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Geek Culture / I am freelancing

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greenlig
21
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Joined: 30th Aug 2003
Location: Melbourne
Posted: 24th Feb 2010 02:51 Edited at: 24th Feb 2010 03:14


Hey guys,

I have decided to get into some freelancing and see if I can't drum up some work. A few of you will be familiar with my work, probably my 2D stuff of late, and a bit of my 3D stuff. I have a portfolio at http://zacduff.daportfolio.com/, as well as an Elance account at redscarf.elance.com.

If you need any work done, be it 2D or 3D, I would love to hear from you. Yes, this will be paid work, but I can promise that it will not be expensive.

If you would like to contact me, you can do so at zac[dot]duff[at]gmail[dot]com.

Thanks for reading,
Greenlig




RUCCUS
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Location: Canada
Posted: 24th Feb 2010 03:17
Greenlig you might try looking into the TGC Store. When I was starting out freelancing last year I joined the TGC Store right away to get my feet wet in an already existing client base and it worked great. I haven't made much money off of it yet, but I've only uploaded 7 or 8 models. I think Im up to $60 or something like that, pretty decent for models that I didn't give more than a day's work to.

When summer hits Ill be packing my store account with a lot of the models Ive been working off and on on during school as well, its a good thing to have on the side, as you can always just check in and see if you've made any new sales. Put in a week or so worth of work in the beginning, then just let the models sell themselves.

Other than that, if you're serious about getting into any higher-level freelance work, you're going to need a much bigger portfolio. The bigger companies are looking for life drawings (nudes) especially, along with as much job-relevant work you can show. I checked out your site and you do have a good base for something, but IMO you'll need to work up a few more big pieces to put yourself out there.

Again, the TGC Store can help with that, as you'll be putting together models for your portfolio and for the store, so you'll more likely than not get money out of it within a month anyways if you put some decent models together.
greenlig
21
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Joined: 30th Aug 2003
Location: Melbourne
Posted: 24th Feb 2010 03:23
Hey Ruccus,

Thanks for the advice. I was thinking about the TGC Store, and I just might do that.

True about the portfolio size. I need to expand it, and as soon as I move into my house on the weekend, I will be working on it. Currently I'm set up under someone's house hehe. Not the greatest work space.

Again, much appreciated advice.

Cheers,
Greenlig

jasonhtml
21
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Joined: 20th Mar 2004
Location: OC, California, USA
Posted: 24th Feb 2010 08:59
Quote: "you might try looking into the TGC Store. When I was starting out freelancing last year I joined the TGC Store right away to get my feet wet in an already existing client base and it worked great. I haven't made much money off of it yet, but I've only uploaded 7 or 8 models. I think Im up to $60 or something like that"


i've actually been curious about this for a while... do you actually earn the money or just paid in terms of points? i've heard both versions as answers...

Toasty Fresh
17
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Joined: 10th Jun 2007
Location: In my office, making poly-eating models.
Posted: 24th Feb 2010 09:03
Quote: "i've actually been curious about this for a while... do you actually earn the money or just paid in terms of points? i've heard both versions as answers...
"


You get paid but only get fifty percent and I think you get paid every hundred dollars. So if you make a bum model and only make, say, twenty bucks, and then never get any more sales, you'll get nothing.

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Benjamin
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Location: France
Posted: 24th Feb 2010 09:26 Edited at: 24th Feb 2010 09:27
Your 3D work is pretty nice, I like the style of the stuff you do and I'd love to see it animated (I guess you don't do animating yet?).

If I were working on a game and had the money to pay someone to do the models for it, you'd probably be at the top of the list (depending on your pricing ). Of course this may have something to do with not really knowing any other freelancers, but as I said I like your style.
greenlig
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Location: Melbourne
Posted: 24th Feb 2010 09:34
I do animate, and have been for quite a while, but getting good exports is always an issue. There is always tweaking that needs to be done to get stuff working I find. That said, I have had no problems with DBPro of late, or Unity3D, which I am using a bit too.

Thanks for the kind words Benjamin. My prices would really be quite low. I work very quickly, so there would be no need for me to charge large amounts.

Greenlig

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Quik
16
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Joined: 3rd Jul 2008
Location: Equestria!
Posted: 24th Feb 2010 09:38
Quote: "You get paid but only get fifty percent and I think you get paid every hundred dollars. So if you make a bum model and only make, say, twenty bucks, and then never get any more sales, you'll get nothing.
"


that sucks tbh...

on topic: your 2d style is very awesome, you are very very talented, though, there is way to little there, say if i was looking for someone to draw me a character, 2 characters in a portfolio isnt good enough, also, making a "reference/blueprint" would help aswell, with that i mean front side and back of a human, since thats what I would prefer, also maybe making somewhat more complex enviroment pictures? like an indoor flybase, or a battlefield? those u have is great, though not as advanced as most would like. Your 3d is very good, but a little too low poly for todays games, since your characters are my guess being 500-2000 polys, and todays games use from 10k - 15k polys for a FPSgame, probably 6-8k for a 3rd person game and for a RTS 1-3k polys, and texture sizes go from 512x512px to 2024x2024px my guess is that most of ur textures is 512 and less.


iam not trying to "bring you down" only giving you tips, what you have is a very good start, though there is lots of room for improvement =)


[Q]uik, Quiker than most
greenlig
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Posted: 24th Feb 2010 10:16
You are right Quik, most of my work is low-polygon, and down on the lower end of that. With hand-held devices becoming more prevalent, I don't see my skills becoming obsolete just yet That said, I could do to model some higher-poly stuff.

In terms of 2D, I have plans to do some more environments. Stay tuned.

Thanks heaps for the comments.
Greenlig

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Quik
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Posted: 24th Feb 2010 10:28
Quote: "With hand-held devices becoming more prevalent"


thats acually true...
yet it is very good to master both high and low poly =)


looking forward to more art from u


[Q]uik, Quiker than most
Van B
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Posted: 24th Feb 2010 10:46
Quote: "for a RTS 1-3k polys"


Personally I'd say that much lower might be better. For people working on an RTS in DBPro, more is better in terms of the number of units - so as low a polygon count as you can stand. For instance the Chibi characters are probably a good polygon count for an RTS IMO, soldiers running around, maybe 250 - 500 polygons. I'd rather have 5 times as many units and spend a fifth of the polygons.

Warcraft3 used some incredible low polygon techniques which went into WoW - and are still used today in one of the most popular games ever. Its good to just wander around looking at the meshes, figuring out how they made them so poly-cheap. As I said though, you can already model with restricted polycounts in mind, maybe that could be your speciality, making the most of just a few hundred polygons. For handheld games, for indi projects with lots and lots of (armies of) units.

Really it's much more impressive and useful to use a few polygons as possible, engine developers will love you for it. There are tons of people out there producing accurate 3D work but with rediculous polygon counts which make the media useless.


Health, Ammo, and bacon and eggs!
Quik
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Posted: 24th Feb 2010 12:43
Van B, i believe u might be correct on that one, i was just thinking that since C&C Tiberium war used 500+ polys / tank that maybe it would be upwards 1k+ today... well well^^ and u are correct with the "the lower poly the better" but if he really wants into the upp to date companies he should use more than 500-1000 on a human =/ iam just saying, but you are completly right with everything u have said, WoW: WotlK uses VERY low poly characters and props, but the texture sizes is now significally bigger than in original WoW, yet the polys stays the same, you cans ee a HUGE differense when u are in azeroth and then travel to northrend. Also, they use bump mapping now, which wasnt used much in native WoW.

hmm it seems iam traveling from this thread to WoW.. sorry^^


[Q]uik, Quiker than most
BearCDP
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Posted: 25th Feb 2010 04:28
For the very brief time I played, I remember WoW having some sort of pretty-mapping on the terrain prior to the first expansion. What was that called? I'm pretty terrible about knowing 3d effects.

Greenlig, how would you feel about sprite sheets for XNA? I'm not in a position where I'd need any art now, but I'm working on a little game with friends on and off that's likely going to rely heavily on the appeal of the art style.

Keo C
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Location: Somewhere between here and there.
Posted: 25th Feb 2010 04:33
Quote: "that sucks tbh...
"

As far as I know, you are free to sell your work to other places after it's in the TGC store.


Image made by the overworked Biggadd.
Fohsap
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Posted: 25th Feb 2010 05:06
Just saying hi to everybody! I am a new registrant.
Quik
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Posted: 25th Feb 2010 06:59
Quote: "As far as I know, you are free to sell your work to other places after it's in the TGC store."


i sure hope so XD i was more or less talking about the 100 dollars, i dont really like the idea about that.. well well, drifting from topic agan =)


[Q]uik, Quiker than most
greenlig
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Posted: 25th Feb 2010 08:15
@BearCDP - Any more details?

BTW, I don't mind at all the discussion about TGC Store and other various things relating to this discussion. Go for it

Greenlig

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RUCCUS
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Posted: 25th Feb 2010 15:45
Heres how it works:

You fill out some paper work, sign some docs, and within a few days to a week yor account gets set up.

You're allowed to sell any models you upload to the store elsewhere. You retain full rights to them. You can take them off of the store at any time, change their price, etc. Things like price changes or reuploads need a store moderator to check them before allowing them back into the store.

You get 50% of your sales.

You only get paid when you make 100$ commission. Thats commission, as in $200 total and they'll then send you the $100.

At any time, you can close your store account, and whatever TGC owes you (even if you haven't mad the 100 commision) is paid to you.


Yes, the 100 dollar commision part sucks, but it is reasonable. TGC is very busy, and they cant afford to be paying someone to be writing pay checks every day of the month. Since you're still allowed to sell your models elsewhere, and you're gaining access to such a huge customer base (hundreds of customers), I think it's fair. I think that also justifies the %50 cut, as they're doing a large portion of the advertising, and all of the distribution, for you.


Really, the $100 commission isn't an issue if you're good at modeling and have the time to put together around 20 models. Of the 8 or 9 models I've made, they've all sold roughly 5 to 10 times, without me doing barely any advertising on the actual FPSC forums whatsoever. When I get time in the summer, Ill put together 20 more models, videos showcasing them, and post them on the forums for all to see.

To give you an idea of how much advertising on the forums helps, I did make one post a while ago about 2 new models I released, and within 2 days I had made 4 or 5 sales on each model.
Quik
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Posted: 25th Feb 2010 16:00
@Ruccus where can i find the license agreement of this? it acually sounds rather interesting since ive been modelling for 2 years soon =P could be nice with some money ^^ the 100$still sucks, BUT, that if u close the accound u get the money, thats nice.

sorry for hijacking the thread


[Q]uik, Quiker than most
lazerus
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Posted: 25th Feb 2010 16:08
Well i guess i should start putting together some work for the store then.

*slap* wait till your work is done or else...

As i was saying i guess ill make a few packs, in about tree weeks.

Nice concept art thier Gre'

And that breakdown helped alot Ruccus.

RUCCUS
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Posted: 25th Feb 2010 20:43
Just keep in mind the models have to work in FPSC with the proper .fpi files, along with screenshots of them in FPSC and a fairly annoying file structure that takes some getting used to. You also have to submit some of your past work for review, as they dont just let anyone in (but then again, they're not too harsh on the skill level if you look at some of the other modelers on the store which makes sense, more modelers = more money for them).
Jeku
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Posted: 25th Feb 2010 20:43
I will soon be in the market for paying for some 2D art, I'll keep you in mind. Would you be interested in 2D pixel work for games?


Senior Web Developer - Nokia
greenlig
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Posted: 26th Feb 2010 01:39 Edited at: 26th Feb 2010 01:40
@ Jeku - What kind of art? Any reference stuff to give me an idea? I usually do larger-scale drawings, but always eager to change things up.

Greenlig

EDIT - I changed my sig to a much smaller version (120px high I believe) but it doesn't seem to show. What are the necessary dimensions?

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BearCDP
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Posted: 26th Feb 2010 08:20
The XNA sprites would be for a game in which you play a hobo going around the city in a top-down view, and then transition to 2d sidescrolling view inside buildings. The character was once a brain surgeon, but as a consequence of the economic crisis, he has lost all of his money and is looking for who is responsible. The game takes political figures and organizations like the NRA and PETA and bases the levels off of infiltrating their headquarters and trying to figure out whodunnit.

The art style would need to be a little cartoony, very tongue-in-cheek and goofy. Sound like fun?

It's just me and a couple of friends in other states making it, so progress is slow during the semester as we're all in school, but in the summer we'll be making some progress toward being able to compile an actual list of assets we need.

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