The Cryopod Democratization of Art Drive (CryoDAD)
Added 2018-04-26 10:58:44 +0000 UTCI've already made a mini-post regarding this, but today I'll be posting something much more fully featured.
I am looking to get donators specifically to finance official artwork for Cryopod. If nobody donates, I'll still end up buying art myself, at my own speed with my own money... but it won't happen super fast. The more people who donate, the more characters we can get drawn up and looking sexy.
There's a $50 patreon tier, limited to ten people, if you want art drawn up. Once a month I'll be doing a Patreon post where people can outline the characters they'd like to see drawn. I'll find artists to commission depending on their needs, and we'll figure out together how to get said character drawn up. All artists will be commissioned from Fiverr.
To date, I have purchased four characters to be drawn. There are many factors I consider when it comes to whether art was 'worth the price' or not. For example:
-Price and tiers, to show what they offer.
-Quality, explaining how I felt their quality turned out compared to the mental images in my head.
-Value, a combination of the two above. This is where I breakdown their offerings and why I chose them.
-Artist communication, to demonstrate how they talked to me about their creative process along the way.
-Following my guidelines
-Speed (Least important)
Etc. As such, I have rankings for artists based on how they performed. I'll be outlining the four artists I've used so far. If you think to yourself, "Hey, I like that style, and I like the services they offer for X price at X tier," then for the price listed, plus $5 for fees and such, paypal me and include a note telling me what character you want drawn, any specifics related to the scene, and what artist/tier you want them at.
Without further ado, here are the candidates.
Prices: [Tier 1 $55 for B/W], [Tier 2 $105 for color with detailed lineart].
Quality: Very Good lineart-wise, though only B/W at a moderately high price.
Artist communication: Phenomenal, I chatted with him over Discord and he drew Satan up within three hours! He's fluent in English and a blast to talk with.
Following my guidelines: Perfection. I mean, he outlined and redrew Satan in real-time, so nobody else on the list comes close in that respect.
Speed: Three hours and done. Obviously lightning fast.
Value: Andy's value lies in communicating with someone extensively over a Discord screenshare, drawing what they want onscreen while he chats with them, and outlining all those little niggling details the buyer might not think about. While he's one of the priciest on the list, for fleshing out an indistinct character, there's nobody better. I had no real mental image of Satan at first, beyond "Sleazy car-salesman", but Andy turned him into a mafioso car-salesman, and I'm okay with that!
Summary: Andy was not only lightning fast and extremely communicative, he squeezed in tons of cool details I didn't originally think of, like focusing on Satan's shoes, the sundial wristwatch (Big Bertha!), the detail on the contract, chest hair, etc. For characters I only have a vague mental image of, Andy was incredible. Downside: He's also a bit expensive, and only for B/W. Color is an additional $50.
Prices: [Tier 1 $15 for B/W Sketch], [Tier 2 $25 for Coloring], and [Tier 3 $45 for Full Color, two characters, detailed lineart, and a background!].
Quality: Phenomenal, and offers several reasonably priced options considering the value on display. The Tier 3 offers tons of options for characters, backgrounds, etc.
Artist communication: Extremely good. While I didn't get to use Discord like with Andy, nor did any of the other sellers so that's not really a negative. Azante communicated every step of the way.
Following my guidelines: While the first attempts at Belial weren't perfect, he went through and re-did a lot of stuff without complaint and ended up following my directions to the T. She came out incredibly!
Speed: It took him three days for the first draft, and he finished all the hefty revision work in the next two. I considered his speed exceptional considering his quality, and he communicated regarding slowdowns and such so I never felt like I was hanging on and wondering what would happen next.
Value: As of the four on this list, I rank him probably #1 for value, but there are three other artists I'm working with now. We'll see how they stack up when I get to them!
Here are the initial Belial mockups from Azante.
Second revision:
The ones above don't perfectly demonstrate the $15/25/45 tiers, since they are just the initial first/second drafts without backgrounds or any revisions. See the next three for better examples of the finalized products :)
Summary: Azante is pretty incredible. While I would definitely prefer Andyface for speed and helping flesh out characters I don't have a solid mental vision for, Azante offers so much value and bang for his buck, along with excellent speed, that he probably deserves first place on this list. He listened to every one of my nitpicks and overperformed. I tipped him $15 in addition to the $45 for all the attention he paid to detail.
Prices: [Tier 1 $5 for B/W Sketch], [Tier 2 $25 for Coloring], and [Tier 3 $45 for Full Color, two characters, detailed lineart, and a background!].
Quality: Phenomenal, and offers several reasonably priced options considering the value on display. The Tier 3 offers tons of options for characters, backgrounds, etc.
Artist communication: The worst on the list. I think between my 5,000 words of detailed outline (Kidding, that's an exaggeration :) he said maybe 50 back, if that.
Following my guidelines: He actually got my mental image of Ose nearly perfect on the first try! Wow!
Speed: It took Warlocklord about 6 days for the first draft, and like 2 hours for a very minor facial change plus the glasses. Not bad! There was, however, total radio silence during the 6 days and he didn't respond to one message I sent him for two straight days until the final order came through, so I'm hoping that changes in the future.
Value: Warlocklord is especially good if you only have a few bucks and want to get a full-body B/W figure drawn on the cheap. However... his communication leaves something to be desired, for me at least. I don't know if he speaks English well or not, but I think he doesn't. Still, he followed my guidelines so perfectly I was blown away. I may go back and purchase the highest tier to see what Ose ends up looking like.
Initial WIP: The face is a little pudgy so I had him edit it for the final draft.
Final draft: Slimmer face, and glasses were added, too.
Summary: I only purchased two poses of Ose at $25, but he didn't even charge me more money for her second costume! Pretty great value. I may go back and get the detailed version with a background at some point for another $30 just to see how that will turn out! Overall, while he did have the 'worst' communication, this was likely due to how extensive my guidelines were for her and all my reference images. Ie: No need to communicate much.
Prices: [Tier 1 $10 for B/W Sketch], [Tier 2 $30 for Flat Coloring], and [Tier 3 $50 for Cel Shading, no Background].
Quality: Very Good, though the lack of a background at the higher tier can be a little irksome. That being said, the biggest thing IcTheArtist has going for him is the quality of the character. No other character looks as incredible as Beelzebub of the images posted so far, and his quality speaks for itself. While I don't have an example image for his B/W stuff, just check his page for examples.
Artist communication: Somewhat okay. Not the greatest English but passable.
Following my guidelines: Very good. Beelzebub ended up coming out looking the best of all the drawn characters in his $50 incarnation.
Speed: While technically the slowest on the list, he had almost no references and still managed to make demons look stylish. I think he'd be a lot faster if I didn't make him do a basic drawing first, then a cel-shaded order separately later.
Value: Considering IcTheArtist was the first one I contacted and all that, his quality came out phenomenally. While he's the second priciest after Andyface, his stellar cel-shading speaks for itself. His communication, while not as bad as Warlocklord's, wasn't the greatest given his limited English, but we got things done and he still made sure to contact me for revisions, B/W sketches, etc, so I'd say he did a good job there too. He set the standard for demon physiology! His speed was quite good as well considering the extensive revisions we needed.
Note: I don't believe he offers a background at any tier. He is extremely character-focused, so if you want an exceptionally drawn character, he's your guy.
Check out the varying stages of Beelzebub.
Summary: The first two images were at the $30 tier, the final was the $50 tier. If springing for colored artwork and you want extremely high quality, I would recommend choosing IcTheArtist at the $50 tier. His lower tiers, while passable, don't compare with similarly priced art from the two above him. I think we can all agree though that Beelzebub came out best in the final image compared to every other drawn character so far.
Note: His page lists these as the value he offers for each tier. I think these are probably accurate and it's just that Beelzebub was tough to pin down at first, maybe since my initial request was a bit chaotic and difficult to parse. Maybe future art will be a lot easier for him to draw.
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I will update this post in the future with any new artists, assuming I find them. I will create new posts, however, for any new characters I have drawn, listing which artists made them and such.
Remember! If you want to have characters drawn, you can do the Patreon $50/month option and choose anyone on the list above (I'll pick up the difference in price unless you're going for like Andy's $100 colored character tier :P), or you can donate via Paypal and tell me what character you want and in what artist/style/tier. Please include an extra $5 to cover fees. I believe the Paypal.me link above allows you to attach a note, and I read all the notes, but you can also PM me on Patreon or on Reddit and I can refine details and stuff with you to make sure you're getting your money's worth.
Again... if nobody decides to donate, that's fine. I will still pay for characters slowly over time with my funds. This is just an option for people who want to support Cryopod in other ways and to get tangible rewards back unrelated to writing. After all... who doesn't want to see more sexy succubi? Just note that I'd prefer to target characters that haven't been drawn yet. My ultimate goal is to get every Cryopod character drawn and posed where possible.
Thank you all for being such awesome readers! Cryopod is entering a new age!
