Evaluating the art in the Core Book

[Lord High Munchkin]

I'm actually a professional artist myself (an academic portrait painter), and I have to honestly say that I wouldn't work for the money that companies typically pay.

That's not to say that there aren't talented people out there who would... but I can make more money, more easily, painting.

 

[Baron Sidur Haski]

Pardon my rambling too, the other night, I was jammed up on the cold medicine, and sort of "freestyling" it.

Money's the thing, to be sure. I have tons of illustrator freinds and very few work as illustrators in the classical sense. There are tons of extremely talented people around, and some want and rightly deserve some good coin for thier efforts.

My comments the other night about "The Traveller Look" were not to say that everything should be Soviet Bloc Standard, but more like a clear delineation of key stuff, especially if in some of the books there is talk of having a manufacturing standard for items and such, at least where the Imperium was concerned. I myself am used to not using an OTU setting.

I myself usually define the look of things myself, but overall, I think Traveller is served better with art rather than without, and with good art rather than bad, I like the Mongoose stuff so far. I thought the stuff in Mercenary was a little wonky, but I really like high guard overall very "fast" and "expressive". I only have a first run Core book, so I dont know what the art lookslike in the "fixed" version.

The cover of Spinward Marches is awesome.

 

[Border Reiver]

It is chiefly a question of money.

As has been said by Mongoose several times, they don't pay much per piece (and to be fair most games companies—or at least the profitable ones—don't either), so a good illustrator has to be very rapid to turn out enough to make money.

So, largely one gets what one pays for.

Believe me, I know! Two guys I game with do art for RPG companies, and yet have done any for any of the big guys (WOTC, Paizo, FFG, Mongoose, etc...) and I hear about the pay issues all the time. Plus my daughter has art published in a couple of Necromancer Games modules, so I know.

Artists get paid crap.

Which is a shame as my friend can command $200 a page and up for his work...and he gets it. But not from gaming companies.

 

[andrew boulton]

If Mongoose pay the same rates as other companies, that doesn't explain why their art is worse.

There are lots of good amateur/semi-pro artists who I'm sure would be happy to work for them - crap pay is better than nothing, especially these days.

Credit where it's due, though, the art is improving. I really like the cover art - it's a bit stylised, and not 100% Traveller, but it's very well done.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Which is a shame as my friend can command $200 a page and up for his work...and he gets it. But not from gaming companies.

That's less than Mongoose pay I believe (but don't quote me as I'm remembering on the fly).

 

[Treebore]

See, by my standards $200 per page is crap if it took you 10 or more hours to do it. Now if he does his stuff in 5 hours or less, that is very good.

Thats another thing I found interesting, some people take a long time to do their stuff, then some are like my daughter and turn out nice looking stuff in an hour or two. Not stellar, just nice.

Like this is a portrait my daughter threw together in an hour for a PC she plays:

http://s275.photobucket.com/albums/jj303/Treebore/?action=view&current=Quin.jpg

 

[rust]

Like this is a portrait my daughter threw together in an hour for a PC she plays ...

Nice picture, indeed.

 

[CosmicGamer]

There are tons of extremely talented people around, and some want and rightly deserve some good coin for thier efforts.

I know nothing of the business. Tons? Perhaps it is partially just supply and demand then?

 

[Jame Rowe]

Like this is a portrait my daughter threw together in an hour for a PC she plays ...

Nice picture, indeed.

Indeed. I agree.

 

[Vile]

Not stellar, just nice.

See, this, I think, is the crux. The art I like to see in an RPG doesn't need to be top-notch full-colour airbrushed glory (although that's a bonus). It just needs to be competent, dimensionally accurate, and meaningful to the game. One thing I dislike more than poor-but-relevant art is good-but-irrelevant art. I hate it when games try to dress themselves up by plugging in random off-the-shelf full-colour art which does not fit into the game universe.

And, yes, Treebore, that is a nice picture. If your daughter spent two hours on that instead of one, it would be spot-on for an appropriate RPG illustration. Speaking from within a design industry, I understand that it is difficult to spend less time on something, though - nothing is ever perfect, but you always want to make it as perfect as you can. It's difficult for artists to allocate time to a picture based on an hourly rate, but that is the key for any professional.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

It's difficult for artists to allocate time to a picture based on an hourly rate, but that is the key for any professional.

That is very true.

Last week I helped a friend price up some prints (cyanotypes) he had done. He wanted to charge a particular price, but when I pointed out the various costs and time he figured out another, higher, value (which was very close to what a third friend had also said).

Being able to evaluate (rationally and objectively) the value of one's work is one mark of the professional.

 

[andrew boulton]

Being able to evaluate (rationally and objectively) the value of one's work is one mark of the professional.

True, but OTOH it's worth whatever people will pay for it. If your work is "worth" $300, but nobody will pay more than $200, you have to either take it or get another job.

 

[rust]

True, but OTOH it's worth whatever people will pay for it. If your work is "worth" $300, but nobody will pay more than $200, you have to either take it or get another job.

Yep, this is what I try to explain to my lady, who has the economically bad
luck to be an artist and the bad habit to continue to improve each of her
pieces over and over again, without considering that each additional hour
of work put into it makes it a little more perfect, but also more expensive,
reducing the number of potential customers able and willing to spend the
money for it ...

 

[spinwardpirate]

Very interesting discussion.
I have a friend who does illustrations for, among other things, Osprey publishing. I once suggested to him that it would be cool to see some of his works published in rpg books. He just sort of chuckled. Based on that chuckle, my assumption was that not only did he see it as a pay cut, but also beneath him in some way.

 

[Daneel Olivaw]

Yep, this is what I try to explain to my lady, who has the economically bad
luck to be an artist and the bad habit to continue to improve each of her
pieces over and over again, without considering that each additional hour
of work put into it makes it a little more perfect, but also more expensive,
reducing the number of potential customers able and willing to spend the
money for it ...

Not to derail this thread, which is a really good one, BTW, but some artists can even reduce the quality of a piece by messing with it long after the spark with which it was created is gone. I'm talking to you, George Lucas!

BTW, Treebore, your daughter's work is really good!

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Knowing when to stop is the real trick...

 

[IanBruntlett]

Knowing when to stop is the real trick...

In Computing we have two terms for this:-
1 Analysis Paralysis
2 Refactoring

 

[andrew boulton]

Knowing when to stop is the real trick...

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

 

[Chuckhazard]

So maybe I just can't compare, but I really like the art in the core traveller book. I just got it so haven't finished it yet but the ink art is really to my liking. So what if it's not color.

 

[DeadMike]

Personally I could do away with all the art if they would only get an editor that knows how to do the job or takes it seriously. The amount of errors in these books are staggering considering the price being charged for them.