Know Any Artist Recruting Sites (Free or Paid)?

[HiddenCreature]

My first guess is DeviantArt, which is where I found a few artists for my project. But that site is mainly to share your artwork, not necessarily advertise it. So you have to private message artists for recruitment, and I doubt they expect to receive job offers (free or otherwise).

Then there's a classifieds subreddit, but that isn't specifically for artists.

Any ideas or recommendations? Outside of this forum, unless you already know someone, I'm not sure how you recruit artists (for free, anyway).

[Lesleigh63]

Couldn't you find anything under the 'Recruitment & Services Offered' thread?

[firecat]

the answer is that there is none, you are better off finding artwork that are creative comments than trying to find an artist. most of them want money for the time they spend to build one character.

[Kailoto]

Couldn't you find anything under the 'Recruitment & Services Offered' thread?

He did say outside of this forum, and although I don't know why you would have to look further for most needs, I do suppose it's a question worth answering.

I can't speak from personal experience, but a friend of mine has been working on a project and was looking for people to create concept art. He wanted a specific style, so he found someone who was doing commissions in the style he wanted, got in contact with them, and paid them. (I think he found the artist through tumblr, but I might be wrong.)

I haven't used any sites that are specifically for artist recruitment, but a quick search for Stack Exchange topics led me to this question thread, which had a lot of different sites for various types of artwork in the replies. You can click that link or just visit DeviantArt Job Offers Forum, GameDev Classifieds (commercial) and Hobbyist Projects (non-commercial), Pixellation Job Offers Forum (for pixel art), and a blog post for artist promotion (which is still getting replies.)

I also found an article on Game Academy that lists sites to outsource artwork on.

My point? Almost all of these sites are designed for artists to find work, so if you're not willing to pay, there's very few places you'll find an artist for free. I mean, it doesn't make sense in the first place to make a site dedicated for finding free work.

My counter-question to you would be, why are you trying to find artists for free? If you just don't want to pay then you'll never find what you need - I even paid my friend for doing artwork on a project. I can't think of any reason to not pay an artist for their work, unless they've specifically said they don't want to be paid. And the only way to find the latter is to go look for specific people.

[HiddenCreature]

Thanks for the links.

To answer your question, it's the same reason people make free visual novels here in the first place: they either can't afford to hire people, or they don't want to make commercial projects, and free ones instead. Also, I never said myself specifically was looking for artists. I just figured something like that would be useful to more members here. After all, while there's a good amount of artists here, the number isn't arguably large. At least, not large enough to where everyone who asks has a decent chance at getting an artist on their team.

There's plenty of people who just want to make creative projects with like-minded people, and don't necessarily want money. And I'm sure there's just as many artists who wouldn't mind working for free, if they found a project they're interested in. Or to meet you half way, they'd accept money after the project was finished and making sales, instead of right away.

The reason you don't hear about too many artists offering their services for free, is because they don't have too many outlets like this one to do so. To specify, I mean websites specifically aimed at recruiting members (free or paid) for creative projects.

A member on this forum recently made a website called Ludust to meet this demand. I wish there were more sites like it, as it would make recruitment much easier.

After all, the first visual novel I ever played was a free one, and I really enjoyed it. Pretend someone wants to do something similar, but doesn't have a large budget. Outside of this forum, how many places could he honestly look, expecting free help?

That's why I was asking for recommendations. If there were more sites like this one, it would make things easier for people.


Thanks again for the links.

[Kailoto]

Quite a few of the sites I've linked to have people who are willing to do work for free, but they're mixed in with those that'll accept money. You just have to find them and temper your expectations.

Like I said before, I'm not sure if there's any sites out there that are specifically for free work, and I'm not sure if it would even be sustainable. The only thing that seems to work is to find individual artists that are willing to work for free, and if you're getting free artwork, the least you could do is put the effort into looking for them and being the one to reach out.

I want to be clear that I'm not criticizing you or anyone else that is looking for free artwork (after all, I'm currently doing story design and writing for free.) I just don't think there really needs to be anything outside of what we already have - forums and lists for recruiting artists both paid and free - because you can find free work if you really look for it, and in my opinion, that's not something that needs to be fixed.

For reference, I'm currently collaborating with a friend (the one I mentioned earlier) on a free visual novel. I've kept my budget under $100, and even though it's a small project, those are still low prices. It's mitigated by the fact that a) she has as much creative freedom as she needs, b) I'm a jobless NEET that doesn't have a source of income, and c) there's no real deadlines on any of the work. I probably could have gotten her to do it for free, but I would've felt bad about it.

Basically, my advice is to find someone specific. Business (or hobbyist) relationships that are devoid of money have to be built on trust and honor, so it's better if you find a specific person you can build that with.

[HiddenCreature]

True, you do have to reach out. That's how I recruited most of my members.

But like you said, the free ones are often mixed in with the paid ones. From my experience, the latter is more numerous. While I don't think we need sites specifically for free work, I know we need more sites like this one: that offer free and paid work, on an arguably equal level. After all, I think it's safe to say there many more sites for paid artists, than for free/paid ones. But I think more sites are appearing for the latter, though.

True, you need that kind of relationship, otherwise you won't get much work done, among other things, lol. I believe if you are authentic, you'll convince the right people. The trick is knowing where to look, you know?

[Kailoto]

True, you do have to reach out. That's how I recruited most of my members.

But like you said, the free ones are often mixed in with the paid ones. From my experience, the latter is more numerous. While I don't think we need sites specifically for free work, I know we need more sites like this one: that offer free and paid work, on an arguably equal level. After all, I think it's safe to say there many more sites for paid artists, than for free/paid ones. But I think more sites are appearing for the latter, though.

True, you need that kind of relationship, otherwise you won't get much work done, among other things, lol. I believe if you are authentic, you'll convince the right people. The trick is knowing where to look, you know?

Honestly, it's why I like sites like this one and prefer to use them for recruitment and the like. From the start you know that you share the same interest - in this case, visual novels - and already have something in common.

[SundownKid]

Elance and Odesk can be used to hire paid artists. You basically put out a job request and people respond with their estimates.

I wouldn't recommend using free artists for a visual novel, period, unless it's a very, VERY small project. Even if said free artist is passionate about it, if they are at all a decent artist they will probably let free work take a backseat to paid work. If they could get money for something they have no reason to do it for free. The exception, perhaps, if you have a proven track record of making good games and examples of good, finished games to show.