Question about how much character creators cost

SantaClau5 · January 1, 2017, 12:27pm

Im developing a GDD and i was wondering how much would it cost to hire someone that can create at least 10 highly detailed characters and animate them with powers etc… I already have design ideas and what they are and do but im not a very good animator nor a character creator.

Thanks for those who answer.

SantaClau5 · January 2, 2017, 2:03am

No one has an approximate answer?

SantaClau5 · January 2, 2017, 4:43am

franktech;644974:

By no means am I the best to answer this but I’ll take a shot as its Christmas / quiet forums.
BTW1: This comes up in loads of other threads, so it may be quicker to search than wait.
BTW2: Where are you based / show us some representative game character samples etc…
Anyway, I won’t look to other threads, I’ll see if I can go on gut and come up with something.

Ten is such a large number of characters that I don’t think many modelers will do fixed price.
Lets say you’re US / EU based, modelers will probably want something like $30 an hour min…
Lets say it’ll take 10 hours to create each core character plus 10 more for anims / revisions.
Picking 10 because it’d probably take me 20, 30 or even 40 as a non-modeler to get it done.

That’s $600 USD for each character or 6 grand for the whole set, as a min guesstimate…
But it could be 10k if there’s lot of revisions because characters generally need tweaking!
However, if you could outsource this to India / China / Latam, it might only cost $2-4k etc.
Also if you have skills to trade, you’re a coder or whatever, you can barter these rates away.

Seems reasonable, and these rates are non triple A games but indie?

SantaClau5 · January 2, 2017, 6:23am

franktech;644987:

Sorry, I’ve no idea about Triple-A rates, those are guesstimates for Pro Indie modelers only.
So Triple-A employed modelers moonlighting on the side or Indie modelers with pro experience.

However frequently in Indie projects the amount you pay is often less than this, it just depends.
In practice deals are done that often involve a mix of money, royalties and barter as said already.
But if you’re going for Kickstarter / Indiegogo you probably need to assume the cost will hit 6-10k.

This is because 10+ Characters is actually a lot of modeling / rigging / animating plus tweaking.
Its unlikely characters will work perfectly out of the box and you’ll still want tweaks & changes.

But like I said your post is commonly asked, so check out other threads and confirm this info…

Where is the best place to look for people that do game development and looking for work like character modeling? Besides these forums.

Zero-Night · January 2, 2017, 8:55am

Most obvious answer is the Polycount forum, it’s by far the largest one as far as game artists are concerned. They have a section dedicated to looking for work and work offers that you may find useful.

ZacD · January 2, 2017, 9:50am

In my opinion, Your guess is kinda on the low end for a lead character, concept to finished model I’d expect more like 40 hours or more. And then you still need someone to rig and animate the character. At least for a detailed character that will be viewed close up. If you are looking for a simple third person character 10 hours sounds more reasonable.