FREELANCE ART COMMISSIONS

author=unity

author=BluMiu

author=unity
I noticed this too. Several pieces of your art look veeeeery familiar. For example:

It's not just redrawing a character. It's drawing the same character, at the same angle, with nearly the same outfit.

That said, I have no idea which pieces of your art are original, and which are just you heavily referencing other people's artwork. This sort of art is fine to make, especially for practice, but isn't what you want to show people when you advertise to do commissions.

Are you telling me you've never seen fanart of someone doing their own rendition of official art? I can literally find you the same for Doom, Zelda, Final Fantasy and whatever else, but in the artist's own style. In fact, there is the draw in your style challenges, follows the same principle. When people draw hyper realistic, they are directly using a reference for every bit of detail. If this were traced, I'd see your point. Given that is LITERALLY fanart, no point was proven.

If anything is believed referenced, use Google Image search and get back to me.

And I have a seen commission work advertised of fanart, especially when you offer fanart. In fact, look up in the sub-header. It says "Offering Original Characters and Fanart". Please pay attention before jumping in.

Just to make it more obvious:

If I paid you for fanart, and you copied the image in the exact same style, pose, and almost all details, I'd want my money back. That's not the response a responsible artist gives, or an example of their work that an honest artist puts on their commissions page.

author=Mirak
Tbf all those sites you mentioned are art-centric sites.

This is a gamedev site, and gamedev resource creation is a whole different bag of jellybeans. Not at all how it is when working with people on those sites.

You'll find out with experience that gamedevs value original works above all else, because usually people who commission artwork for their games are not really looking for fanart. So, when you make a thread like this, posting exactly the same commission sheet you use in deviantart, and some of the eye catching artwork you display is fanart that looks very very similar to the original source, even if you made these by specific request, it gives people here cause for concern. It's not that you're a scammer or anything.

Don't take it personally, there has just been a lot, and I mean a LOT of people who've been pretty shady about their businesses as artists in the gamedev scene that people approach these threads with caution first and anything else a distant second. If you just localized your commission sheet to fit a format that would be of use to game developers, discarding fanart and displaying things they might actually be interested in, I guarantee you will not have this issue anymore.

author=Liberty
Quite honestly, I do see both sides of the issue.

For one, Unity is correct that if someone paid for fanart and got a regurgitated version of something that already existed, it'd be a 'feels bad man' moment and I wouldn't be surprised of a refund was demanded. People ask for fanart of things that doesn't already exist - whether it be for shipping or headcanon, etc. Granted, there is a lot of fanart of people just copying previous existing art but usually, that's not paid-for fanart, but the artist studying character angles and shit in order to get their own styled version down.

This is also a site where people are very leery about commissions that can be used against them. Showing off your own work and style, and not copies of already existing art (whether it be backgrounds or characters) might help garner more people to look at you for commissions for games.

Perhaps show off some versions of gameplay-type style? Portraits that could be used in a game, for example, and more original character concept art (the angel creatures are pretty freaky and I could see someone asking you to make some creepy shit like that, for sure!)


That said, I do understand that when someone is just starting out they have only to draw from the things that they've created to showcase their skills. This usually ends up being fanart or images that are styled around those you admire. And coming from a position of general art into a more functional art type (that used for game creation) can be a difficult transition to showcase your style in a way that developers can use. It might be a good idea to think about the type of art devs might need and showcase some images that would work in games. Logos, portraits, CG art, title screens, game overs, for example.

Of course, general art for things like character/enemy concepts and advertising is something that is part of the package but most people here are going to want to see your style and whether it fits their game/needs, that will make their game stand out against other games as unique, not something that looks similar to games/art that already exists and is well-known enough to raise some eyebrows.

Cater to the audience, I guess I'm saying.

author=Liberty
Of course, but when you've only got a few things that you're proud of and want to expand, you tend to just take your best bits and show them off, thinking that that'd be 'good enough'.

Thus the suggestion of showing off other stuff than what they've shown thus far, catered more towards the clients they want to draw in, instead of just 'this is stuff I've done that has no basis on the audience I'm trying to reach out to'...