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RBL
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Quote RBL Replybullet Topic: Stardar price for Character Sprites.
    Posted: 14 December 2014 at 3:01pm
Hi. I´m finding some pixel art job offers, but there´s a problem of lack of knoledge from developers about how hard is pixel work is. I find time to time 2d fighting indy projects with derisory budgets. $1 per sprite is an insult.

So, here goes the question:
How to charge for character sprites for action/fighting frames? Size 100/125 pix height. Main sprites, iddle animation frames and moves frames.

Examples:




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DragonDePlatino
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Quote DragonDePlatino Replybullet Posted: 14 December 2014 at 3:13pm
Hmmm...I've only worked with little indie developers so I'm not that good with pricing, but I can testify that this is some amazing art! I'd pay very handsomely for it!

I'm not experienced enough to give you my own pricing without sounding like a moron, but Adam Saltsman wrote a great article on Gamasutra on how to sell your pixel art. I'd highly suggest giving it a read.

Edited by DragonDePlatino - 14 December 2014 at 3:14pm
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Volrak_Rutra
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Quote Volrak_Rutra Replybullet Posted: 15 December 2014 at 8:33pm
someone needs to set up a guide to acceptable price range for game assets. there are several artists and illustrators' books on business side of art making, but nothing for anything like this.
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eishiya
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Quote eishiya Replybullet Posted: 16 December 2014 at 8:09am
Writing a guide with actual numbers would be impossible, since each country, even city has its own situation when it comes to fair rates, and the economy and industry are always in flux.

I personally use this method, which I started using for doing freelance programming, but it works even better for art:
Choose a desired hourly rate, probably based on the minimum wage laws and cost of living in your area, though your current financial situation might also impact it. Estimate the time that each asset would take you. Multiply the two values to get the base price to charge for that asset. Multiply it by the desirability of your time*. That's how much to charge.

* The desirability of your time is a summary of your skill level, your available time, and how much clients want you specifically to work with them. This is the tough part, but here's a general procedure for calculating it that should work for most people who are able to devote serious time to work and are skilled enough to get job offers:
1. calculate the number of hours you'll have to work on the project before the deadline. For example, if they want all the assets done in a month, and you're able to work 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, that's 20 hours a week for 4 weeks = 80 hours.
2. calculate the number of hours you'll need to do all the work they need. If they want 100 frames of a fighting game character, and you can do about 1 frame per hour, that's 100 hours.
3. Do the same for all the other job offers for that same time slot you have, if there are any. If another client wants you to do 200 hours of work, but it's due in 4 months, then that's another 50 hours of work over the same month (with the other 150 falling outside of this calculation period).
4. Add all the workhours together. In the example scenario, that's 150 of your hours that various clients desire, and you have 80 hours available. Multiply your fee by (desired hours)/(available hours) = 150/80 = 1.875x. This multiplier, when it's above 1, is basically your incentive to work faster or find more time to work, and to choose their job over the other offers you might have. If you're not very desirable yet for whatever reason, you might have more hours available than there is work to do, in which case this step would give you a multiplier less than 1. It's up to you whether to apply it and produce a much lower fee (which might be fair if you're not that good yet), or take the chance and stick to your desired rate. Whatever you choose, make sure you don't work for below minimum wage.
For extended jobs where you get a decent amount of stability, you should probably skip this "time desitability" step unless you have multiple offers for such stable jobs.

This article and the comments on it should also provide some ideas.


Edited by eishiya - 16 December 2014 at 2:10pm
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Volrak_Rutra
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Quote Volrak_Rutra Replybullet Posted: 17 December 2014 at 8:01pm
I feel that this method of evaluating your art may put you at a disadvantage, especially as an entry-level artist looking to get experience working for a client as opposed to just for fun.

for starters, new pixel artists do not create work as good-looking as seasoned pros. also, they take longer to do something decent, also because of experience. so the client will get mediocre-looking pixels for more money, if you are charging for your time.

location has nothing to do with anything, as we are all together in big and beautiful internetland so a guy from california can order a sprite from a girl in china, or vice versa. just because people in china get less money than people in california, doesn't mean that the sprite will be less or more valuable. it is the skill that should have the foremost impact on the sprite.

a pixel artwork is a product, so I believe that it should cost based on how much similar products cost. a bmw x6 starts at $46,300 in my country. a welder can get $47/hr pretty easily. if you give a welder a bunch of scrap metal and 1000 hours of time, will you buy the resulting product, or will you buy the real deal for the same price?

this pixel art thing, and any creative business is competitive. client will always consider 3 things: price, quality, speed. and client will choose an artist, whose the combination of all three is best. newbie artist cannot compete with either speed or quality, so the only thing left is price.

bottom line is: comparable size artworks with comparable quality done in comparable timeframe should have comparable prices. lower quality results in lower price, smaller volume of work results in lower price, longer time taken results in lower price. and if the quality is not there and speed is not there, then the only things left are either practicing for free, until you get good enough to be competitive without lowering the prices, or biting the bullet and working maybe even for less than minimum wage to get experience.

once the skill is built up to deliver better quality faster, and clients desire an artist more, that artist should raise prices.

but since there's no frame of reference for things like this, this kind of evaluation is really hard to do. so I would really hope for someone to share their going rates, and examples of the works they did that sold for the given prices.

just my 50 cents.
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PixelSnader
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Quote PixelSnader Replybullet Posted: 12 January 2015 at 11:38am
I strongly disagree with the notion that if you're not good enough to ask a decent sum, or at -least- minimum wage, that you should simply work for less and consider it a learning experience. It devalues the medium, just like it does in any other creative business.

If you want to learn, learn. If you want to earn, earn. Don't mix the two.

Make your own project, know your own speed, quality falloff (the more you refine a sprite, the longer each round of polish takes and the less it improves), know how to plan and be efficient. Then you can give clients estimates based on what Eishiya said.

If you don't know what your capabilities are, you'll almost certainly f**k something up. Perhaps something small, stalling a game for a few weeks, perhaps something big, like stalling a game for a few weeks and now it's not released in time with the movie. Perhaps you grossly overestimate your speed or underestimate your clients specificity, and you end up working for pennies per hour on revisions. Perhaps you forget something in planning and you have to rework an entire character set. These are not troubles you want to have when there is significant money in the balance.

For the same reasons, don't step in a project you don't know the specifications of either. You need to know both the speed of the train and the length of the journey to predict how long it will take.

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