Long shot posting this here I know, but who knows, maybe some artists that love MUDs read this forum. Please note that we're hiring, not looking for volunteers.

Iron Realms Entertainment is seeking a lead concept artist for an unannounced MUD. Successful candidate will work with a small, skilled team and will have the opportunity for ownership.

Responsibilities
* Working with the Producer, cooperatively develop the Art Asset Bible, and aid in establishing a realistic and reliable task list and schedule for all art deliverables.
* Working with the Designer, produce the necessary range of illustrations to be turned to game models.
* Create and maintain a compelling artistic vision within the constraints of our platform targets and per-model polygon budget.
* Supervision and guidance of all artists on internal team or outsourced team.
* Maintain a thorough understanding of how all disciplines integrate within the project.
* Perform any other art tasks, as necessary, including some modeling, texturing, animating, and so on.

Requirements
* Must understand hardware limitations and avoid unworkable ideas.
* Must have excellent concept illustration skills. This is a small team and the major character illustrations will be the candidate's responsibility.
* Must be knowledgeable in all aspects of game art - Modeling, Texturing, Lighting, Animating, Concept Art, etc.
* Must have at least moderate proficiency in typical art development tools such as Max, Maya, Photoshop, Premiere, Character Studio, Etc.
* Able to "self-start" and drive the art team (both internal and/or outsourced) toward completion of milestones.
* Ability to juggle a range of art tasks while maintaining discipline in meeting milestones.
* Desire to work as part of a small team and become a key player in a new creative endeavor.
* Experience: 3+ years of professional experience as an artist working in the games industry.
* Must live in the San Francisco Bay Area or be willing to relocate here.

If you're interested and qualified or know someone who is, please have them email me at matt (-at-) ironrealms (-dot-) com. Thanks.

--matt

You could also always post in elfwood's forums, or hunt around there, and see if you can snag any top-quality up-and-comings, but elfwood's quality artist resource is played out most of the time.

You may try posting on forums as well. Good luck.

Those aren't really places you're going to find that many working video game artists though. If they're working in a tattoo parlor or a hobby shop, chances are they don't have a lot of experience managing an art pipeline. Thanks for the suggestion in any case.

We've gotten lots of apps so far from ads posted on Gamasutra and a few other places, but I figure it can't hurt to post to as many places as possible. The artist whose work we love the most so far is in France, and while he's willing to relocate here for us, dealing with green cards and visas is a pain.

--matt

Again, my friend is pretty incredible and sort of legendary amongst free-forum roleplaying venues - I'll drop her website for you; who knows, for the right price, she might be willing to relocate/commute. I've never asked her about that sort of thing before. Even still, she'd probably be willing to contribute.



Might not be what you're looking for, but take a peek.

Cool, thanks. Her work with Poser is really good, in particular. Maybe I missed it on her site, but I couldn't actually find much recent hand-drawn art of hers. Most of it seemed to be from 1999 or so. What I'm most looking for are black & white drawings showing that the artist has a good command of detail (so that the modelers don't have to use any imagination in converting the drawing to 3d) and that use as few lines as possible to achieve the effect (thus being faster to complete, at least in theory). If you happen to know if she has this kind of concept art available to look at, I'd happily have a look at it. However, so I don't waste anyone's time, she'd have to -really- impress me with it, since she's kind of weak on the experience side.

--matt

I'll talk to her about it for you - not really sure what she has in her physical portfolio, I haven't seen it in a long time.

I'll go back to my suggestion of Elfwood, though - you have to wade through a lot of garbage, but finding a gem could be worth it. You get someone fresh and new(relatively sometimes), they get exposure. It took me less than two minutes to find this artist, who seems to be able to do well with black+white there in his elfwood portfolio.



If this isn't your thing, I.E., if you want someone super-experienced/produced in the gaming market(which I'm guessing you do since Isaura's worked on many commercial graphical gaming projects and still is weak in experience for your tastes)... you could always find a commercial game that mimics the kind of art you want - look up the names of some of the artists, google them, contact them, see if they'd be down. Not sure what kind of salary you are offering, but I'm guessing it must be at least decent if relocation of residency is an issue.

Throw out offers to enough artists that way, you're bound to find a deal somewhere. I've used this method for acquiring voice-actors for voice-overed gaming projects before, and it worked quite nicely. I neither felt ripped off money-wise, nor disappointed with quality.

I think we actually managed to be in agreement here, and missed it due to the odds of that happening being so small. :-p

I.E. - you like the artistry in Half-Life 2? You get a list of their names, look up them on the net, and make some offers. My mentioning of 'deals' was merely referring to finding an artist you want and who wants you as well.

The neat thing in this situation, as you might know from your own experience, is that top-quality professionals are sometimes very giving(or at least fair) with some of their spare time towards projects that are unique. In my experience, it was with unique, independently created graphical games - MUDs would certainly fall under the unique category for most top-of-the-line game artists also.

Some instruction booklets and might just be your best friend in this situation.