How in the world do you find an artist? (Looking for advice on how to find a partner to work with..)

Nogetsune said:

As the title asks. I FINALLY have enough of a revenue stream to pay an artist to partner with me. However, I have absolutely no clue how to go about finding one.

Click to expand...

Did you read through all the links listed before? http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8884934&postcount=2

Nogetsune said:

I've tried a few sites that claim to have adds for artists looking for writers, but on all of them the adds are either old and dead/answered, are for writers seeking artists like myself or put up by mediocre artists who are in High School or perhaps even younger, and who's art skills, like mine, are not publishing quality. This may be due to the fact I've stayed away from any board or forum that is for paid opportunities due to my former budget restraints [...]

Click to expand...

That's the harsh realities of comics; there's a lot more writers seeking artists than artists seeking writers, and the ratio gets even larger when you're looking for someone who'll work for cheap or no/backend pay. Consequently, offering pay will increase your chances of finding someone suitable, however an insultingly low rate is in my personal opinion about as bad as no pay.

Nogetsune said:

However, here is the thing. While I am certainly willing to work with somebody who I can only communicate with online, the ideal situation would be that my artist lives relatively close to me in real life so I could meet with them in person as well as through the internet and communicate face to face. Call me old fashion, but I value face-to-face communication with important business partners, it helps me get to know them better and figure out whether they are truly trustworthy. In this kind of agreement trustworthiness is a VERY important quality in a partner, and it is one that is more difficult to gauge online then in the real world.

So, seeing this, how would I go about finding an artist partner that lives somewhat close to me in real life?

Click to expand...

You've reduced the pool of artists even further and made things even more challenging by limiting yourself. Not to say it's impossible to find such a person, but you've going have to be extra patient.

Nogetsune said:

then how would I go about finding somebody online and, more importantly, how would I assure they are trustworthy and won't just steal my ideas and run?

Click to expand...

See the aforementioned links. As for story theft, don't be so worried; that's the least of your concerns.

By the way, what happened to the friend you had lined up?

Nogetsune said:

I have an artist lined up who could draw them for me, and would be providing the illustrations for the publisher rather then making them go out and get an artist on their own. The artist I have is also a legitiment professional artist, who has had their work featured in galaries and the like...

Click to expand...

You can check out some artists on deviantart and try to contact them.

Thanks for that link Bicyclefish, very useful. I think that in general its better to search for artists you like from indie and self-published comics, kickstarters, and sites like deviantart and then contact them directly versus placing an ad for one. You're much more likely to find the artist that's right for your project. Don't feel rushed that you must have an artist immediately. Its better to take your time and find the right one. Your story will still be there to tell.

Try comics-oriented forums like Digital Webbing. They have a help wanted section. You dont just want an artist, you want an artist who knows how to make comics. Not everyone who can draw can do that. Its a unique skill.

Nogetsune said:

A friend suggested I try going to the art departments of local universities, but how would I go about doing that if I'm not attending them and have no real connections/contacts within those schools?

Click to expand...

Just call the schools. You might try a number specifically for the art department, or even just talk to the main secretary/switchboard who can patch you into someone that deals with job recruiting/opportunities for students.

The universities want to help their students find jobs and experience in their field, or at least work to help them make ends meet on tuition--it's pretty typical of them to keep opportunities and help wanteds listed for their students somewhere--I've even seen telemarketing call centers get listed on the jobs-for-students-board/site by one university I attended. The barrier for who can target jobs to a college's students sometimes isn't very high....

If you must meet face-to-face, then a local art school is a great place to start.

However, you are worrying about the wrong thing with regards to trustworthiness. Stealing your ideas and running? Remote statistical possibility. Your ideas aren't that interesting (and that's not meant to be insulting--NOBODY'S ideas are that interesting, not mine, not yours, not anybody's. The work is all in the execution, there is nothing new under the sun.)

The thing infinitely more likely to happen is that your artist will simply fade out and not finish, because life stuff comes up, or they're a flake, or both. You can minimize this by checking to see if they've finished long-term projects in the past, but you're dealing with another human being and there's no way to eliminate the possibility entirely.

Good luck!

I'd echo what some others have said. Going locally sounds good, but it's going to really limit who's available, and while schools might offer some options, most of the artists there are going to be relatively new, and not all good artists go to school. Anyone who's not new is likely to be expensive.

If you have the option of attending a comics convention locally, that's a way to meet artists face to face.

You're going to have a lot more options by working with someone you can find by advertising on Digital Webbing, Penciljack, or similar site. You're likely to get a lot of responses, so draft your ad with care to minimize undesirable replies. If you are willing to pay something for the art, your chances of finding someone reliable and good go up considerably. I'd strongly recommend starting with a small project, though. It will save you all kinds of grief.

Oliver Knörzer, author of webcomic "Sandra and Woo", tells in the FAQ that he posted ads in the ConceptArt.org and DigitalWebbing.com forums. He got 60 replies, chose an artist, and they started publishing a week later. The webcomic has been running since 2008. The team started a second webcomic, "Gaia", in 2011, which is also still running.

Knörzer lives in Germany, his artist, Powree, lives in Indonesia, which makes her wages affordable for Knörzer. Marvel, DC and other US comic publishers have lots of really good artists living in and working from second world countries from Mexico to the Philippines. If you want to find talented, cheap and hard-working team mates, I don't see why what works for them shouldn't work for you.

My own strategy, when I (a comic book artist) was looking for a writer, was googling for "comic writer wanted" and posting my own ads in the same places. I thought that writers looking for jobs would use this phrase to find ads, and that my ad would be found on the sites that were the highest ranking search results. I found a qualified writer within a handful of days.

You asked pretty much the same question back in May, and received plenty of good advice then.

Like others, I think you'd be more likely to find someone trustworthy, whose work you like, if you broaden your search field outside your town. I've collaborated quite effectively with people on the other side of the Earth from me, that I've never met in person. (However, as my networking has been largely word-of-mouth, I can't help with the actual mechanics of finding someone -- I'll defer to others with more experience than I have about placing ads and where to place them!)

For finding someone local, I also second (third, fourth?) the suggestion that the art department of your local university is probably the best place to start if you're looking for someone local who's willing to work cheap.

I'd suggest going in person to the art department, finding the art dept. office and talking to the secretary. Find out if there's a bulletin board for posting opportunities for student artists, and make a flyer. Also ask if there is any sort of student art club or sketch meet-up. Many universities have one, and you could find out when their meeting times are, and contact them about coming in to give a talk about your comic and what sort of thing you're looking for.

Even though it's been a number of years since I graduated, I still occasionally get freelance art jobs through the art department office of my alma mater, because they remember me, they know I'm reliable, and they DO have people come in looking for artists. And I'm one of only two people in town (that I know of) who does comic-style art, which means if someone is looking for a comics artist or caricaturist, hey! Guess who they call!

Networking at a local comic or anime con is also a great idea! You should strive to look professional and prepared. Make up a set of cards, flyers, or even little minicomics talking about your project. Then walk around in the convention's Artist Alley and introduce yourself to any artist whose work you like. Chat with them a bit -- the more interested in THEIR work you are, the more they might think you're a person they'd like to partner with; you don't just want to drop a card on their table and run. Explain that you're a writer looking for an artist, then ask if they'd be interested in taking one of your handouts to learn more about your project and maybe getting together to talk details. You might get mostly rejections, or people taking handouts with a promise to "call you later" (artists at cons get requests like this A LOT, take it from me ...) -- but you might also instantly click with someone who's excited about your project and wants to go out and discuss it over drinks that very night. You never know.

Worrying about your idea being stolen is the LAST thing you should be doing. Just don't. It's vanishingly rare, and you are mostly going to be dealing with artists anyway, not writers, so what can they do with your idea without you?

It might be helpful to work out a "capsule story pitch" version of your project that you're going to be sharing with people -- if you want to leave out some key details just to be on the safe side, that's fine -- but if you're fishing for artists, you WILL need a pithy one or two-line statement that gets across the aspects of your project you want them to be excited about. At the very least, before you get down to ANY details, your potential artists are going to want to know what genre it is (fantasy, sci-fi, romance?), what the approximate rating is (some people won't draw gore; some won't draw sex) and about how large a project it is.

The absolute worst thing about starting a comic page is figuring out where shit goes.

If you want to work with an artist, lay out the panels of the story and finish lettering it (complete with word bubbles) before trying to get one on board.

You'll trim your story around the idea of a comic page, and you'll have shown the artist that you're up to your share of the work.

Bartholomew - can you talk a little more about the workflow you're discussing? Because I'm a comics artist, and that's ... not really the experience I've had.

Usually writers supply a script (which may or may not include panel breakdowns; panel-by-panel scripting is more the done thing in pro comics, but not necessarily in indy comics, where the artist may be given more leeway and/or it's more of a collaboration between writer and artist), and then the artist does the visually creative end of things, including panel layouts, fully developed character designs, and lettering. I mean, yeah, figuring out where shit goes is hard, but that's part of what the artist is being hired to do.

On the other hand, I DO recommend that aspiring comics writers lay out a few pages themselves just to get a feel for it, because the more you do that, the more you'll get the hang of how much can go on a page, how to balance narration vs. visual elements carrying the page, and so forth. I read a ton of comics before I started writing them, and I STILL had a steep learning curve in figuring out how many words I could stuff onto a page before it got crowded. So the more that a writer practices with test visuals, the better they'll get at, well, writing.

But page layouts are one of the services the artist is being hired to provide. (Usually.)

Layla Lawlor said:

Bartholomew - can you talk a little more about the workflow you're discussing? Because I'm a comics artist, and that's ... not really the experience I've had.

Usually writers supply a script (which may or may not include panel breakdowns; panel-by-panel scripting is more the done thing in pro comics, but not necessarily in indy comics, where the artist may be given more leeway and/or it's more of a collaboration between writer and artist), and then the artist does the visually creative end of things, including panel layouts, fully developed character designs, and lettering. I mean, yeah, figuring out where shit goes is hard, but that's part of what the artist is being hired to do.

On the other hand, I DO recommend that aspiring comics writers lay out a few pages themselves just to get a feel for it, because the more you do that, the more you'll get the hang of how much can go on a page, how to balance narration vs. visual elements carrying the page, and so forth. I read a ton of comics before I started writing them, and I STILL had a steep learning curve in figuring out how many words I could stuff onto a page before it got crowded. So the more that a writer practices with test visuals, the better they'll get at, well, writing.

But page layouts are one of the services the artist is being hired to provide. (Usually.)

Click to expand...

Sure thing.

The artist I work with has me send him PSD files where I've created the gutters and set the dialogue, as well as descriptions of what goes into each panel. We work this way primarily because he doesn't like dealing with that first large blank page, and because I've found that I learn a lot about editing in general when I'm working this way.

The pages / panels / strips I send him usually get tweaked on his end.

I can attach some examples for you. I'll post this and then dig them out.

Here's one. This is for a WIP we're doing for a contest (and when we lose, we're going to pester Dark Horse). This one has absolutely no art yet, and when I get this back, I fully expect to re-make the tail on the speech balloon in panel 3, and for the artist to have resized the first three panels, especially if there turns out to be any confusion about which one to read second.

http://imgur.com/arMevfd

The purpose of this method is to get the ball rolling, mostly. It's a bit more labor intensive on the writer's end, for sure, but allows for edits that are meaningful to the comic form. In this case, I cut three pages of the script we agreed on down to one page.

Ahhhh, I see what you're talking about! Thank you. Yeah, this is different from the workflow I've generally been involved with, but it looks like a really useful means for translating the writer's vision onto the page -- as well as a good way to avoid the "too many words on the page!" issue that's easy to run into when working from scripts alone. Really appreciate the example; I will keep it in mind!

Many paths to enlightenment and all of that.

Nogetsune said:

A
So, seeing this, how would I go about finding an artist partner that lives somewhat close to me in real life?

Click to expand...

Go to a local comic-con or art show and start sniffing around. Get involved with your city/community's comic scene. Like anything, it's 90% networking.

I'm working with a group out of Georgia. We found each other via facebook. Cornerstone creative for those interested.

I've found some great people through comicbookcollabs on reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/ComicBookCollabs/