Paying for an artist? Stop! Read this first.

[papillon]

It's really all in the contract you negotiate. Plenty of developers would be happy to agree terms to pay a bonus if the game reaches X profits or the like, because they want to motivate the artist to make great art, after all.

[Kyonko802]

I prefer the pay as you go method. I didn't even talk to my artist about future profits because for one, I don't know whether or not I'm going to sell my VN, and for two, paying her for a set amount of work is much easier. A promise of a percentage of future profits isn't very motivating. I showed her some of my writing and the story of the VN I'm making and she liked it, so I started paying her and she started drawing.

Showing her the progress on my end also goes a long way towards this, a co-creator isn't going to get much done if the other guy is sitting on his butt all day.