Pixel artist doing game art for free
'Hello everyone,
as you might have guessed from the headline, I'm doing pixel art for free. Absolutely free - you don't have to share any of your revenue. But I won't give it away for nothing: I have to be allowed to do the following:
- publish the game in the Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Nokia X store and make money from it (ads, in-app-purchases)
- Therefore, I'll most probably need access to the game source so I can add anything platform-specific.
The game should also be easily useable with touch controls, so I'd like your game to already run on mobile platforms.
In return you get:
- beautiful pixel art (contact me to at the mail adress given below to see some of it)
- all the money you earn with your iOS, Android etc. versions
Game engines that run on Windows Phone and Windows 8 are (of course, I'm not mentioning any of it):
- Cocos2d-x
- Unity
- MonoGame
- ...
If you have any questions or want to make a game with my art, feel free to contact me: my server is "jalfm.de" and my name on this server is "jal". Put an @ between those two and you get my mail. That's spam-bot-protection for pros:)
Oh, I forgot to mention:
If you want to make sure that I respond you, please include:
- Name of the game
- Information on the game (both a description and some screenshots)
- the engine you use
- a rough estimation of how long the project will take to finish
- how much art you need
- if there is already art (exception placeholder art) and if yes, some examples of this art
- I expect all this to be written in normal english. You don't have to be super formal and if there are a few typos, I'm fine with it (I'm sure my Enlish is not perfect either), but I don't think you are trustworthly if you write something like "Can u plz make zombys for my supr-awesme game!!1!!11". Put some efford into it - you want me to do something for you, not the other way round:)
If you want to increase your chances even further, add a video showing your game.
Don't waste your time. You are an ARTIST not a GAME DESIGNER.
The consumer is the one who sells the project anyways (minus the indie part).
YOU have no say in which goes where, or any of that.
As for me, I would take this offer if you didn't cut into profits by publishing it. Just saying.
It would be better to serve a royalty.
... But I do most of my pixel art... hmm....
I don't waste my time. And you were wrong, I'm both a game designer and an artist. I'm just looking for someone to collaborate with me on a small project. Because it would be too time-intense to handle the taxes - I'm still a minor - I think it is fair to split the publishing. And as I don't sell the art, I won't call the people who contact me "customers" - they are more like "partners". And if I "did not cut into profits", I wouldn't get anything at all...
jal: I'd reccomend you post some of your art here or at least a link to a portfolio/pixeljoint profile/whatever. i'd be interested in seeing it even though im not a dev, and i imagine you might have more luck that way.
You are redistributing the software and taking them profits.
Customers are not called Partners. Partners are different collaborators (graphics-game logic editors) on the project. Customers are the idea specialists - who want a product. Use correct terminology between people.
You are in no way going to gain profits or anything by posting here. You are in no way going to distribute and gain all profits to what you do distribute to.
You are assuming the role of pixel artist not game designer in the OP.
Please...
@jalgames: Hydroque's opinions don't represent the opinions of the OpenGameArt community. There's nothing wrong with your post.
@Hydroque: I'm seeing a lot of unnecessary rudeness from you in your recent comments. That may be acceptable in other communities, but it isn't here.
@bart
I was talking to him on Skype about possibly working together on a project and he was very rude and condescending. To him of course, this meant that I would work completely for free on his project without being allowed to offer any ideas of my own because (and I quote this from the skype chat) "you are just artist, not game designer"
@Hydroque Artists needs programmers and vice versa, quit being a condescending asshole to people you don't even know.
@OP
I think it's a bit unfair to say "I'll do the art and in return you give me all of the game source code and also allow me to upload it on the iOS market so I can make money on it."
You seem to understand that the other "partner" would be putting it on iOS and are interested in directly competing for profits - that's ethically wrong.
TL;DR, expecting full disclosure of a game's source code because you did the art for it is a bit conceited. Engines are generally proprietary technology.
The corolary is that expecting an artist to provide art under a permissive license while keeping your source closed is equally conceited. On the other hand, that means every artist releasing their stuff under a GPL-like license is 'conceited'. Maybe that's true and it is conceited to do that, but I still appriciate the artist's generosity for releasing it for- what is still effectively- free.
I'm not preaching for open source or even GPL licenses. I myself don't plan to use any GLP licensing and may even keep my own source closed, but I think the OP has the option to choose whatever attribution/copyright instructions (s)he wishes. However...
@OP: I don't think you'll get many bites with this type of partnership model. Like Kemono indicated, most artists/designers/programmers don't want to compete with their own work and they may feel they aren't getting much benefit out of this deal, but it's your call. This is only my opinion and I hope you find a good partner to work with. :)
--Medicine StormLet me shortly explain why I am doing this:
My main laptop is broken and therefore, I'm not able to create games on my own (I'm a dev, too). But I'd like to do something for a game in my free time, so I got a pixel art editor running on a Raspberry PI, which unforitunately isn't capable of running powerful IDEs.
And actually, I never wrote that I need the game's source. If you are able to compile on Windows Phone yourself, I'm perfectly fine with you just sending me the XAP.
@Kemono: "I'll do the art and in return you give me all of the game source code and also allow me to upload it on the iOS market so I can make money on it." I think you just got one word wrong:
The programmer (and Game Designer etc.) is allowed to upload the game to the following platforms:
- iOS
- Google Play
- The web
- If you want to publish on another platform, just shoot me a mail at [the first 3 characters of my username]@jalfm.de
In return, you enable me to publish on:
- Windows Phone
- Windows Store
[- Nokia Store: It's not the highest priority, so we can discuss that, if you want]
The only platforms which are theorietically competing are Windows Store and the web, but I don't think that many browsergames are fun on a touchscreen and the Flash plugin for IE 11 is aweful (other plugins like the Unity Web Player don't work at all).
TL;DR: I don't want the source, just a way to upload it on my account to Windows Phone and Windows Store. I'm also doing this in my free time on my second machine in a time span of about a month, so don't expect me to create art for the next GTA:)
If you don't like me doing this, either give reasons why you don't do of don't post.
And a portfolio is coming very soon (actually, I'll submit some things to Open Game Art:-)
@jalgames
As long as you're not deliberately unclear or misleading about your conditions, you're free to post this here. If people don't like your conditions, they're free to not take you up on them (or criticize them, for that matter, as long as they can do it without being needlessly rude).
hey jalgames,
I'm interested in your offer. To clarify though. You would handle the distribution of the game on the platform you want to distribute on yourself? (eg compiling, minor modifications for compatibility, etc). I develop for android so the game would already be mobile focused, but i'm sure theres going to be some small amount of work to make the game run on other platforms.
I program in java and use jmonkeyengine.
I don't see anything wrong with the OP's request. Profit sharing is a perfectly normal way of developing games together, whether it's for programmers, artists or designers. If you want an artist for a commercial project without sharing source/profits/distribution, you need to pay them - but not all artists (or programmers) are after that kind of deal.
I would use "partner" to describe a programmer and artist working on a game. I don't see how "customer" is more accurate, to me that means the people buying the game...
@Kemono He's not asking to be able to distribute his own competing IOS port - he's asking for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, leaving other platforms to the programmer.
@MedicineStorm I don't think the OP was even after the source to be Open - just to be able to access it to be able to port it for those platforms.
It is however worth clarifying whether there is any burden for the programmer to use appropriate cross-platform technologies (e.g., using one of the engines you list in the OP). AFAIK, porting a standard Java Android application to Windows Phone could require a rewrite into a different language altogether.
@ASneakyFox: Sorry, but Java won't compile for my target platforms (Windows Phone, Windows RT). Of course, I had no problems with doing those minor improvements, but because you're using Java, that would force me to pretty much rewrite the whole game.
As I mentioned above, game engines like Unity or frameworks like MonoGame work on Windows Phone, but they are both written in C# (or, in case of unity, at least use it as a scripting language).
But if it is a very small project, I'd still be interested: I'd also be interested in Nokia X, which is an Android platform without Google services (like the play store). I guess I could even take the same apk. But I couldn't compile it because I don't know Java at all, so in this case I'd need a finished apk file. If you want to talk about this, just shoot me a mail at "jal" at the server "jalfm.de" (I'm really creative with obscuring my mail address:)
Hey, well first off I GameMakerStudio to make my game, and also i absotutely suckkk at making pixel art unless i have a tutorial.;] Estimated time for compleation probably in this yeah or early of next depending on how school goes. also the amount of art that i need is honestly preaty much everything. the type of game im making is an action RPG. Also im working on the name dont have on yet.
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