I think Kittewan has summarized it quite nicely for you, but if you need a more fundamental explanation perhaps look up "economics" in wikipedia.

— - it's tricky for me to give specifics, but as a hypothetical example lets say I wanted to make a space shoot em up and needed a sprite sheet like the following: http://opengameart.org/content/top-down-space-ships What would the ball park costs be from something like freelancer.com? I know the answer to this question could vary wildly, but it would be interesting to know if I'd be looking at 10s, 100s, 1000s of $$$ from other people's experience:)

By the way thanks for the vid on Rovio! I'd be interested to find out how they gauge the gaming ecosystem. It would be so awesome to have a business mentor like Peter Vesterbacker! I don't think anyone like that exists in a backwater like New Zealand unfortunately :(

[sarcasm]Yeah. I always think it is so much better to let the artists that are desperate for money starve rather than possibly run the risk of taking advantage of them.[/sarcasm]

@kittiewan

[sarcasm]Wow, you must really care about artists starving to bring yourself to take advantage of them and underpay for their work. You're right, that makes much better sense...[/sarcasm]

Or you could just pay them a decent wage in the first place.

You don't have to use job bidding sites or use them in the way they were intended. If you want to help an artist on one of these sites, choose one and offer them a decent amount of pay for their work. You don't have to contribute to the problem in order to help someone. Decisions can be political or economical or even both, depending on what you value. For me, it's a moral decision. For you, as you plainly stated, is about money (i.e."economic one").

@EyeHawk No thanks. I understand economics. Morality also has a page on Wikipedia if you're interested.

jchamplain -- actually, I was thinking of myself as the artist, not the employer. I've been hungry. I've bid really low on projects because I really, really needed the work, or really really wanted the job. Quite recently, in fact. It really pisses me off when...Never mind. You've already said your mind is closed.

jchamplain -- actually, I was thinking of myself as the artist, not the employer. I've been hungry. I've bid really low on projects because I really, really needed the work, or really really wanted the job. Quite recently, in fact. It really pisses me off when...Never mind. You've already said your mind is closed.

Well, that's another matter all together. You don't have to starve or work for pennies. There's plenty of decent employers willing to pay you a decent wage for your hard work. Here's a few job links. Good luck, and remember, don't sell yourself short. ;)

indeed.com/jobs

creativeheads.net

programmermeetdesigner.com

krop.com

simplyhired.com/a/jobs/list/q-art

@EyeHawk No thanks. I understand economics. Morality also has a page on Wikipedia if you're interested.

jchamplain - I bet you haven't read either entry yourself friend :)

That's a whole different can of worms, but in a nutshell morality is NOT black and white - which is essentially what you're trying to imply here.

On the same vein by extrapolation your argument essentially is that all business is bad, since somewhere someone is being exploited. Perhaps you live in some kind idealist virtual commune, but those of us in the real world need money to live, and fuel our creative passions.

Here's another tidbit to think about: Whenever you start something new, e.g. a new profession, business, etc, ironically it is not all about the money, i.e. sometimes you need to do things for non-financial gains such as noteriety, goodwill, experience etc...

Those non-financial rewards will essentially lead to financial ones. So as a start-up company/artist/developer you can't afford to say "I'm getting shafted" just because you're not getting paid as much as Bioware for making my game/art/product right off the bat.

So my point is, freelancer.com and similar sites might appear to be exploiting artists, but the fact is, as the artists gain reputation for doing good jobs, they can then command higher and higher pay. Hence there will be a demand for the service they supply - simple economics. If you want to be successful, I'd strongly suggest studying these fundamentals before slamming others for being "immoral" or "unethical". :)

jchamplain - Thanks for the links. I hadn't seen some of them before. I'll check them out.

EyeHawk - I'm no expert on spacecraft, and probably couldn't draw one very well--and certainly not quickly enough to make sense economically. But I'd guess you could expect bids in the hundreds for something pretty decent from someone who loves drawing spacecraft, especially if they want to see their work in a game (which is worth something to someone who is trying to build a career or just wants the personal satisfaction.) I'm sure you'd get many much cheaper (and more expensive) bids, too, but at the end of the day, I'd expect hundreds, because it should probably take more than a day but less than a week of work. Don't forget to budget for the environment (background, planets, starfields, asteroids...), UI and SFX and music, too. Whew!

@kittiewan

Glad I could help. :)

@EyeHawk

That's a straw man argument. My position is simply a moral one. Doing the right thing is a personal choice and not an economical one. My idea of success isn't measured on how many people I can take advantage of in order to get ahead or how much money is in the bank. It's measured in other ways. I think your advice is best left for people more like yourself.

jchamplain - If idea of freelancer.com is causing you this much of a moral dilemma, I don't think you'd even want to consider entering the world of business (or even the corporate world) - this is but a mild example of what you think of as 'exploitation'. From your answer I don't think that is your objective anyway, so good luck with your pursuit of art/creativity :)

Another straw man arguement.

It's your dilemma, not mine. I said it's wrong to take advantage of people. You are trying to defend the system that allows you to take advantage of people.

I haven't used the word "exploitation". Although it means the same in the most extreme sense, it's not a direct quote.

Whether or not I decide to start a business is none of your business. Unless you are currently a successful business man, your advice has little value to me or to anyone. Even if you are, I have reason to question your business ethics.

I'm actually a very open minded person. If you can make an strong arguement why it's ok to take advantage of people, I will give it some thought. So far, all you have been able to do is pick apart my comments, misquote me, fabricate talking points, all while ignoring the underline message.

"Do you think it's morally right to take advantage of people?"

Let's get this thread back on topic. It wasn't my intention to get caught up in a debate about ethics. Here's a few links.

hireanillustrator.com/i

illustrationmundo.com

forums.indiegamer.com/forumdisplay.php

pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_topics.asp

game-artist.net/forums/employment

gamedev.net/classifieds

opengameart.org/forums/open-commissions

forum.deviantart.com/jobs/offers

kongregate.com/forums/8-collaborations

forums.tigsource.com/index.php

indiedb.com/forum/board/recruiting-resumes

newgrounds.com/art

gameartisans.org/jobs/index.php

lostgarden.com/2011/03/list-of-game-artists.html

wayofthepixel.net/index.php

Hope that helps. Good luck!

jchamplain - Ah still banging on about morality I see. :)

You're talking about straw man arguments, yet here you are suggesting that I'm immoral without admitting that morality is subjective (remember to look up wiki). Furthermore, in my opinion the use of sites such as freelancer.com don't constitute taking advantage of people. I'm really too lazy to keep repeating myself so you can re-read my posts if you like [insert here].

At this point I think we can agree to disagree here, I really couldn't care less about trying to convince you that you're wrong. But as this is an open forum, I think we all need to hold off trying to impose our own misguided, self righteous views on everyone else.

Bye! :)

jchamplain - Ah still banging on about morality I see. :)

Well, yeah. That's what I initially posted about. I didn't pull you into the conversation. You imposed yourself by saying I didn't make sense, so I felt I had to explain. My intial comment was short and friendly and felt your response was a little careless and rude.

If you had stated you simply disagree and see nothing wrong with sites like freelancer.com, I wouldn't have responded. When you attack someone's idea or belief, you initiate a discussion about it. Honestly, I could care less if you use job bidding sites. That's your choice. I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I just don't like to be stepped on. I don't think anyone does.

I don't appreciate your last sentence, but I'll keep my opinion of you to myself. I hope you'll be nicer to people you interact with in the future and I wish you good luck in your future endeavors. :)