experiences working with freelancers?

[yarlesp]

hi, this is not a post advertising anything or soliciting work. just asking for experiences. if by some weird coincidence you are a professional game artiste and you have time on your hands, do not post about it in this thread, send me a message. what I really want is advice on the overall process of contracting with freelancers for art. thanks.

I'm working on a game and doing/stealing the art myself for it and I'm very far away from releasing it publicly but I would still like to, as a long-range goal for the game, have nice-looking terrain tiles and fully animated sprites for the units and buildings (this is a tbs game). Initially, like everyone else, I thought that I would ask a few people I knew if they could do art for me for free in exchange for credits or just for the experience of doing it. what I've discovered is that generally when you ask for something done for free you get what you pay for: nothing or close to it. I wish everyone had the time to sit around and create things and give them away to everyone else but that's not the kind of world we live in lol. SO I'm willing to pay, but I want to know from people who have worked with freelancers or done freelancing themselves, what the going rate is for common pieces of art (ballpark figures), what the guidelines are on licenses (i.e. do most artists ask to retain rights to sell the art elsewhere, or what) and so forth. also good places to go to find professional people who will deliver and not be flaky would be much appreciated- I imagine I could start with deviantart but I was on that site a long time ago and it seemed super shady.

anyway: for those of you who skipped to the end: I'm a programmer who needs art and is willing to pay for it. where do I go, how much should I expect to pay, and what specifically should I avoid when dealing with freelancers?

[Davidobot]

Well, once you put the art into your game I do nt believe that the artist has a right to redistribute it. The pay depends on what system you are going to use, you can pay per art, that will be cheaper if your game sells well, or you can pay him a percent of the total income, that will be cheaper if your game doesn't sell we'll. Except, maybe anything from 1$ a tile to, maybe 5$ a tile, depending on the resolution. As for where to find them, make a post on http://freelancer.com/
Or find someone on dA, lots of talent there.

[Plu]

Expect more than $5 for a tile if you want decent quality. But the prices vary incredibly, as does the talent level of the artists. Best to just look around. Using an intermediary site often helps, because freelancers will be more likely to trust that you'll actually pay them. If you intend to plan based on your game's income, be prepared to convince your freelancer why and how you're going to make a lot of money off the game, because you'll be asking them to partner with you. If you pay flat fee, you won't have that problem (because all the risk is on you)

[Robin]

Well, once you put the art into your game I do nt believe that the artist has a right to redistribute it.

Unless part of the contract for commissioning the art was that the copyright is transferred to yarlesp, the original artist still holds the copyright to their works.

[jasonisop]

http://opengameart.org/ There are some artists there that will work with you on the licenising for stuff they make for you. Plus theres a ton of free art that looks great.