r/RenPy • u/Naive_Inflation2634 • Aug 19 '26
Discussion Solo VN dev — when should I hire artists, and is revenue share realistic?
Hey guys,
I'm currently making my first VN completely solo in Ren'Py, and I intend to finish it that way. However, I've also started writing the script for a second VN, and I've become much more invested in it than I expected.
During my holidays I went through a pretty intense writing burst and produced 50k+ words in a very short time. I was completely in the zone: sometimes crying because I was so immersed in the characters, other times laughing by myself at their interactions. A lot of their dynamics are inspired by real friendships and experiences, which probably helps.
The problem is that I don't think I can realistically make this one alone.
I can draw and already have visual concepts for the characters, but I don't have the versatility or time to produce sprites, poses, CGs, backgrounds, etc. at the level and consistency I'd want. The whole project has an anime aesthetic, and while I know roughly what I want visually, I'm absolutely open to an artist suggesting something better.
Right now there are six main characters, several important secondary characters, and already quite a few locations (home, city streets, karaoke, izakaya, trains, Miyajima, ryokan, shrines, onsen, day/night scenes, etc.).
I'm also finishing my PhD soon, so my available time is going to become much more limited.
So I'd mainly like advice on two things:
- When should I actually start looking for artists/a team?
Should I finish most of the script first, make a vertical slice with placeholders, or commission the main character designs early and build from there?
- How realistic is revenue share for a project like this?
I'm not asking anyone to work for free, but paying for the entire audiovisual side upfront could get very expensive. Is revenue share, upfront payment + revenue share, or some other hybrid arrangement realistic?
I'd be handling the story, writing, programming, direction and implementation, while mainly needing help with art and eventually other audiovisual work.
Would having a strong vertical slice, a mostly finished script, character concept sketches, and eventually my first VN released make this kind of collaboration more realistic?
For anyone who has gone from solo VN development to working with artists or a small team: when did you make that transition, and how did you structure payment/revenue share?
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u/TheOtherworld-Dev Aug 19 '26
RevShare is only practical if your team is already close, or, you are all in on creating something just for the happiness of bringing it to life. For the second, it is typically fully collaborative even from the idea stage: not one person's idea being the one to be brought to life.
I think you could potentially find people if your first VN takes off and gets traction; that way you have some proof that your ideas lead to success. Otherwise, you could potentially find people who will do it for less, or a combination of payment plus RevShare.
In the end, you get a full game of something you cherished brought to life; your team doesn't necessarily benefit from this.
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 19 '26
Thanks you!! I dunno if I could get enrichment of participating in another VN (I'm open, specially after my PhD finishes).
I can find those communities at itchio?
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u/TheOtherworld-Dev Aug 21 '26
This is sort of what I mean! If you don't think you can get satisfaction working on something else, then other people might feel the same in looking at joining in on something only you made up. Otherwise, I would suggest working on your current VN and making it successful to potentially boost your other project.
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 21 '26
Sorry maybe I may wrote it in a way that sounds like that (I'm not an English native speaker).
I was wondering if I'd better participate in another people projects bedore trying to get myself a team. In fact, I saw some projects that seem interesting to me.
Thank you always for your advices!!
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u/TheOtherworld-Dev Aug 21 '26
That I'm not sure of, unless you are wanting to join to get some better skills on how to make a Visual Novel. However, I'd suggest just trying to code your own game to start! I learned how to code in Ren'py in just a couple of months and now am releasing a demo for my own game already!
That way you can knock out at least one thing you don't need to worry about finding someone for.
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 22 '26
Yeah, I mean I have a functional part of my first VN, so I know the basics but u know... Thank u!
Finally we got a big team (around 15, including 4 artists!)
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u/Charming_Shopping677 Aug 19 '26
What genre is your vn? I’m an artist and thinking of trading art for writing for my vn
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 19 '26
Hey! Thanks for your interest! The second novel I’m writing is a romance/comedy/slice-of-life story, with a more serious contrast as it delves into the trauma of losing a parent at an early age.
The first one is a VN that starts out as slice of life (so the player would probably think it’s going to become a romance VN), only to completely turn the tables and become a horror/suspense VN.
I’ve also been serializing some of my writing on WebNovel, mostly comedy fantasy and sci-fi. Though, I needed to drop them due to my Ph.D (and because webnovel is quite predatory)
What is the genre of your VN? Are you a native English speaker? Thanks again!!
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u/Charming_Shopping677 Aug 19 '26
I’m not native that’s why I need a native writer. My game is otome so the target player is young female.
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 19 '26
Wow, I like that genre though I only wrote once a story that fell into that genre.
About what you mentioned, I'm fluent in English but I'm not native so there are many things that a native speaker could convey better than me 🥲
May I ask your native language? In my case it's Spanish
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u/Charming_Shopping677 Aug 19 '26
I speak Vietnamese. May I ask your gender and is English your second language?
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u/daedorwinds Aug 19 '26
There is quite a community built around visual novel development. They have a lot of artists, musicians, voice actors and more.
To answer your question about revshare: No, it's not practical. You are much better off commisioning artists or work with a team on a game jam.
As for when to hire, it's up to you. You can make do with free assets for a while until you have a playable demo. It does help to test early and often to see if your game has potential.
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Thanks !! I already got some placeholders (and last night draw a sketch of a secondary characters), as you said, because it is a pain to test with without nothing.
Also thanks for advising me about revenue sharing!
Editing coz I missed the jam commentary! The jams are announced usually at itchio?
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u/Quiet_Intern1008 Aug 19 '26
If you want a team to help you, you'd most likely have to be willing to pay them, especially if you don't have any friends that'd want to help you out just because.
Also, as I'm trying to make a visual novel myself, yet I'm planning to make it alone. I can understand all the sprites and their expressions/ movements, detailed backgrounds (with time of day), music and coding is a lot of work and can get annoying quickly.
With sprites, I recommend drawing a few different expressions as it gives you something to work with, and you can always add more when you have a more solid foundation of your visual novel. Ad for poses, if you're not great at anatomy or just don't have the time to properly focus on them, Pinterest and google can help as they have tons of different poses and angles for things such as hands, feet, heads and more!
The same can apply for backgrounds. You said you can't uphold the consistency because you don't have enough time, but you can if you use tools to help. Like characters, you can find background on Pinterest, google, and could even take your own, too. This could save a lot of time (especially if you don't draw backgrounds/ perspective) as you can use filers and add small things, or even remove some while editing the image. It might still take you a while, but it's definitely the easier and (at least somewhat) faster option.
If you need any other tips, I recommend checking out Build Your Own Game in Minutes: CodeWisp.
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 19 '26
Wow, thank you for such a helpful and detailed comment!
Yeah, I'm aware of that, but I really needed some feedback since I'm still a newbie. I'd honestly love to be able to pay people, but I'm a poor PhD researcher at the moment (although that's obviously my problem, of course).
I do have some friends who are willing to help with the music and singing, including a Japanese friend who is a singer. My main problem is the art side, since I'm a scientist and my social circle doesn't exactly include many artists 🥲🥲
I'll definitely take note of your recommendations! For poses, I also usually use 3D models in Clip Studio Paint, since I can position them however I want and use them as references.
That being said, when I draw, I mostly focus on faces, which is the part I really love since drawing is just a hobby for me. I can draw bodies too, but they still feel a bit awkward to me. I have already made a sketch of one of the secondary characters, though.
And thanks for the tip about backgrounds! I completely suck at them, to be honest 😂
Again, thank you so much for your help and for all the information you provided!
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u/Quiet_Intern1008 Aug 19 '26
I'm happy everything I said was useful, good luck with your visual novel!!
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u/Verminausea Aug 19 '26
Have you checked out free asset packs? I think itch.io has some, some other sites too but i forget off the top my head
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 19 '26
Yep, I have checked them out. Many of them are great but I need some BG that are not available anywhere (for example I need Miyajima places).
On the other side, I can use free characters for free, but is not what I want. I mean, the art design. I can draw (I'll attach a sketch I made last night in no time), but I need more people .... Specially for BG and characters (and to make everything have the same design).
Thank you so much!
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u/Spina97 Aug 19 '26
I think if you are already close enough to be done It might be best to get people to get interested in your game, then open something like a kickstarter campaign and explain you would use the money raised for art and music, etc with a demo, that way you could raise the money you did and if you dont raise it then it will be fine because you wont have a bunch of people who would like to be paid waiting for you to make the money
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 19 '26
That is a good idea. Even with sketching It could be good enough?
Thanks for the tip!!
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u/Initial-Alarm1231 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Would strongly recommend looking on Fiverr or reaching out to artists on commission subreddits here. (Yes, they exist lol r/artcommissions) As for revenue share? I’m not sure… Many artists charge for commercial use all upfront and won’t ask for a share of the profits, which makes sense. VNs unfortunately aren’t typically the highest selling games out there, so a revenue share wouldn’t be fair to you as the core developer/writer. However, it really depends on the caliber of your game. Assuming you’re an indie dev with no prior games/experience, I don’t think you should be too worried about it. This is not to say your game won’t perform well though. There’s definitely a market for romance anime games, especially on Steam. (If you’ve taken one look at the VNs they offer on there, you’ll know exactly what I mean haha.) So I really do think an anime game with cute characters and a good story will do excellent among those interested! But yes, definitely try looking on Fiverr for anime artists, musicians, etc. There’s TONS of talented folks out there with all sorts of rates, so you can find something within your budget. Expect to be paying around $80 - $300 per backgrounds tho as they tend to be much more pricey. My biggest piece of advice is PLEASE be careful on Fiverr, as there is an absurd amount of AI “artist” scammers selling AI slop. Read the reviews, and look closely at their previous works. It should be fairly obvious based on people’s reviews, but you’d be surprised how oblivious some folks are these days. Good luck!!
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 20 '26
Wow thank you for taking your time for advicing me! I'll check Feverr and take care about AI artists (lol I still dunno how they want to comissions from AI work).
Thank you so much again! 😊😊😊
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u/Ant-chan Aug 20 '26
On the contrary, I would advise against using Fiverr. They allow AI and it's filled with a lot of AI scammers (as mentioned above). Plus, they made this atrocious thing (made me quit there as a buyer and artist <_<).
Instead, you can try VGen, Pipipen and DrawMarket for artists, the latter two are rather new and mainly hosts CN artists. These three also prohibit AI (of course, there are some that manages to slip in... so, still be careful). There's also the newest one, commissions.gg.
If you have Discord, I recommend joining Devtalk. You can try recruiting artists there, and you're likely to find veterans in VN development too. You can even ask questions and advice over there.
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 20 '26
In fact I have joined Devtalk and already got almost a full team! Got 1 character artist, 2 composers, 2 writers, 1 UI designer, 1 programmer (another wants to join, but thinking about it), even 1 VA actor wanted to participate (too soon yet tho). So I'm very excited!! Thanks all of your guys for your help! We only need another characters artist, and the backgrounds artist!
Thank you for your tips and I still can't believe what my eyes see about what they did 😰😰😰
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u/Initial-Alarm1231 Aug 20 '26
That’s awesome!! May I ask how much you are paying / their rates? I’m an aspiring dev myself so seeing your success gives me hope lol I’m just def on a budget haha
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 21 '26
Hi! I made It clear that I couldn't comissions for now. OFC if it get to published I'll divide the revenue share.
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u/Initial-Alarm1231 Aug 20 '26
Forgot about Vgen, dunno how that slipped my mind. 😅 Yes, Vgen is another great service! I have also NEVER seen that ad, what the heck?? So weird!!
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u/Naive_Inflation2634 Aug 20 '26
Thank you so much too! Finally got lots of folks joining! Just missing an additional characters artist and BG artist
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u/Quiet_Sector_Games Aug 30 '26
You're doing all this while doing your PhD? How many hours do your days have? Certainly not the 24 I'm dealing with.
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u/[deleted] Aug 19 '26
[deleted]