Outsourcing is an excellent tool of game development and game production. With the growing intensity, size, and quality of gaming experiences, outsourcing is migrating from a strong tool to an absolute necessity. And for us at Ringtail Studios, we believe it’s very valuable and useful for developers to be aware of how best to prepare for outsourcing game art.
Know Your Needs
While outsourcing is often a case of giving a studio like Ringtail a desired goal and delivery date, there is a lot to be said for preparation.
Understanding what you need, what style you would like to work in, and how you would like the assets delivered are all key in delivering AAA-quality work. For us, this means more time working on your game and your art. For you, it means a more cost and time efficient workflow between your studio and ours. It’s important to understand your needs and how that might affect the cost estimate. The more detail and intricate the art must be, the more time it will require. That means it will cost more.
And if you’re unclear on any aspect of these needs, always research and ask. There’s nothing to be lost and our team are more than happy to help guide and inform.
Prepare A Strong Brief
Right alongside understanding your needs and styles, they then need to be conveyed in a brief. There will always be questions, discussions, and conversations between both studios, but these can be shortened by a well-prepared brief.
There are few things more satisfying than a thorough and informative brief. A good brief, as we define it, clearly states each key requirement. Technical and creative requirements must be stated and established. And any early or useful references included are a cherry on top. Don’t just explain your style and ideas to us. Game art outsourcing studios live off of good references. And we’re more than happy to say that a big difference between good and great projects can be the strength of the references used.
A great brief will save both your studio and ours time and money. It will be faster for our team to understand your needs and get to work. This means a faster turnaround on project estimates which means a faster start on the work. With these in place, we can really create great pieces and assets for your game.
Keep Things Concise
When it comes to providing proper estimates for the early stages and understanding your project during the work, keep things short and clear.
While in-game events, plot, and lore can all help inform artists’ work, don’t let them bog down your report. As we mentioned visual references, these are the priority. Any and all screenshots, sketches, and pieces of media will all serve to help guide the art that we deliver. Speed and efficiency all affect the length of the project – which directly affects the cost.
And finally, it’s important to lay it out clearly for your potential outsourcing partner. We’re not looking to deceive you, we love working on new projects! But if we’re not working with the full picture, we can’t give you an accurate estimate. If the estimate ends up outside of your capacity, just let us know! The Ringtail team will be more than happy to help in discovering an optimal solution.
We hope that this helped you understand how best to prepare for outsourcing game art. If you provide a clear brief with plenty of references, you’ll see the art team light up with excitement.
Ringtail Studios is part of the Magic Media group, where we have the combined bandwidth to tackle any project, at any size, in house. Instead of using multiple studios, you can come to your one stop shop, and we can offer a range of services to ensure your project is a success. If you’re in need of AAA-quality game art, get in touch with Ringtail Studios today. We’re always looking forward to the next project.
