Warning, this is kinda a work-related venting post...
Edit: Guys, I hope this journal didn't come out the wrong way; this is not a call for open applications. We've got a formal process for that. If you're a serious artist then you'll already know where to apply (cause we apparently listed in the main place for this kinda thing) -- otherwise I'll contact you if your work is what I want in this project. Thank you for your understanding. ~

Okay, so. I've been really stressed out and full of anxiety lately, mainly because the tile engine I've been working on for about the past year has finally reached a state where we can start making mostly-complete maps for the game. I've kept mostly quiet about this until very recently, because of various reasons. However, recently, my restrictions have been relaxed a little bit, as we've decided that one way to increase publicity to this project is for me to do some blogging about it, or whatever. That's something which you guys might start to see coming soon (possibly on the group's official site), but I digress.

See, as a result of reaching this point in the game's development, we're supposed to be "kicking it into high gear" and allocating the budget for assets, hiring people to make these assets, and setting more focused and specific deadlines on the way towards the game's commercial release. This is where it gets a little hairy for me, because since I'm behind a lot of the aspects of tying the game's form into its functionality, I've been put into the role of evaluating all the potential sprite artists who want the job of working on the game.

Now, as most of you know, serious professionals need to be paid for their works, and the prices they'll take for them vary wildly depending on how good they are, what the demand for their services are, and how much personal interest they take in your project. What my problem is, is that this is the first time I've had to deal with people who have no prior interest to this project coming in, who we're gonna be paying to do work, presumably to my specifications, using money that doesn't belong to me. This is extremely nerve-wracking to me, for some reason.

Here's the thing. There are a few artists in particular who I'd love to see do some work on this project. Character art specifically, since comparatively speaking, tile artists are a dime a dozen and the specifications for it are more technical in nature (ie: how shit fits into a tilemap) rather than artistic. Most of the applications we've been getting that I've been reviewing are simply unacceptable or unsatisfactory to me, for various reasons. Either the art quality isn't up to par, they don't have a good grasp on color theory, their style doesn't fit, or they just can't do a fluid animation if their life depended on it (a big problem, it seems, for way too many sprite artists!).

All I've really, really been wishing for is that some super-talented artist who does stuff just the way I'd like to see it apply, and not be asking for a pound of flesh from our art budget. It's not happened, yet. I don't know how the heck I'm gonna respond to all these e-mails if we don't necessarily find the artist we're looking for right away. I might have to lie and say that their application is "under review" and that we'll contact them if their services are necessary in the future. I really hate the fact that I've been put in a position where I have to respond to some of these things at all, honestly. I can sorta see by some of the 'folios why some 2d games just don't have the same "oomph" that they used to anymore in the art dept., since there's a whole lotta "just don't care" in there, and hiring multiple artists results in a mishmash of styles.

Anyway, here I am in a quandry while I wait for maybe a few days more receiving applications that don't seem serious enough until we stop taking them. I'm stuck between that, and going out and contacting some of the artists I'd like to do work for us directly, and not looking like I mean serious business. In a way, I'm hoping that by venting about it, I can work up the bearings to go and try and make those contacts. This is a commercial project, but our group's only got one big game under our belt, and it's a casual game, so I'm worried about trying to contact any serious-looking sprite artists. I'll probably have to wait for the formal applications process to run its course before I can contact them, anyway. In the meantime, I'll probably be somewhere between "seriously distracted" and "nervous wreck" while coding some more improvements to the internal tools..

I'm really hoping these contacts will pan out....