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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Khur" data-source="post: 355873" data-attributes="member: 5583">Art!As an artist and pro graphic designer, I'd like to add a bit to the discussion. First of all, it was good that the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines was mentioned here. Unfortunately, unless you do artwork for WotC, you'll never see the rates that appear in that book in gaming. Why? Because game companies can't afford those rates, unlike big-time publishers. On the flip side, what Mystic Eye (Doug Herring?) said is true, and works great for making it worth an artist's while to take a project on. Even at $20 per quarter page, a sizeable book could have $1000 or more worth of images. An artist that gets the whole project gets a decent chunk o' dough. (I think I calculated, based on their art rates and images in one 128-page product, that an artist who got the whole project made around $2000 from Steve Jackson for a GURPS worldbook.) When you think about it this way, it's not bad money; especially considering you'd do all of those images in a few weeks. I've seen cover rates vary all over the place, but hover at over $300 or more. (Feel free to correct me.)What one should do with the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines is learn their rights and duties to their clients. Also, don't sell all rights to your work unless you have to. First rights, like Mystic Eye buys, are a good way to go, because then you (the artist) still own the work essentially. Most professional shops I've seen buy first rights, although SJG buys all rights. Paradigm's art rates are good, for the industry and depending on what rights they buy. I think last time I looked at SJG's rates, it was around $1.66 per square inch, or $10 for anything under 10 inches square.From what I understand so far about typical freelance rates for writers, at small press level both come out about even. Perhaps the artists make a bit more, but if the writer gets royalties, who knows? Of course, beginning writers talented enough to break in with an article in Dragon are making 5-cents a word to start.Like others have said, the big names make a lot more scratch. Further, TIME magazine can afford to pay an artist $350 for a 3"x3" color spot. But, when your profit margin is only around $5k-10k a book, you have to pinch pennies just to keep things rolling! (Correct me if I'm wrong on the margins for small press.)We've all seen bad art in RPG products, proving that one does get what one pays for at times. On the other hand, I've seen some spectacular art in RPG books. There's always the "labor of love" factor. The gaming industry is driven by that factor IMO. (Everyone keeps long hours, because it's work, but it's also fun.)If I could make $25-$30k a year doing gaming stuff, I'd take it over a job making $45k doing something else. Maybe that's just me.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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