Need help with rates

Hey all.

This is SO not my normal space on ENWorld. My 3-year old son's scribbles are far better than my own work. But I'm here on behalf of a friend. He is a comic book artist who has done the con circuit as an independent artist. Now he is interested in breaking into the game industry.

Can anyone tell me what "standard" rates might be for someone doing freelance art for a successful-but-still-small gaming company? He doesn't want to charge too high, but he also doesn't want to undersell himself either.

Any hard numbers someone might be able to offer would be greatly appreciated (and ASAP as well!)

Thanks in advance.
C

Well, first you have to know how many hours the piece took to make. After that multiply by what the artist's time is worth per hour. That is the absolute minimum the piece should go for based solely on labor.

Lets say an individual artist feels they are "worth" $20 an hour as a worker. The artist might not make that much an hour due to taxes or a shaky economy, but the artist has the skills / competency / education to deserve said $20 for each hour of work at a given job. If an image takes 4 hours to make, then it is worth no less than $80. Now if the artist has to use up valuable free time on the piece, then that's overtime, which is time and a half, $30 per hour.

And i need to stress If the Buyer is not supplying his own IP/ character descriptions, then the buyer also pays for the artist's creativity.

IANAL but when an artist starts working for pay, they neeeeed to looks at the laws and get in writing what they buyer is paying for.