[Socar MYLES]

Colour me stupid...I hit delete instead of reply, and I completely missed the name of the sender of the PM...so I'm just going to reply here and hope you see it!

Anyway, yeah, the price range for RPG illustration tends to be pretty grim, especially if you're just starting out. Most illustrators who work in that field do other types of illustration as well, and use the RPG stuff just for fun or for practice.

I'm not sure what the absolute maximum and minimum rates are in that business, but from what I've seen, it's SOMETHING like this:

SMALL COMPANIES

Interior B/W or grayscale - $100/page (yikes!)
Interior colour - $150/page
Cover (colour) - $200-$300

AVERAGE COMPANIES

Interior B/W or grayscale - $200/page
Interior colour - $200-300/page
Cover (colour) - $300-600

BIG COMPANIES

Interior B/W or grayscale - No idea
Interior colour - $300-800/page
Cover (colour) - $600-2,000


I know that Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf pay rather well, but both have quite high standards...and everyone wants to work for them, so even if they DO like your work, you may not get any jobs right away...the larger companies have the luxury of hiring artists only when they have projects they'd be perfectly suited for. I haven't applied to any of the larger RPG publishers yet, although I'll probably get around to it eventually...so I can't really tell you that much else about them.

Hope that helps!
_________________
Dignity isn't important. It's everything.

www.gorblimey.com - art

[liv the fish]

Hi Socar,

More questions (nope, not the mystery PMer btw)

What other compensation do you get if any? Royalties? And what rights are normally sold?

Uhm, that's all.

Thanks any help,
Brian
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*This space for sale*

[Socar MYLES]

Hey,

Usually, in the RPG market, you get your up-front lump sum, and that's it. No royalties. This is generally a good thing, however, since these things don't always sell a hell of a lot of copies, so you probably make more generally speaking when you are given a lump sum.

As far as rights go, a few companies buy full rights, but most will want first print rights (or second print, if licensing previously-done artwork).

An important thing to remember is that even if you sell full rights or exclusive rights, you can still use your own work for self-promotion purposes (in your portfolio, in the Spectrum annuals, et cetera), as long as you don't directly profit from it. In general, though, avoid selling too many rights. For most small-press RPG publishers, unless you're painting VERY specific intellectual property, first print rights should absolutely be sufficient.
_________________
Dignity isn't important. It's everything.

www.gorblimey.com - art

[B0b]

[Socar MYLES]

BUMP in case the person who PM'd hasn't found this yet.
_________________
Dignity isn't important. It's everything.

www.gorblimey.com - art

[strata]

(nope it's not me either)
anyways, I though it might be a bit important to point out that when you're selling copyrights of the images you produce (ie, you sell ownership of the image and thus cannot claim second print reimbursement etc) you're no longer talking a few hundred bucks... Frog (if he still posts here) knows more about these priceranges but they go into the thousands.

This might work a wee bit differently in the RPG business, but in general freelance illustration (according to the AOI)

just so you know and don't give away full rights without a ton of cash
_________________
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?

[Socar MYLES]

Good point, Strata. The prices I put up here are for first-print, not for full rights or exclusive rights. You'd want to get a lot more if you will never be able to profit from the image again.
_________________
Dignity isn't important. It's everything.

www.gorblimey.com - art

[rdgraffix]

Thanks Socar, I appreciate the info.

- It took me a while to look in Discussions and see the post, but it's much better off here, as now everyone can benefit from the post, so i wouldn't worry about accidentally hitting 'delete'

I'm continually amazed at the range of rates people charge across all of the illustration industries and it just goes to show how little business sense a lot of artists have. Some of the rates I've head are completely ludicrous, which is why it's so beneficial to get the opinion of an artist I respect, such as yourself.

Thank you for your help - I'm sure it will be of benefit to many on this forum. If Frog or anyone else has any info on rates full or exclusive rights, it would be greatly appreciated.
_________________
Rowan Dodds
inksplat studios
www.inksplat.net

[-HoodZ-]

what about for freelance....how much do you usually charge? hehe funny i was going to email you Socar on how much you usually charge for freelance illo but i never got around to doing it.........

[strata]

rowan, I'm still waiting for you to finish that website of yours *cough* hrrm.

get on with it! =D
_________________
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?

[rdgraffix]

Hey, I'm working on it

Now that I've got most of my portfolio together and my business cards are off at the printer I should have some time to devote to it - I may have to leave out some of the techniques and so on that I was planning to include though, due to time constraints and the fact that it's now a business site rather than just an online gallery.

Thanks for the encouragement
_________________
Rowan Dodds
inksplat studios
www.inksplat.net

[Frog]

rdgraffix: I try not to sell full rights on images if I can avoid it as it means you no longer have any rights or control over how that image is used. Your client could even sell it to a stock house if they wanted to. The best bet is to sell a limited license at a reasonable fee which means you still own the copyright. If you do sell your copyright then the minimum figure should be about $4000 per image.

Beware of sigining contracts you haven't read carefully, many companies try to take advantage of inexperienced artists by grabbing copyright in the small print, cross out any clauses that do this or refuse to sign and supply your own contract. Most companies will negotiate, but occasionally you may lose work - I lost a major ad campaign for Freeserve in the UK over this back in the autumn, as they wanted a copyright grab for the price of a normal license. It's best to stand your ground and risk losing work than to let clients walk all over you. Selling rights too cheaply will not only harm you, it will harm everyone else too in the long run.

I have a sample contract here, just bear in mind it is geared towards UK law and would need checking for use in other countries.
_________________
www.itchy-animation.co.uk
www.itchy-illustration.co.uk
<A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A>

[retard]

If you sell only first (or second) print and retain the copyright, can you still sell your own prints? And can you potentially ever sell the work again? Also, does the 200 dollars for interior black and white images include everything from simple line to complete rendering? I ask because I can do the line work on 3-4 images in the time it takes me to render one (maybe I'd be better off just coloring them, and to forget about pencil rendering).

[rdgraffix]

Wow, thank you Frog!
You have no idea how useful that example contract is.

I've never been happy with supplied contracts. If you actually read any of them, there are countless clauses in there to screw you over, and it takes a long time of back-and-forthing to negotiate and rewrite contracts, which can eat into your deadline. Is it an acceptable practice to just cross out any clauses that you can't agree to and then sign the existing contract to save hasstle?

I was also going to pose a question on accepting pricing, but I've made it into it's own thread here, so more people can make use of it.
_________________
Rowan Dodds
inksplat studios
www.inksplat.net

[Frog]

Yes, crossing out clauses is fine, people do it it quite often. Best to work from your own contract though, not the clients.
_________________
www.itchy-animation.co.uk
www.itchy-illustration.co.uk
<A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A>