From Full-Time to Freelance: The Nine Commandments of Contracting (speech!)
Hi all! Back in December I gave a speech at the IGDA MicroTalks on the subject of transitioning from full-time employment to freelance art. It’s an expanded version of an earlier article of mine. Here’s the video: Here are the slides of the speech: From Full-Time to Freelance: The Ten Commandments of Contracting slides Here’s [...]
Free agency is the future of video games!
Man, I really suck at posting notices about events where I’m speaking. Last night there was an event called Infinite Resolution Zero LatencyI at the University of Texas in Austin. They had several game developers taking two minutes each to describe their vision of the future of video games. After that, they adjourned to check [...]
I did an “Ask Me Anything” reddit post about getting into games!
Hi everybody! For those not familiar with reddit, it’s [essentially] a website where people post links, create discussions and comment on them. There are tens of thousands of small communities there, one of which is called “AMA” — short for “Ask Me Anything.” Sometimes they’ll have celebrities, or politicians, or people in interesting lines of [...]
User interface artist tip: Three tips for a better portfolio
Hello, UI artists! I’ve been going over a lot of UI artists’ portfolios — particularly contractors, hint hint — and I’ve noticed three things in particular that I love to see in a good UI artist portfolio. Wireframes. It helps me get a sense of your talent, planning and user experience sensibilities when I can [...]
The Six Commandments of Contracting
I’ve been dealing with contract art for nearly fifteen years, and have been a full-time professional for over ten years. I’ve worked both as an artist and as a manager in a variety of settings. As an artist I’ve freelanced from home, in-house at an art studio, and in-house at a developer. As a manager, [...]
How NOT to hire an artist
[edit] WOW! Absolutely unbelievable level of response to this. Thanks SO much everybody. BTW, I’m @jonjones on Twitter. :) [/edit] I was browsing Reddit earlier today, as is my morning routine, and I came across an article called How to hire an artist. This article has been widely panned and criticized by artists and people [...]