You always ask an artist to audition for one free piece before hiring.
Um . . . what?! No. Absolutely not. Unless we are talking about an application for a permanent, full-time position at an established company. Otherwise, no, unpaid art tests are not standard. Only unprofessional, inexperienced, or desperate artists are likely to agree to do unpaid tests. You wouldn't ask a plumber to put in a few of your pipes and say you'll only pay him if you happen to like his work better than anyone else's. I don't know about the skill/experience level of your applicants, but asking for free art
may turn off some of the best ones. Maybe not, but it's definitely not a reliable way to find the best artist.
How to choose? It's a process of elimination. Take your list of applicants and get rid of names until you only have 3-10 left, and you really have no way to tell if one is better than the others. Then talk to each of those people to get more information. Tell them you had a ton of applicants and that they are one of the people you narrowed it down to. Try to learn more about their attitude, experience, and interest. If you really can't choose in the end, do a PAID test for a mockup of your game from each artist. Paying for a couple extra days of work will be worth it in the long run.
The criteria you use to eliminate people are up to you, they'll depend on what you want. You're looking for a generalist, so it's a bit harder, but still doable. Here are some examples of how you might cut the list down: (just suggestions, they may not all be right for you)
- Eliminate people whose portfolios are completely unrelated to what you want them to do. - For example: You probably got a bunch of people who have only done anime girls. You can probably eliminate all of them. (they're probably just spamming every job post)
- Eliminate people who have never worked on games. - similar to the above, if they only have illustrations (or whatever) to show — no GUI work, no animation, no game assets, no game projects of their own, nothing else — that's not a good sign.
- Eliminate people with no experience. - Do they have a resume? A client list? Do they have any game credits? Does their work have copyright notices on it for other companies? If not, they're most likely just a hobbyist. Everyone was an amateur once, but that means everything will take them at least twice as long because they've never done it before, they'll have to figure it out as they go.
- Eliminate people who didn't fulfill the application requirements in your post. - If they didn't give you a portfolio link, cost/hour estimate, description of art style they would do, and a time estimate. If they didn't bother to read your post, then they won't care about your game.
- Eliminate people whose portfolio presentation is terrible. - If their website sucks, eliminate them. If they can't show off their own work properly, then they can't show off your game properly.
- Eliminate people whose portfolio has no variety. - If their portfolio shows all the exact same stuff, then you must assume that it's all they are capable of. Whatever it is, if it's all portraits, all characters, all environments, all fantasy, all cartoony, all line art, all pixel art, all cats, etc. Unless that thing is all you want them to do, eliminate them.
- Eliminate people who can't speak decent English (or whatever your native language is). - Communication is very important. If you can't understand each other perfectly, that's going to be a HUGE problem.
- Eliminate people whose work you don't like! - If you look at their portfolio and you don't say "whoa, cool...", then eliminate them. It doesn't matter that you aren't an artist, 99% of your audience isn't either. Your reaction matters.
In general, don't hire artists based on what they
say they can do or what you
hope they can do. Only hire them based on what they've already
proven they can do (by showing you completed work that is very similar). [/list]
Developer
