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Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Art, And The Cost of Art
Here is the current state of art for Overwhored. My current list of images to complete the project has two categories. The first is the "absolutely necessary to complete the game" column, and the second is the "I wish I had enough money to do this" column.
The first column has a list of thirteen absolutely necessary images that MUST exist to finish the game.
Assuming commissioning artists averages at $50 a picture (it won't) the total needed to finish the game is $650. As I'm poor, that'll take some time to pay out of my own pocket - though I'll get it done eventually. This doesn't include the faces - I don't intend to use the machine made garbage faces forever, after all.
The dream list contains 66 images, and comes to a total of $3300. That will probably never happen.
Some artists have been very nice, but it's often like a boxing match just trying to get commissions from artists. I first need to kick other commissioners out of the way, THEN convince the artist that my art is worth doing, then see if I can get some sort of discount because I have a lot of images to do.
Then I sometimes have to wait a few months to get the picture. I can understand perfectly why some people switch to 3DCG. I won't, of course, even with the difficulties presented. Part of the founding ideology of this project was simply that I wanted a game with real, traditional art, all of which was made to my specifications, and all of which is free of copyright issues. That's something I'll stick true to no matter what.
Some people have suggested that I open the project to donations for art money, but I'm divided on this. I have no idea what to offer those people in return for their donations, and frankly, I don't like the idea of owing anyone anything. That said, I'm considering it - It would make finishing the base game a lot faster, and possibly mean that certain sidequests and additional slaves would be added. My own art remains far too shitty to actually use in-game, so commissions remain the main method to add to the game.
I'm still thinking it over. Let me know what you think, and I'll take your ideas into consideration.
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Big fan of the game (at this stage) and I hope you can continue developing it in the same direction as a gameplay and feel.
ReplyDeleteI'm a programmer/marketing person, not an artist, but I'd love to donate to see more nice art in the game and to help speed up development. I think you should totally start accepting donations. 3300 is 33 people donating a hundred bucks. Quite doable, I think.
I'll quote MrTTAO from hongfire: "You said there are 13 images the game must have and 66 total if you included everything you want but cannot afford. So what you could do is to write short descriptions of the side-quests that would use those extra 53 images and have people donate directly towards those they find desirable / interesting. You still retain creative control because its things you wanted to add to begin with and didn't have the money for (unlike when a game is open to people paying for whatever they want which tends to make for messy cluttered games with lack of consistency)."
I think this is a perfect solution in my mind, but even without donating towards a specific scene/scenario, I and I hope many others will be happy to help.
Keep up the good work, can't wait for an update :-) Btw, love the music in 0.1.2 :-)
Kick ass game so far!! :D
ReplyDeleteOpen it to donations, no promises.
do·na·tion
Noun
Something that is given to a person or organization, esp. a sum of money.
The action of donating something.
Notice how the definition does not include having to give someone something in return for the donation? They give or not because they want to. If someone gives you money its because they want to show support for your project and help improve it. Its an act of generosity and faith.
I would say accept the donations, add a credits page or file to the game and give credits to the artists (of course) and then to the donators.
ReplyDeleteAs I offered at the Hypnopics forum you are always welcome to edits of existing images for variations etc. I do not see why the original artist would mind as long as they are still credited.
The current version is a pretty fun game and I'd like to see it completed, but there isn't enough sex content for my taste. There are only a few very mild sex scenes after a lot of totally non-sexual gaming. Even 66 more sexy art scenes might not make this much of a "sex game" for me if they're paced at the current rate.
ReplyDeleteI'd probably donate a few bitcoins currently. I'd donate more if you added a lot more sex content, especially during the adventure/fighting portions that are now totally non-sexual. Textual stuff is good. For example, maybe you could perform various sex acts on your slaves that are only described in text.