[This post is part of the Writing Process blog series, but it is not part of the normal line. It is a stand-alone article.]
I had an experience in preparing the supplement books for Champion Bold that made me take a step back. It reinforced how important the PBRG process is and will be for future projects. And made me realize I need to draw (or model) more during the PBRG process.
The Incident
There were two bits of artwork I wanted to get done that I didn’t want to do myself. I wasn’t sure of my skill, and one of the characters represented as too important to be done by my hand. This had to be a good quality image. The character was that important.
I went on Fiverr and found an artist who did some work I thought looked good. I contacted him and discussed the project; he expressed interest and sent me a quote. It was higher than I expected, but that’s not uncommon on Fiverr. Custom quote for a custom project.
Things started going wrong pretty quickly. the artist kept requesting reference images and details. More and more. He provided basic sketches, which weren’t bad from a technical standpoint, but he was ignoring much of my input. The process was slow, and I was starting to get frustrated.
Then we hit the deadline…and I had nothing. Instead, he requested more reference images. I sent them. He went silent. I heard nothing. I asked for an update. He did not respond. A full day after the deadline, with no word from him, I cancelled the order and got my money back. Fiverr, at least, made this part easy.
What went wrong?
The artist was technically proficient, but I did not like working with him. He did not listen to much of my feedback. He did not communicate well. The deadline passed by, and he did not come close to meeting it.
But I can’t lay all the blame at his feet. During the process, I realized that I didn’t know what I wanted. Yes, I wrote these aliens, but my description wasn’t good enough for an artist to create an image from. The artist needed reference images from my because I gave him so little to work with.
The problems across the board was communication. I don’t know why he was bad at it, but I know why I was.
I didn’t know what I needed.
It’s hard to tell an artist what an alien’s ears look like when you don’t know. The same with lips, or skin texture. I wrote the character, but when you’re trusting a reader to build the alien in their mind, you don’t consider all those details that an artist needs.
Is this a new issue?
No. I’ve run into this issue before. I’ve had to do some pretty big re-writes when I finally settled on a map and realized it didn’t match what I’d written. And in some of the previous artwork I’d commissioned, I’ve had problems with the artist not paying attention to some of the details of my requests.
A picture is worth a thousand words. But I don’t want to have to write a thousand words to get the picture I want.
How is this going to influence things in the future?
As part of future projects, I’m going to be sketching out a lot more than just maps ahead of time. Alien races, spaceships, uniforms. Anything that might need a description, I’m going to have a visual representation prepared.
That doesn’t mean it’s going to be great artwork. I’m getting more proficient at Krita (digital art) and Blender (3D modeling), but I’m not professional level. But what I can do is make sure I as a write know enough to describe the person, place or thing accurately and consistently.
And I can ensure that the next time I commission artwork on Fiverr, I give the artist enough information they can get to work right away.
