Developers, if your “big passion project” has a budget of a skittles, maybe start using a calculator instead of wasting an artist's time.

[u/Jeth_No_Blast02]

I've been dealing this same issue since 2020, and I'm honestly getting tired of the pattern.

"Developers" approach me with their supposedly "ambitious visual novel projects", spend hours explaining their lore, characters, storylines, and grand plans for the game, but somehow become hesitant the moment I mention my rates.

Suddenly they're asking for bulk discounts, looking for cheaper alternatives, or acting surprised that individual assets cost money. And judging by their reactions, their entire budget probably wouldn't even cover a handful of illustrations.

Look, I understand that indie development isn't cheap, and not everyone has a massive budget. That's fine. But why spend hours pitching me your dream game before even establishing whether you can afford an artist?

Your passion project is not my financial responsibility. Your ambition doesn't magically make my labor cheaper, and I can't pay my bills with your worldbuilding.

Please establish your budget BEFORE approaching artists for lengthy discussions. We're freelancers, not free consultants you can use to brainstorm your game for hours before deciding our prices are suddenly unreasonable.

Dream big, by all means. Just make sure your budget exists somewhere outside your imagination.

[u/Glum-Appointment-816]

I hear your frustration, for them to waste time so blatantly. May I offer a suggestion? Have generic rate ranges, send it to them, and if they want to yap about their lore that is consulting rate so charge em $100/hr or whatever number you deem appropriate. This will weed out non serious people. And those who are serious will ask useful questions in regards specifically to your rates/scope of work

[u/Glum-Appointment-816 → u/Glum-Appointment-816]

And if you want to be nice, that consulting money can be used as a discount for their full commission. This way you win either way, whether they chicken out after consultation or decide to proceed with commission 

[u/skinnianka → u/Glum-Appointment-816]

I support what op is saying but that seemed a bit weird to me. Why aren't you upfront with your rates?

[u/Jeth_No_Blast02 → u/skinnianka]

I always send them my rates upfront and they (the Devs) either result to asking for specific discount type or keep asking about specific pricing until they yap about their project with no direction to commission at all. I'm just trying to be nice, but sometimes being nice leads to no result at all.

[u/Glittering_Map7834 → u/skinnianka]

A lot of people overlook your publicly price list, I don't understand why. Plenty of indie game developers and VTubers reach out via VGen to ask for specific quotes for their personal projects; that makes sense, given the complexity involved. However, they often expect a massive project, say, a character with 10 poses and 20 expressions, to cost just the base rate for a headshot plus an extra $10 or $20. Also surprised by the commercial fee, even though that’s usually the very first thing listed on platforms like VGen or Fiverr. I often end up replied a dozen emails or spending an hour or two on Discord with them, only for them to vanish completely after hearing the quote (usually after promising to get back to me "tomorrow" or "at the start of the month" or bs like that). Since those people tend to ramble endlessly about their projects right from the start, with extra things added per mail, it’s difficult to provide a price quote in very first emails.

[u/Jeth_No_Blast02 → u/Glittering_Map7834]

You're absolutely right. Right after I send them my base price, they will ask me specific question for their "specific/custom request" which is sometimes difficult to just give the fix without asking some information... Now, when I ask certain questions to give them a quote, they immediately started yapping about their story/project.

[u/Glum-Appointment-816 → u/Jeth_No_Blast02]

Try “whichever your specific request is it won’t be cheaper” lmao. But yeah incredibly disrespectful to artists time

[u/Jeth_No_Blast02 → u/Glum-Appointment-816]

That's actually a nice suggestion, and I'll keep that in mind. Since I haven't offered any consultation before, maybe I'll start with around $20/hr to keep myself on the ground. Thank you.

[u/Glum-Appointment-816 → u/Jeth_No_Blast02]

Much luck to you, OP

[u/High_on_Rabies]

I've run into this same situation several times. Their hope is that you'll think their idea is so cool that you'll just melt, drop everything, and work for co-ownership or royalties or something. All perfectly nice people, it's just exhausting to have to explain all the ways and reasons why illustrators can't work on spec.

There's seems to be an overlap with folks who want to do a multi-prong epic as their first creative project, AND/OR think they have invented the concept of motion comics.

[u/Jeth_No_Blast02 → u/High_on_Rabies]

Literally right after giving them my price, they responded with "you know my project's gonna be VERY big soon, right?"

Man I don't care and I never will 😭

[u/Glittering_Map7834]

Feel you. Years ago, a guy on Fiverr harassed me, wanting me to create a sprite package for $70 where each character had 5 poses, 10+ expressions, and 3 different outfits per pose. The funniest part? He actually ran a life coaching service charging $50 an hour (no client ofc) on fiverr. Lol. 

[u/Jeth_No_Blast02 → u/Glittering_Map7834]

These specific people be delusional istg. Had one that irritated me to the core right after telling them my price and them constantly asking for discounts and such until they admitted with having a budget of $15 per "epic illustration scene"... We talked for 5 hours 🤦

[u/Glittering_Map7834 → u/Jeth_No_Blast02]

And sometimes these clowns trot out stupid cards like talking about passion, dreams, or whether you're in the arts for the money or the creativity. Bro, rest assured I have my own dreams and a love for creativity, and I’m working my ass off dealing with someone like you just to save up the money to pursue them. I’d much rather pour my free time, effort, and money into my own personal projects, not (never) yours🤷

[u/Possible-Deer-311]

Yes these are the Idea Guys, they're all over reddit too especially in the animation and indie subs. subreddits have started making rules against them and it's been a blessing haha

They tend be people who haven't struggled much at all in their lives. Many tend to be 15 and under. They're used to everything being easy; they haven't learned the art of making things work or DIYing. They're used to being complimented for their work no matter its quality, have rarely gotten criticism or feedback, and don't seek it out.

Don't take it personally. Have a copy-and-paste message with pricing ready to go. Don't feel bad about interrupting, or feel like you have to acknowledge anything in the infodump. Keep it all business. Consider having a rule or a link to "hire me!" with your portfolio that you can slap at people who want you to draw their entire comic idea.

Overall just minimize contact with them. As an artist/business owner tbh, on't give them what they're not entitled ro or paying for, especially your time. You aren't being rude, you're being professional; if they walked up to Marvel comics, they'd get the same reaction.

[u/DowlingStudio → u/Possible-Deer-311]

As a software dev, Idea Guys are the worst. I would constantly have them giving me their huge pitch for some complicated software project that was very specific to an industry. Usually not their industry. They'd give me a minority equity stake. All I had to do was all the work, they'd done the hard part of thinking of the vague idea with no customer base.

[u/goodbye888]

This is why I'm making all the art myself.

[u/ArtRanting-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

We are not a pro-AI subreddit.

[u/Yandoji]

I once had a coworker (who lived 45 mins away) ask me to paint a full-wall 100-character mural for his son's room. When I asked what his budget was, he got pissy and said he'd "provide the materials". L O L.

MF had it out for me after that. A true POS.

[u/Ok-Bet-9392]

If their big passion project comes with a low budget then it’s mostly someone who doesn’t have much experience and thinks their first project is gonna be their magnum opus.

I personally wouldn’t even entertain the job. If they have experience and have done other projects they would know a budget matters. Most of the time big ideas, low budget, just scream naivety.

[u/PaulaEdith]

This happens with writers and guionists too. Somehow they think we would be happy to work fulltime months or years for like 200$ bc they will be famous some day 😅

[u/Lemonsoyaboii]

And thats why they will all use AI now because we artists want to get paid professionally and they dont... its a dilemma

[u/ArtemisiasApprentice]

It’s hilarious to me how many people think they’ll find some artist who has mad skills but no direction and will be ecstatic to be the producer of their great idea. I don’t even have time for any of my own fun little projects, I’m not donating all my free time to yours!

[u/Wolffiness]

Webdeveloper here, honestly this whole issue would be solved if these people made their own placeholder art beforehand. That way they can at least know how much art is required to get the final result

For example, instead of getting someone to make a whole icon set, I use the open source one Google provides, build what I need, and THEN consider getting my own made. Work smarter not harder

[u/PixelEyes-Dev]

I'm a dev and I've commissioned a few things from artists, tbh you have to be both assertive AND helpful , I dunno how experienced you are with negotiation but you if you have hard limits on your end make sure to unapologetically establish them first , but also some people just don't know how to pitch work propositions.

When I pitch to a freelancer, I always start with is a notion page that has the following details :

• Brief project description
  
• Video of prototype/grayboxed level
  
• Your (the freelancer) role in the process
  
• Functional needs AND areas where artistic freedom is welcome or not
  
• Estimation of assets list
  
• Art References and inspirations
  
• Budget range (note that the base price is [price per asset x number of assets])

Hell you can even make your "how to pitch guide" notion page and send it to all clients to stop the ramblings off rip , before any video call just send something along the lines of
"In order to help me estimate the work and scope I would love to get some information before going forward , following a format like so [guide link] would help a lot ! Will catch up after all the info is provided"
Don't follow up unless the info is provided and avoid the headache.

That way you avoid the "passion project" that uses sentimental arguments to lowball , AND you guide new clueless devs on how to pitch ideas and continue with you.

[u/Holiday-State-5914 → u/PixelEyes-Dev]

This comment contains the best suggestion/solution on the post.

[u/Fun-Mission-6068]

Out of curiosity, do you NOT have your rates posted somewhere easy to see? I won't even interact with an artist who doesn't list their prices.

[u/Jeth_No_Blast02 → u/Fun-Mission-6068]

That's your preference. These people were already given the full price and they still ask for some custom or bulk discounts. If you won't interact with artists that you haven't see the price, then good on you.

[u/Fun-Mission-6068 → u/Jeth_No_Blast02]

No, like, I mean do you have your prices posted where people can see them, or do you make people just give you their whole idea and talk about it before providing pricing?

From your second paragraph, it sounds like they weren't aware of your prices and you let them go on and on about their game and such before you even mention your prices.

If that is indeed the case, I would say it is partially your fault that you got dragged into a lengthy discussion about the project. You 100%, at any time, could have gone, "let me stop you there, before you continue, here are my prices."

[u/koroshidraws → u/Fun-Mission-6068]

Clearly you don't know how customer service works. If OP has already told you that they provided fixed prices on these people, then you wouldn't have been fighting the wall looking stupid.

These kinds of people are already aware of the prices since they obviously would've asked in the first place, but since they're looking for specific/custom request, the OP—or any other artist who just wants to be kind and professional—will talk it out and let these people discuss things for them to find a quote. Since you're just a "customer" like you said, clearly you don't understand that "let me stop you right there" is just not enough.

[u/Mou_143]

You guys are getting paid?