As I've mentioned on another thread, I'm looking for an artist/s for a long-term part-time sort of relationship to do art for a side project of mine. It'll be paid work not "oh have some shares in this project when its done" but I'm not made of money, hence the long-term part-time thing I am in absolutely no rush, as long as I get the right 'style' and a person who is willing to hang around for a while not just disappear off the face of the planet. I don't care what country you're in as long as you're awake at least some of the same hours I'm awake to communicate (I'm +9:30 - Australian central time) and there's some easy way to get money to you. You'll get credited, unless you don't want it.

Without going into huge detail, it is for something that isn't quite a game but does share some game elements. The entire thing is web-based, no animation. What I need, in loosely the order I need them in, is:

• Site logo, front-page art and general website navigation elements
  
• Icons for categorisation of things, mostly traditional occupations, so things like anvils and barrels and horseshoes and whatnot, low detail obviously.
  
• Header backdrops for 'scenes', eg interior of a pub, field of wheat, garden etc etc. Very much like the timeline image that Facebook has as far as resolution and aspect ratio goes.
  
• And the most fiddly one - components to make an avatar generator that'll be 'busts' not full body, so eyes, hair, mouths, upper bodies. The catch with this one is it can't be done in natural colours because all the bits will be programatically coloured from a pre-selected palette, which is quite standard for this kind of thing. No biggie, but is a slight deviation from the usual mindset when you draw things so does warrant a mention.

One thing I do need to make clear is that this is going to be an 'adult' project, and some of the images will very much have an adult theme, although nothing will be explicit. I'd strongly prefer someone who is comfortable with BDSM and fetishes in general, isn't squicked out by this kind of stuff, and doesn't mind being associated with this kind of project. As such, I'm afraid I'm not going to consider anyone who isn't at least 18 years old. Although if you're perfect and close to 18, this isn't exactly going to be finished any time fast ...

Been trawling deviantart and have come to the conclusion that I'm better off having one person for the site icons/navigation elements and someone else for the avatars/background scenes so if you are interested in either rather than both, get in touch.

I'm not qualified for either, but I'm curious why it would be better to have 2 people, rather than 1?

The icons fall into low-res interface design, the other stuff requires far more talent.

Really doesn't look like the same people do interface elements and fantasy art.

I think there are quite a few people who could, and would do both, if the opportunity were presented to them.
It may still be better to have a small team though, that way when your primary artist is unavailable
your not totally out of luck. On the one hand, you'll want to maintain a consistent artistic style, but on the other hand..things happen
and people will have other work that may need to be their first priority. so, its a toss-up. With just one person doing most of the graphic design
work and illustration your more likely to get that cohesive, pulled together look you want, but that could be a problem if that person is suddenly
unavailable to continue the work. I would waffle terribly and never get anything done for not being able to decide which is best, a team, or single artist.
And lets face it, as a project grows and develops, which it must if its going to succeed, there will be more work than one part-time artist can handle.
Steampunk usually needs to be fairly well detailed, and have a bit of a nostalgic feel to it, so this is probably not the project for me.
( Now, if your project featured stickmen.....that would be different.)
Besides, theres that pesky adult theme thing.

If you are very serious about getting artistic help, you might want to post a link to a project page somewhere ,that
potential artists, and other contributors can visit to learn more about the project in it's current state, and see a more detailed
explanation of what you have planned for it's future development.

I've got a similar post to this over on a game artists forum too, and looking through deviant art but it is extremely hard to filter out artists who are available.

I've been fleshing out the spec a little and have some more counts of things - coming to about 60 icons and minimum of 30 backdrops at this stage, so at ~1 a week this is a year long project which sounds about right.

Catch 22 on the project page though - I wasn't going to put anything up on the site's domain until I had the logo and front page art. I have a private blog just to keep my own thoughts together I can point people at if they are interested, and I'm available to chat via skype etc too. My total budget for this is very vague and fairly low, around $10-20k at the outside, spread out over a year.

I found two artists. You wouldn't believe how many portfolios I got (and some of them were totally awful and they didn't read the spec - I was getting a lot of painted work and isometrics and 3D work)

This has been quite an interesting experience!

Rumpledelf,

hahah, glad you got some responses, and it sounds like you got a bit more than you bargained for.

Some paintings and 3d artwork might translate very well for your steampunk project though.
I laughed when you said some of the submissions were awful, it was tempting to submit steampunk stickmen.
I couldnt figure out how to make them obviously steampunk though, so you were saved by my lack of imagination.
Good luck with your project, and yes..please do post a link to your blog.
or put it in your signature.



Edit:
oh! I meant to ask you where you'd posted the submission specs. If there are more detailed specs than those posted
in the message above.
Some artists might still want to see them.

Inkspots wrote:I laughed when you said some of the submissions were awful, it was tempting to submit steampunk stickmen.

I laughed because you were surprised at getting so much response!