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Does anyone know any gaming companies looking for artists? How about anyone looking to have sketches done of their RPG characters? Please, lemme know.

-K

(PS. I'm inquiring for a friend)

I believe the best way to worm your way into gaming graphics is through positions at advertisment companies until you have a significant portfolio along with the several years of experience the game companies want.

Ok, my bad, I think she's looking for illustration, and when I said gaming, I meant like, RPG gaming books, and magazines, and the like. White Wolf, Wizards, etc. That's the sort of the thing I meant...sorry for the confusion

Knighthawk wrote:Ok, my bad, I think she's looking for illustration, and when I said gaming, I meant like, RPG gaming books, and magazines, and the like. White Wolf, Wizards, etc. That's the sort of the thing I meant...sorry for the confusion

hiring for artists among the top rpg companies is done very rarely. read through white wolf's submission faq, and you'll see they tend to either limit themselves to a few artists, or occasionally request pieces by artists they're familiar with. needless to say it's extremely difficult to get hired on without at least some connections and a decent amount of previous experience (professionally).

Darth_Zod wrote:

Knighthawk wrote:Ok, my bad, I think she's looking for illustration, and when I said gaming, I meant like, RPG gaming books, and magazines, and the like. White Wolf, Wizards, etc. That's the sort of the thing I meant...sorry for the confusion

hiring for artists among the top rpg companies is done very rarely. read through white wolf's submission faq, and you'll see they tend to either limit themselves to a few artists, or occasionally request pieces by artists they're familiar with. needless to say it's extremely difficult to get hired on without at least some connections and a decent amount of previous experience (professionally).

Well, I'm asking for a friend of mine. I'm hoping something will come through for her.

Her best bet is to get established in commercial art for some time, with a sizeable resume and a decent portfolio. THEN, she can start considering working for gaming magazines... sorry, but they tend to look for experience, pretty much-- they aren't interested in artistic talent per se (though that's certainly important), but more her talent in delivering on time and business dealings.

Suggestion-- try cruising conventions and that kind of gathering. especially ones where higher-ups from said gaming companies would be, with samples of her art. It probably won't get you much, but it could get you a few phone numbers...

I'll second Elheru Aran. Most companies want reliability; they won't take a chance on hiring then having to train an illustrator. Companies that rely on hiring friends of friends don't fare that well. Unless she is more flexible, her prospects are limited, since I can imagine few fields as crowded as fantasy art. Her first priority should be establishing a rep as a decent commercial artist.

There is the 'net; she can post samples at any number of art sites, or set up her own. I think battlestargalactica.com is looking for free help, and there might be other web developers looking for artists to help them with logo work, and so forth. Lots of people would be willing to pay (cheap) for comissioned art from a decent artist; I was looking at dino paintings, and their artists post decent samples and offer prints for sale as well.

Fantasy artist Borris Vallejo had his start drawing instruction booklets for a machine parts company, which helped him develop as an artist in ways he did not expect. It was only later that he began doing comic book covers, and his distinctive aesthetic style began to win him commissions. It was a while before he made a living doing book, game, and magazine covers, though.

One of the things he did was hang on to the rights to his original works; for example, you can (well, could) commission a work from the late Mr. Vallejo, and enjoy certain exclusive publishing rights, but he retained ownership of the original art, which he could later sell for considerable sums, use for self-promotion, or re-licence to art anthology books, calendars, etc.

I've been trying for a couple of years now. Any company, big ones, small ones. Even sent a portfolio to Robert Raper when he was Art Director if WOTC... nada.

Lynn Willis of Chaosium wrote back with a nice rejection e-mail saying my style did not suit the dark horror of Cthulhu. I also had a quotation request from Scott Palter of Final Sword Productions, formerly of West End Games, but that's it. No further communique after that.

Knighthawk wrote:How about anyone looking to have sketches done of their RPG characters?

Heh! I've been doing that for Star Wars RPG since 2002, actually. Check it..

No more requests! I'm retired.

Hey - I'm looking for artists at the moment, what kind of work do you do?

weemadando wrote:Hey - I'm looking for artists at the moment, what kind of work do you do?

She's on LiveJournal (IguanaArtGirl), she's also on some "furbid" site. She draws mostly furry art, but does a lot of other art, and styles, as well. I think she's got some really awesome potential. I'm just trying to help find her some work, or connections, or something.
She's reliable (does her commissioned artwork on time) and she's got a lot of talent.