What are the general costs of illustrations?

Depends on the artist. It also depends on whether they are domestic or overseas.

Depends on how large the art is. Is it full page art per card, or just quarter page per card?

Some comic book studios charge like $1000.00 or more per full color page. Let's say you can get four cards out of that, then you've just paid $250.00 a card for art.

If you go to an art student, you might get $15.00 per card from a high school art student, and your art will look like a high school art student did the work for you.

You should figure on paying at least $50.00 per card at a rock bottom minimum. If you can't get that rate, ask how much people will charge you for inked black and white art and then color it yourself with your computer.

You should visit the game design section of our website for leads on getting art. Listen to the Louis Porter Junior podcast and buy the Phil Reed colorization tutorial. Those will save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Wherever possible, don't underestimate the value of good clipart that you can colorize.

http://www.veritasgames.net/...Obtaining_Art_for_Your_Game

Fantasy Flight Games used to pay just $10 per picture for artwork, but that was years ago. They undoubtably pay more these days, judging by the increase in the quality of their artwork.

The way most illustrators (that I have spoken to) generate their quotes is by multiplying the number of hours they believe a project will take by the number of dollars they wish to earn per hour, then wiggling that number up and down for various reasons. (I happen to be a working professional graphic designer and illustrator, and this is how I generate my quotes.)

Once an illustrator has tackled a certain type of project (say, card art, or quarter-page magazine article accompaniment, or comic book covers) a few times, they have a "standard" by which they quote for those project types.

I made the rounds recently and contacted many card-artists that have done quality art for various card games. Posing as a client that wanted to procure card art for a game design, I got quotes from a dozen different artists. Generally, the number hovered between $150 and $350 per image. Never less than $150. (Images defined as full-colour, 1 or 2 figures with backgrounds, fully described.) A few of the responses went up to the $500 range, and one gentleman quoted me $1200 for a single image. Pricey!

Perhaps the person who quoted you $150 for 30 illustrations really meant to say $150 per illustration. $5 for each full-colour drawing is really quite insane, from a professional's perspective. Insane or not, I would peek at that person's portfolio before giving 'em the thumbs-up. (Of course, look at ANY artist's portfolio before hiring them, or have them provide samples specific to your needs.)

I mean, I could DO it. But in order to make it worth my while, I'd have to make sure that all 30 illustrations got brainstormed, sketched, revised & approved, inked, coloured, formatted, and delivered in the space of three hours. That is 6 minutes per image, all of which would look like they were done in, well, 6 minutes.

So, there is no real standard, as far as I can tell. It's all about the artists' speed, skill, need to take the job, and desired rate. Those variables mix together to form a wide range of possibilities. Sometimes you can get lucky and find someone who will provide excellent art for a very low rate. I have done work for not much more than the abovementioned insane rates myself, on occasion... (but I try to avoid doing so as much as possible. :-) ) One thing I would suggest is that if you are communicating with an artist that you like, try offering him/her something lower than their quote and see what happens. Negotiation is negotiation, after all, and a quote is just a starting point.

~Josh

There's a hidden cost related to incredibly inexpensive art where you've seen the artist's portfolio and the quality is good: your deadlines won't be met and odds are very good that you'll only get a small percentage of the total project.

Inexperienced artists trying to build up their portfolios or who are just drawing for the pleasure of it will often go into the project at a very low rate but once they get going they'll discover that it takes a lot more time than they thought and/or the project will get boring. At first they'll blow some deadlines, and eventually they'll just throw in the towel and not bother to do any more (though they won't tell you that's what's happening, they'll just stop responding to your email).

In any service industry, which certainly includes professional illustration, you really do get what you pay for.

-- Matthew

Well, this is how it might go. However, an artist who has ended up in that situation before will learn that unhappy clients don't result in repeat business very often, and we rely on that repeat business (or recommendations from clients) to survive. If you have good sketch/approval system, you can avoid this scenario in the vast majority of cases.

Also, I always include a clause like this in illustration contracts:

"The quoted prices include a reasonable amount of revisions (defined as one round of substantial changes and subsequent minor fixes) permitted per item. Any item breaking this limit will be billed appropriately as an extra item at Mr. Cappel’s discretion but with considerable fair warning to the client."

This never fails to insure that a client is prompt and diligent about offering critisicm thoroughly and early in the creative process. Nobody wants to pay more than the agreed-upon quote, for some reason. ;-) I do much of my art in the Toronto film industry where turnover times are startlingly quick ("Have it designed, approved, printed, and delivered to set by first thing tomorrow morning!") and there are a dozen different people (art directors, directors, producers of all kinds, agency, etc...) who might decide to disapprove a visual for a myriad of reasons. I learned to insist on an efficient approval system with good communication the hard way, but I learned the lesson well.

I also insure that any images I create are kept in as malleable a state as possible, in the anticipation that revisions may come up... any digital artists out there will understand the steps you can take, such as preserving resolution, keeping elements on seperate layers, saving duplicates of files at various stages of completion, and generally keeping things as editable as you can manage.

I like your work outside lime especially the chemical elements graphics that is excellent.

Thanks! Those "elementals" were for a client's game proposal where (you'll dig this) players are scientists committing various creatures based on the elements of the periodic table to combat against each other. Players could combine elements together in the scientifically appropriate amounts to create more powerful creatures. E.g., you could combine three Oxygen elementals together to upgrade to an Ozone (O3) elemental. The client lost interest in the project somewhere along the line, but the elementals still live in my portfolio!

I did get your message just now, and I am preparing a quote for the whole project. Will have that over to you in an hour or two, just leaving for the office now.

Speak to you soon!

~Josh