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[dhondon]

Hi!

My name is Tom Klovholt, I work as an full-time freelancer and have just created an info page for  game art prices:

http://gameartprices.info/
 
Its meant as a price guide for indie-devs how are looking to hire freelancer, to give them an idea of what different type of graphics costs. I get a lot of questions about prices, so hopefully this page can be a useful tool for both freelancers and game devs.

If you would like to give your participate in this project and give your votes, send me an email for username and password to the site.An please include your portfolio and how many years you have been in service (you have to be working 50% or more as an freelancer).
 
I would really appreciate if you could contribute with your game art to the site for other freelancers to vote on.

If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback you can reach me on this e-mail: [email protected]

[jquave]

Awesome! Thanks for putting this together. I frequently have trouble figuring out what the art side of things will cost and have been looking for some way to get a handle on the pricing.

[MA-Simon]

Pretty interesting! You could also add logo / UI art if possible.

[ericmbernier]

Nice idea. According to the few who voted I got quite the deal on the static cartoon images in my current game.

[DecapitatedOrk]

Nice idea. According to the few who voted I got quite the deal on the static cartoon images in my current game.

I don't know those prices seem really inflated. Like the vector dragon? While I'm specialize in PS I can do that in two hours, and in Illustrator in about three hours. Charging $100-$120 for three hours of work? That's between $40 and $60 an hour, for a guy who specialized in UI design. The only people who should be charging $60/h are the Illustrator gurus who get this done in under an hour.

I think people are severely over pricing their skills and/or are simply putting down what they wish to get paid. Like not to try and put down the value of artists (I free-lance web/graphic design), but if you're above average with a nice portfolio you're getting paid $25/h, if you're not then you're not breaking the $20/h mark.

[ericmbernier]

I don't know those prices seem really inflated.

I agree. I didn't give much credit to the given prices, as the sample size was rather small. Let's say I applied the listed price for a static cartoon image to all of the images in my game and then add in a 10% bulk discount. According to the few artists who chimed in, I should be paying the amount I paid for ALL of my art just for these few images.

[Fallsburg]

You should hide the existing votes until after people have voted.  Otherwise you are going to wind up anchoring people's price points.

[FamousAspect]

This is a great experiment - and I agree with hiding current prices until a user has voted. I would love to see not just individual blog posts but a metareport on your findings after you've run this for a while.

The one issue is, in my experience I don't order one piece of art at a time but a whole package. I tend to work with people I know and have worked with before; I put together an asset list and then we discuss a price. Usually I give the option for a static price for the whole list, or an hourly rate, whichever the artist thinks is most fair. Sometimes I have ended up bartering a work trade instead of paying for work outright. In the end, this sort of open and honest negotiation has worked incredibly well for me.

In general, I view getting freelance art as part of building a long term relationship with someone. When approached this way I don't always get the lowest price, but what I do get is high quality work and ideally a skilled artist who is willing to work with me again in the future.

[ANtY]

I second that those prices seem pretty high, are there only ppl on the freelancer side voting?

Especially the dragon piece

however now I see that prices don't differ much, no matter the asset, whole scenes, models, building sprites and logos all cost in the range between 75 and 125 bux

[GeoffW]

The prices seem about right if they include related work such as concepting, making revisions, animations and so forth - but they are a bit high for just what we see presented on the site.

[MA-Simon]

Friendly Bump, because of reasons; And recent events in my mailbox.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

As a freelancer I'm uncomfortable discussing rates in public but I wanna take a stand for all the artists here:


These prices are really, really, really low unless you're talking about buying the models with non-exclusive rights from like, turbosquid or something. You should definitely clarify whether you mean "asset store" or "cost to get produced", because if anybody expects to hire a freelancer for rates like these, it will spread misinformation that will hurt everyone.

If these are asset store prices: yeah, you (and everyone else) can buy my 3d character that i spent 120 hours on for 100 dollars, ok. That's $1.20 dollars an hour, after I pay taxes, comes to like 90 cents an hour. I'd only do this if I'm assuming a BUNCH of you guys are going to buy that, because holy shit, that's like, a 1/9th of minimum wage.

But if these are freelance rates: if you're looking to commission me to sit down and personally make this for you, and you expect me to not end up homeless during the production, these rates are absolutely insane. I'd make more at mcdonalds, which is an easier job that doesn't expect me to have a decade worth of agonizingly developed art skills.

FamousAspect has the right idea. If you're paying bottom of the barrel rates and just expecting somebody to vomit an image into your inbox every once in a while, ok, that's one thing, but a freelancer you hire should be committed to your project. They understand your goals, solicit your input, spot potential pitfalls (will this guy's hand clip through his sword? here's an alternative pose...) make suggestions, and generally be an allstar member of your team when it comes to making sure your game looks good. They should answer your emails promptly, be available for conference calls, etc. If you pay an artist respectfully, you have the right to expect them to devote quite a bit of time and effort to your project.

[ktalkimist]

Looks like the site is down. Can we have the figures here?

[2GMGRudy]

I agree with Catguy and FamousAspect...there is a big difference between Royalty Free art work from Turbo Squid, and custom models. Custom art is not cheap and takes a lot of time to make. The other plus side of custom art, is that you are the only one that is going to have it. Saving money by going the asset route, you run the risk of your purchased character being in someone else's game too...

Finding a good artist that you can communicate with and trust is very important. In the long-run, it will also lead to a better end result.

[Saishy]

I'm with DecapitatedOrk, I would not ever pay above 20$ an hour for any artist that is not holy frigging good.

[Konidias]

If these are asset store prices: yeah, you (and everyone else) can buy my 3d character that i spent 120 hours on for 100 dollars, ok. That's $1.20 dollars an hour, after I pay taxes, comes to like 90 cents an hour. I'd only do this if I'm assuming a BUNCH of you guys are going to buy that, because holy shit, that's like, a 1/9th of minimum wage.

.... what?

Since when does a 3D character for a game take 3 weeks to finish? I occasionally model characters for TV shows and I get 2... maybe 3 days tops to model and UV them.

Unless you're talking next gen game system character modeling with Z-Brush and a dozen revisions to a tuft of hair... I can't imagine a character model for an indie game taking 3 weeks to finish.

edit: After looking at your portfolio... well yeah it looks like you're talking about highly detailed high quality 3D models. With that said, yeah those take a couple weeks to make... but then again, I would never imagine those being available on turbosquid for $100 either.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Since when does a 3D character for a game take 3 weeks to finish? I occasionally model characters for TV shows and I get 2... maybe 3 days tops to model and UV them.

I used 120 hrs as a ballpark number to demonstrate what an AAA artist might spend on a major character. The amount of hours doesn't really change the point that much, though: art is time consuming and expensive. According to the yearly Game Developer Magazine survey, average game artist entry level salary last year was $55,682 a year in the united states, and that's without the hefty tax burden that a freelancer faces.

If you are expecting professional quality work, trying to hire an artist for $125 per character is ridiculous.

 If you're expecting amatuerl work, I'm not sure why you'd part with money for it.

[pottering]

That dragon looks easy AFTER you saw it FINISHED, if they had to come up with a nice stylized cartoon dragon from nothing, people would see it's not that easy as they are thinking.

It is the same flawed line of thinking that makes people say they could come up with simple geometrical logotypes/designs a la Paul Rand. Yeah right.

(Another example is people that think that pixel art is easy, oops, this is a game dev forum, should used this one first, well...)

[Konidias]

Since when does a 3D character for a game take 3 weeks to finish? I occasionally model characters for TV shows and I get 2... maybe 3 days tops to model and UV them.

I used 120 hrs as a ballpark number to demonstrate what an AAA artist might spend on a major character. The amount of hours doesn't really change the point that much, though: art is time consuming and expensive. According to the yearly Game Developer Magazine survey, average game artist entry level salary last year was $55,682 a year in the united states, and that's without the hefty tax burden that a freelancer faces.

If you are expecting professional quality work, trying to hire an artist for $125 per character is ridiculous.

 If you're expecting amatuerl work, I'm not sure why you'd part with money for it.

I really don't think most people in indie game development are expecting professional quality work on the level of AAA games. If indies could afford professional quality work, they would be giant companies and not working out of their kitchen or basement or whatever, and they certainly wouldn't need to know what the going rate for art is... because they'd probably have people on hand who could tell them. So while it's understandable that you're against the pricing being shown on the site, I wouldn't necessarily say you fall into the category of what most indies are able to afford... so therefore you are kind of arguing into the wind.

I'd rather the prices skew toward what the majority of indie developers can afford, rather than what the going professional rate is at. If you're doing professional quality work, you've gotta find people who can afford you. I'm pretty sure most people here can't afford to pay thousands of dollars for a single character in their game. There is a lot to take into consideration... namely, what the studio can afford. You might be super professional and worth $50+ an hour, but if the studio can't afford you, then you have to lower your prices or look elsewhere for work.

[2GMGRudy]

I think the most important thing Indies have to decide is what their end result is going to be. If they want something that will sell and look really good and even animate correctly, with proper edge loops, etc., then that is going to be more money to find a person to do that. If one's end result is not of a very high visual quality, then that person will have to look in that price range. However, people saying that all art should be very cheap regardless of quality, is a gross misrepresentation of what it actually costs, and people are going to be disappointed when they can't get a great looking custom model for a hundred dollars.

If people want to get really nice artwork, and might not be able to pay the cost upfront, a good option is finding someone that will work with you for a piece of the pie.