What mistakes should you avoid when outsourcing game art?

Selecting the wrong art outsourcing partner can lead to quality issues, missed deadlines, and a damaged reputation. The right partner possesses the necessary skills, experience, and understanding of your project's vision. As Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors, once said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it." The right partners align with your values and work ethic, ensuring a smooth collaboration. By making the right choice, you can prevent costly mistakes and maintain the integrity of your game art, contributing to a successful game development process.

Here's the thing. Every artist and agency wants your work. Its a good idea to talk to 3 or more about any work you want done. Put together a clear and detailed brief explaining your needs and desires for the work, outline what assets you have available, your timelines etc - all the information to get a good quote. The candidates will not only give you a quote but outline their expected timelines, needs, and you can also then judge who you are communicating best with. Choose the partner that has a good quote but also understands your needs and who you can communicate well with - which helps ensure quality results on time and on budget. You're not just paying for art - you're hiring someone you'll be collaborating with.

This is where a good creative brief comes in to play. A quality brief explains the project in enough detail that the artist wont need to ask questions. From the brief they will understand what your game is, how you intent to market it, what is in it, what it looks like, whats important, when you need the art, in what resolution, in what format(s), what supporting assets (like 3d models or concept art) you can make available, what sort of precedents (like movie posters, paintings, etc) you like, and so on. The more thorough you are here, the better results you'll have, and with fewer surprises.

This is a big one. You want your feedback process to be efficient and clear. The agency/artist should be dealing with one point of contact and get feedback in one voice. On your end you need to consolidate feedback from stakeholders to be clear, actionable, and timely. This is often where things can break down. Use visual aids. Be thorough. Make sure stakeholders understand and review the work well. If you do this well it will not only result in better work, done quicker but you'll see your quotes get lower over time too. Your feedback doesnt need to tell the artist how to address your concerns per se but you do need to help the artist understand what your concerns are, why you are concerned, and how concerned you are.

Two additional tips: 1. Ensure that the transfer of the copyrights to the work that the artist makes for you is handled diligently. Copyright is a right that in most jurisdictions vests (automatically) in the creator of the art and requires a deed of transfer to actually be your ownership; 2. In case of sensitive projects, it is also important to agree upon an IT policy with your outsourcing partner to ensure that the technical safety of the created and/or shared game assets is optimized.