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This is really interesting considering the "starving artist" stereotype. Is the problem that there are lots of mediocre artists but not many who can actually e

This is really interesting considering the "starving artist" stereotype. Is the problem that there are lots of mediocre artists but not many who can actually execute projects? Or that it is hard to parallelize things like this? Or that once you parallelize too much, the amount of value added by a marginal artist is not enough to pay them?

ShardPhoenix 10y ago
>Is the problem that there are lots of mediocre artists but not many who can actually execute projects? I think part of it is that standards keep increasing. Compare this demon concept art from Warcraft 2 (1995): http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/wowwiki/images/c/cb/Daemon.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070104151217 http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/wowwiki/images/c/cb/Daem... to this one from WoW: Legion (2016): https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/56/f2/7f/56f27f98a802342d922ecd37a011ad9b.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/56/f2/7f/56f27f98a... There are probably a lot of artists that can execute at the 1995 level who aren't employable in 2016.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
It's just a hard problem, especially when you have to try and get a number of different artists to maintain a single style for a project. Disney was struggling with this problem for decades and financially they were hardly breaking even with their studio part of the business because of the cost of generating all the art they needed. Computers lowered the costs and the manpower quite a bit, but then increased the quality expectations.
nibnib 10y ago
There's also the problem of working within technical limitations. Even with standard file formats there can be much more involved than just dumping files into a project. I would imagine artists need to be involved in technical discussion and would need to learn & bug-test custom software for importing and processing assets. It seems like a different skillset to traditional art & design backgrounds.

ShardPhoenix 10y ago

>Is the problem that there are lots of mediocre artists but not many who can actually execute projects? I think part of it is that standards keep increasing. Compare this demon concept art from Warcraft 2 (1995): http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/wowwiki/images/c/cb/Daemon.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070104151217 http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/wowwiki/images/c/cb/Daem... to this one from WoW: Legion (2016): https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/56/f2/7f/56f27f98a802342d922ecd37a011ad9b.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/56/f2/7f/56f27f98a... There are probably a lot of artists that can execute at the 1995 level who aren't employable in 2016.

nikdaheratik 10y ago

It's just a hard problem, especially when you have to try and get a number of different artists to maintain a single style for a project. Disney was struggling with this problem for decades and financially they were hardly breaking even with their studio part of the business because of the cost of generating all the art they needed. Computers lowered the costs and the manpower quite a bit, but then increased the quality expectations.

nibnib 10y ago

There's also the problem of working within technical limitations. Even with standard file formats there can be much more involved than just dumping files into a project. I would imagine artists need to be involved in technical discussion and would need to learn & bug-test custom software for importing and processing assets. It seems like a different skillset to traditional art & design backgrounds.