Arting About on a Budget
- Towering Tales AB
- Oct 24, 2018
- 14 min read
Updated: Apr 14, 2019
Before I delve fully into my experiences and learnings in procuring art for my DMsGuild adventures, a couple of disclaimers are in order.
Firstly, I fully admit to having a very narrow perspective on the subject – I’ve only sourced art for one very specific type of product and for one very specific (aka non-existent) budget. Secondly, I want to mention that every artist or source of art mentioned in this blog is in no way affiliated with this blog nor is being advertised. I’ve sought out or purchased their products and provide my opinion of them and their value. I’ve neither been asked to do this nor do I get anything for it.
Finally, the blog will mention some prices that I’ve paid for things. When it comes to arrangements with artists, prices vary and negotiations are involved, so I’ll typically use a range or an approximate price. It’ll be enough to give an idea, but ultimately every project and artist are very different and will vary.
Should I even have art?
If your question is, “should I get art for my DMsGuild adventure?” then my answer is a resounding “yes!” But that is too simple of question. Stuff with art is better than stuff without art. Pretty pictures are better than a lack of pretty pictures. The real questions are “is it worth it?” and “does it provide a return on the investment?” Those sound similar, yet aren’t the same question. I’ll explain why.
For me, the answer to whether it’s worth it to get art is always a “yes”. It’s a “yes” because I am working to put out the best possible product that I can manage, and to me a good product has visual cues. It’s also a “yes” because I am one of my own customers. I am working to create something awesome as much (if not more) for personal fulfillment as for making money. For example, having a portrait of an NPC I’ve created is not only conducive to running the adventure, but it also gives me a degree of personal satisfaction in seeing them come to life. The worth of this may be non-monetary, but it’s still huge. This is the reason – or justification if you prefer - for spending $200 on a cover for adventure that may only ever bring in $150 in revenue.
So does it provide a return on investment? Fact is, that there answer to this question is not known. I’ve spoken to a few more experienced authors and some of them spend a bunch, while others spend very little on art. Most agree that they don’t see a significant uptick in sales from having some. I am not going to give any kind of hard-researched or even personal answer here, but I do have two things I’d like to pose for consideration.
The math to evaluate art spending is fairly simple. If I want to spend $50 on art and I’m going to make $2.50 in royalties from the sale of the product, I need to sell 20 incremental copies of the product just to make up the art money. If I spend $100, it’s 40 copies. In the case of the kind of product I create – 2-4hr adventures – these tend to sell roughly a total of 50-200 copies. A few do better, but 100 copies is a good average number to think about. Selling those incremental copies is 20-40% additional sales. It’s a pretty hard sell that a pretty picture will result in that kind of increase on its own.
The math clearly works against art here, but that’s not the only consideration. The second thing to consider is that the product is not the proverbial sum of its parts – one of those being art. The product is something bigger and art helps contribute to that. Perhaps the pretty cover image won’t get 20 extra people to buy that adventure. But, that cover – featuring the hero of the story – might inspire the DM (who is the customer) to do a better job with the adventure. They might show the picture to the players (also potential customers) who may in turn be inspired to buy and run the adventure. This is also an argument for interior art, art on handouts, etc. Art contributes to the experience at the table, improving that experience then contributes to reviews, and reviews absolutely, one-hundred percent WILL improve sales. So when I think about art for my adventures, my primary consideration is whether any given piece will improve the experience at the table.
Ok, I want art! What do I want and where do I get it?
I start my art planning by putting together a list of all possible art that the adventure could benefit from. Then, I separate those into “must have” and “nice to have”. Then, I go searching. Because of how and where I look, I’ve often been able to find my “nice to haves” cheap or even free, so I definitely recommend having a long-list. If anything, if I happen to find something really amazing from my “nice to have” list, I might decide to make that my main art piece and not invest in something else.
As an example, I’ll use my first adventure Six Summoned Swords. For this adventure, I decided that I needed the following items:
"Must-have" and why
Cover image – a cover image helps set the mood for both the DM and the player and also makes the adventure standout on DMsGuild.
Picture of a specific scene, featuring an interaction between a specific creature and an NPC. The reason I wanted this was because the scene in question was a key turning point in the adventure and I felt like giving the DM the opportunity to pull out a piece of art and say “it looked like this!” would make it more memorable.
Picture featuring the magic item. This actually wasn’t something that I had intended to have art for when I initially wrote the adventure. However, as I wrote and re-wrote the description of the item, I felt more and more that people might not “get it” from the words, while it could easily be explained with a series of simple graphic
"Nice-to-have" and why
Picture of important female drow NPC – once the adventure was done, I realized that the key to running to the adventure well was understanding the motivations of several key NPCs. Being a DM myself, I knew very well how often people simple skip or skim the “How to Roleplay This NPC” section of the adventure. I had seen several game systems (including adventures in 5e) use NPC portrait cards. I liked how these almost “forced” people on both sides of the DM screen to more deeply engage with NPCs. So I decided I would make some, so this and the following three pieces of art would be for the cards.
Picture of important Male Drow NPC
Picture of less important Female Drow NPC
Picture of a trio of less important NPCs – Tabaxi, Kenku & specific human.
With my shopping list ready, I started looking. It’s worth noting that the process of looking and finding this stuff is time-consuming and also somewhat organic. The various things were located or sourced over a period of several months, alongside other development. I've since repeated the process for several more upcoming adventures.
Art Option 1: Free art provided by DMsGuild for creators.
The first place to look is – FREE STUFF! DMsGuild has several art packs provided by WoTC for our use. These packs are somewhat dated, but they do contains an absolutely treasure trove of various monsters and races. I have all these downloaded and go through them all on a fairly regular basis to find awesome things like this drow portrait that I used as the cover image for Six Summoned Swords. Sometimes you find the exact thing you’re looking for!
In addition to that image, while looking through the DMsGuild stuff, I was able to tick off a couple of other boxes on my list - I found a decent enough picture for my male drow and I found the human and tabaxi. At this point, I also realized that the picture I had found of my drow “lead” was so perfect that I could use it as the cover. I tested it with the layout and it looked fantastic, so that was set.
Also, while looking for these things, I happened to come across an amazing picture of one of the monsters in my adventure. It’s a fairly common monster and I hadn’t planned on having art for it, but this picture was fantastic and it was free! I decided to grab it. Having that one extra piece of nice art would take a little pressure off if I wasn’t able to find anything else. It’s one thing to refuse to invest a lot of money in art, but to refuse to use great art that’s free? It seemed like folly and I would not stand for it!
Art Option 2: Publisher resources for sale via DMsGuild and DriveThruRPG.
The publisher resources section is probably the best resource out there for reasonably priced fantasy art to use in adventures. I was rather surprised to find that outside of these sites, there really doesn’t seem to be any massive repository of fantasy-specific clip art for sale. DeviantArt has lots of art, but it’s more for sharing and not actually for sale to use. Major image or clip art sites like istockphoto tend to have limited choice, high pricing or odd purchase models that require a subscription. So DMG and DTR are fantastic.
The search functionality on those sites is far from ideal, mostly because a lot of the art that is part of a bundle doesn’t come up in the search. Also, artists frequently don’t label their art in the same way that one would look for them. For example, if I’m looking for a drow and the artist named their picture of a drow wizard “The Dark Witch”, I may never find it. Still, A LOT of good stuff can be found here.
In the case of Six Summoned Swords, I was able to find a few good drow images, the most stunning one being by Dean Spencer. This one was priced quite a bit higher than others – at $15. Dean’s art was clearly of superb quality and the exact style I wanted. I waffled for a few weeks on whether to spend the $15 and looked at some of his other art. In the course of doing so, I discovered not only that Dean had a ton of amazing art, but that he had a Patreon page and for a relatively low fee monthly fee, the patreon gave access to one of his bigger images, plus a couple of small. I immediately looked through his smaller images and found at least a couple of pieces of smaller black&white images that would work for some of my other needs. I signed up for the patreon at $5 per month and was quite proud of myself for having obtained an $15 image for $5 and also getting 2 free small images in the process. More on this in the “artist patreons” section.
A quick point of clarification on the free art packs from WoTC and the art pieces for sale on DMsGuild. These pieces of art are available as they are and for “non-exclusive use”. Meaning, I buy them as they are – not customized in any way, and they can still be bought and used for others. So while I’ve found a perfect cover in WoTC’s free art, other creators can find the same piece and use it for something else. That the cost of paying the low price (or nothing).
Some tips on using the DMG and DTR
Do multiple searches for the same thing. Looking for a female drow mage? Look for “drow”, “dark elf”, “elves”, “mage”, “wizard”, “sorcerer”, “sorceress”, etc.
If you find an artist or art publisher that you really like, click on their name and look through their other stuff. You might find something else they’ve done that works for you. Or you might find stuff that inspires you for the future.
If you’re looking at a collection of art, look for a preview file. Sometimes they’re in a link, sometimes under preview, sometimes you just need to scroll down.
Bookmark stuff! The site has a wishlist function and I dump all kinds of stuff in there as I do my searches – sometimes to remember specific pieces, other times to remember artists.
Art Option 3: Artist Patreons or Kickstarters.
When I discovered Dean Spencer’s art on DTR and found that he had a Patreon, I had no idea what a Patreon even was. In short, it’s a way for someone to fund their on-going efforts in whatever they're doing by selling a subscription service. Since discovering it, I’ve found a number of fantasy artists using it.
I’ve remained part of Dean’s Patreon for more than 6 months now and have no intention of dropping it. For what I get and the quality I get it at, it’s just about the best deal out there. A lot of this is driven by the fact that his back catalogue has a ton of images that I find of value. I’ll admit that I’ve picked up a few pieces that I’ve not even used yet, but they seem like a good investment. Here is a picture of his wonderful Drow Warlock that I’m using as the cover for Six Striking Swords.
Some Tips for Patreons or Kickstarters
Be sure to read up on exactly what you’re getting for the price that you sign up for. Some artists just give you a chance to look at their art or other perks.
Don’t expect to pay $5 and somehow convince the artist to draw you a custom $300 piece. That’s not what this is.
Sign up for as long as you need it.
Art Option 4: Commissioning custom art through a portal like fiverr
Back to my art search example. Out of the seven things I had on my longlist, I now had four and a half. The main thing I was missing from my must-have picture of a scene featuring a specific monster and NPC. In addition to this monster (a marilith) being rather peculiar, I also wanted a certain art style. No pre-existing art that fit my needs existed and I soon realized I would need to commission it. I had no clue where or how much it would cost. “Surely you must know some artists? Just ask someone to do it for you!” said my friends. I don’t know any artists and thus results humorously speak for themselves.
Off to find a real artist I went! But where? I was recommended a site called Fiverr. The idea behind this site apparently came from being able to get work done for five bucks, or so I gathered. I immediately found tons and tons of artists. Many of them were overseas, especially the more budget friendly ones - I had been warned that communication might be an issue due to language differences, so I was on the lookout for this. Prices did indeed start at $5, though this was a bit of a trap – more on this later.
I went through a bunch of artists, figured out how the thing works, messaged a couple with my specific needs and eventually decided to work with an Italian comic-book artist – Bartolomeo Argentino, who goes by the handle mudokonabe on fiverr. His fiverr page had numerous samples I liked and the price was very reasonable. Now – one thing I figured out pretty quickly about fiverr is that the prices could be misleading for a novice user, at least before one reads the fine print.
For the artist I chose, the base price was listed as $10 (us) for "full figure lineart". Once I started looking into it, I realized that this was for a very basic type of drawing. When all was said and done, getting what I wanted was going to cost me $35-50. Now that I’ve done this a few times and learned a few things, I realize that this type of art pricing is actually quite a common practice in the industry. The biggest lesson was that choosing an artist based on the cost of their lowest option is not the right approach. I had dismissed several artists that had prices in the $50 range during my initial search, only to later realize that I could have used them and paid about the same.
In terms of artist communication, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted and sent in lots of details. The artist came back with a basic sketch which made sense to me and made a couple of adjustments. A couple of things were lost in translation during our negotiation and left a minor part of the final product not exactly as I had wanted. However, given that the artist had been accommodating in doing a little extra for me, I still gave them a five star rating and was more than happy with what I got. I would absolutely recommend him if the style appeals to you. fiverr has many artists and several other sites similar to fiverr exist. Here are some of my PROs and CONs of using fiverr.
PROs
Low starting prices.
Clear contract and timelines.
Lots of reviews and samples.
Lots of choice of artists including many talented international artists
CONs
The low starting price doesn’t mean low total price
Because of the “contract” nature of the site, it felt very impersonal. You get what you’re buying, nothing more or less.
Negotiations can be difficult due to language barriers and especially if you’re an inexperienced buyer
Artists may not be D&D or even RPG aware.
Art Option 5: Commissioning custom art directly through the artist
Don’t get me wrong, using a site like Fiverr, I was indeed working with the artist and can communicating with them. However, it’s not quite the same as just having a direct conversation and starting from scratch.
After getting my monster commissioned on Fiverr, I had almost everything I needed for my adventure and I had used up my self-imposed budget. Left outstanding were the magic item drawing and one unimportant character picture. Although I was happy with my results from Fiverr, for the magic item I felt like I wanted someone that I would be able to work more closely with.
At some point in my art search, I had discovered the D&D Fantasy Art group on Facebook and boy, is this place ever a treasure trove of both art and artists. Before heading over there, be aware that the group does feature occasional nudity and more than one occasional argument about the appropriateness of said nudity, mostly rehashed by the same bunch of trolls. As the moderators there frequently put it: “if you don’t like the art, just scroll past it”. Fear not, the scary trolls form only a miniscule portion of the group's population and are far outnumbered by amazing artists of all kinds, most of whom know D&D!
This is where I've found my last few artists and already have my eye on a few more. After lurking for a few days, I posted a rough outline of what I wanted and through the magic of facebook, rather than telling you about it, I can simply put up a picture of the post - I had to crop a paragraph out to fit it into the image, but you get the idea.
The experience levels and styles of artists in the group varies a great deal. Some are experienced industry professionals who make a living on doing countless portraits, while others are just learning to draw. This works to the buyer's benefit. A professional may not want to take on a $25 job, while someone just starting out may jump at the chance.
Having never needed art and engaging in publishing as a hobby, I - like many others before me - innocently thought "hey, maybe someone would want to do it for free!" This apparently is the #1 world's best way to permanently and irrevocably offend an artist, thankfully I figured that out before actually doing it. There is a longer conversation on this, but this isn't the place for it. There are - very infrequently - artists that are looking for ideas on what to draw for practice and might do a free sketch, but this is not something to count or especially ask for. If they're doing it, THEY WILL ASK.
I did get a lovely free picture of a firbolg done by Audri Cunningham, who was looking for ideas to fill out her portfolio. She now does very reasonably priced commissions and I recommend her work if you like the style.
Anyhoo, don't ask for free art, mmkay? Back to my experience. Over the next few days, I got a few replies to my request and started chatting with different artists and looking at their work. I ended up liking the work of an artist that had not done a lot of commission work, but whose style for drawing items I very much liked. More importantly because they came from the D&D group, despite being in another country, they were easy to talk about D&D things, they knew what a drow elf was, etc. We arranged a final price in the $25-50 range, I sent a downpayment and he produced a draft, which we worked around tweaking. The end result remains one of my favourite pieces of art of those I have used.
Since my first adventure, I've gone back to the D&D Fantasy Art group to find other artists and have been quite happy with the experience. While there are many professionals there, the general vibe of the group is that everyone there enjoys D&D and Fantasy Art, so it feels less impersonal than something like Fiverr. At least in my limited experience. Most artists in the group have other pages - DeviantArt, ArtStation, individual facebook pages or websites. I'm certain that these can be found through means other than the FB group, but the group certainly helps. As mentioned, prices range from $10 to hundreds of dollars for more elaborate pieces from experienced artists. Be sure to discuss the commercial aspect, though most seem to be ok with it at no extra cost.
Tips for direct artist interaction
Have a budget in mind. If it's low, that's fine, just don't beg for free stuff. Be honest.
Look at as many pieces in the artists's portfolio as you can. Look for things similar to what you want. If you need someone to draw a horse, samples of warrior busts are not useful.
Discuss the exact details and expected quality - colour, etc.
Agree on prices and deadlines for delivery.
Provide as much info to the artist as you possibly can, but don't be afraid to let the artist contribute if you're flexible.
Thanks for reading!
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