What is your opinion on this commissioned artwork?

[LiveTurkey]

I have commissioned a piece of art and the artist has sent me what he has so far (roughly 70-75% done). It's supposed to be a school classroom if that wasn't obvious

I have my own opinions in it but I want to know what everybody else thinks.

1. What do you think I should pay/ the artist should charge for this work? We have already agreed upon a price and I have already paid but I was just wondering what value do you guys think this work has? I want to see if I overpaid or underpaid. Or maybe I paid a fair price. What would you pay for this if you were commissioning it and what would you charge if you were the artist?

2. What do you think of the perspective? That is my biggest fear. I didn't specify the perspective (this is my first time commissioning art) and I didn't notice it would be a problem until he got very far along. The problem that I see is that the main character is supposed to be a school student. And even though right now the classroom is empty, the idea is that eventually it will have a lot of other students in the room that the main character can interact with (by clicking on them). The reason the perspective bothers me is that it puts the player in some cloud type floating midway in the room rather then another student sitting in a desk.

Do players of visual novel notice this stuff or care about it? Should I recommission (and obviously pay him again) for the same piece but from a lower perspective? Or is this perspective even preferred since if the player was on desk level they couldn't really interact with the whole room. I intend my game to be a mixture of a visual novel dating simulator and a point and click adventure. Because of the point and click aspect, this perspective could help since the player needs to see various part of the room (like the ceiling and the stuff behind him) but I'm afraid that using this perspective creates ludonarrative dissonance and takes the player out of the game.

3. Do you think the artwork is too boxy/liney. There are only exclusively straight lines. I also only noticed this pretty late into the commission process. Is this a good thing? A bad thing? A personal preference thing? Or maybe not even a thing at all? Once again I could decommission the artist to create a similar drawing but with more curves. Or am I overthinking this?

Here is the imgur link to the art piece. I couldn't post it because it was too big.
https://i.imgur.com/pRsbfVz.jpg

[Imperf3kt]

I do hope those tables are temporary or the school is for midgets. They're far too low.
I don't have any input of value, I'm afraid.

[LiveTurkey]

I do hope those tables are temporary or the school is for midgets. They're far too low.
I don't have any input of value, I'm afraid.

Yep I also noticed the table length. And the chairs are too close the table. I won't have room to put any characters that are sitting there.

[Veri]

If I may ask, is the quality of the commission in par with the artist's portfolio/previous work? In case those were your primary basis for hiring him. And what information did your contract include (is there a free revision, termination clause and a clear brief of the commission - especially of its intended use?)

I see several visual decisions in composition, perspective and objects that are not ideal for a visual novel. I'm not sure if the artist considered the image's function and how it would work together with UI-elements and characters. And it's a shame if you end up with a paid picture that you cannot use, and leave the commission process unhappy. If it were me, I'd talk with the artist before he finishes the commission, and express any existing worries. Things are negotiable, especially when both parties respect each other. Usually hired artists wish the customers to leave happy, reputation on the market is a precious thing. This is also the reason why artists (those who make a living of art, anyhow) ask a lot of questions in the beginning, to the point of being an annoyance. If he didn't, you can express the fact that you don't have much experience in the visual field, and simply didn't know what information was needed and didn't wish to impose, that he already had all essential information for a succesful delivery . He has responsibilities in that part.

I cannot say on the value either, it depends. What copyright details were in the contract, was it a piecework or an hourly pay, what's the artist's degree and experience...

[morinoir]

I don't mean to offend the artist, so if they read my comment, I apologize in advance. But I have to say that the background looks like it's made by an amateur artist. There's too much what more skilled artist called 'bad element' on the picture. I honestly think the artist should just hone their skill before taking commission, but anyway...

I agree on everything that Veri said. If you don't have much experience on visual field, I suggest you both look for A LOT of visual references before dive into production. You as the commissioner should at least know the art style you want for your game and search for artist based on it. It's your decision to keep or change the artist. But I say, if you're on tight budget and this is just a starter project that you made to gain experience, why not using free-to-use background? You can find plenty here on lemmasoft, on creative common section. Some of them is free to edit, so if you decide to keep the artist, you can just commission them to edit the artwork.

[SundownKid]

The good: The art is decent for a visual novel done on the cheap. It's not so bad that I'd throw it out and fire the artist. But I'm not going to be presumptuous and start throwing out what I think you should pay for it. You should be getting quotes from multiple artists. All I will say is, it doesn't strike me as commercial-quality, more like something that'd be suitable for a freeware VN.

The bad: The perspective is too high or the desks are too small, I can't really tell. But there's definitely a problem when you are trying to give the impression of a human perspective.

[YonYonYon]

You should always ask the artist for the sketch first because it's much easier to fix things in the beginning, not when it's 70% done.

[Aviala]

No-one but the artist can decide the value of an art piece, so I can't say anything about that. But, like others have said, this art piece looks amateurish, and if you're aiming for a commercial release, I think you need to consider commissioning someone else. The perspective and other issues can probably be fixed, but I doubt the artwork will still be on par with what is considered the standard for commercial games. Players will definitely notice if the perspective is off, especially if characters will be standing next to desks that look tiny compared to them :D

On these forums, most professional or at least semi professional backgrounds range from 50 to 200 USD per background (and when you take into account how much time, skill and effort goes into art, that's cheap). But even if the art is not of professional quality, it takes a lot of time to create, so there isn't one set price of what art should cost. Maybe you can go check out the I am an Artist section of these forums to get a grasp of what different artists charge for their work.

If your project is not commercial, the quality is not as big of an issue. If you want to keep working with this artist, first apologize to them for not giving proper instructions on the layout, and then ask them to fix the perspective. But since the art is nearing completion, it might be fair to pay the artist extra for the changes since the artist probably has to redraw a lot of stuff.

My last note is, did you check out the artist's portfolio before commissioning them? Is the quality of this piece similar to what you saw in the portfolio? If this commission is pretty much on the same level as other pieces in the portfolio, you should have known at least approximately what to expect. It's not really the artist's fault if you expected them to magically create art that is really different than their other pieces. Then again, if the piece is clearly of lower quality than the artist's samples, I think it'd be only fair that the artist would fix the art for a low fee or free.

Whatever you decide, good luck on your project!

[Ertal77]

I have worked with artist with zero previous experience in visual novels, and what I do is provide them with examples, even tutorials in the case of sprites. And for the backgrounds, I look online for a photograph of what exactly I want or I draw a sketch myself. In this case, if you want students sitting down on those chairs, if I was you I would give the artist a hand drawn sketch with where exactly you are going to sit the students and all the details that are important to you. Don't forget to remind them the textbox will cover the lower part of the final picture.