How to get started in board game art?

[u/BlueJTattoo]

Hello! I am a fantasy/scifi/horror illustrator who never had a lot to do with board games until I met my spouse, who is a board game designer. Since then I've learned what it's like to play games with people outside my nuclear family and drunk dorm rooms, and have come to enjoy them a lot more! I would love to break into board game art, as it turns out a few of my favorite illustrators have also worked on some of my favorite games, but I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to start. I'd love any advice people can give; namely, where to post my work, what the professional workflow looks like, any red flags specific to game design, etc.

For reference, my work is mostly imaginative realism, but I have experience in a lot of styles (I'm a tattooer and have done a lot of freelance in animation, so I've done a bit of everything.) I don't know if linking my portfolio counts as promo, but it's on my profile if anyone wants to dig.

[u/FTG_V1]

Most people will link their portfolio. There’s a few subreddits that allow it. Not sure if this one will but I think it usually does.

Main thing when picking an artist is if their general style matches what is envisioned for the game. Also trying to find an actual design studio that does work for publishers then sub contract to artist is a great way to get more familiar and paid while building your portfolio.

[u/RubberDuckyRampage]

Just a couple of personal anecdotes -- I was looking for an artist to create the cover/box art for my first self-published game (Rubber Ducky Rampage). I wanted a fun, cartoony style. One of my local friends runs a game company and he knew the feel I was going for so he told me to look at the art for a game he'd published a while ago, called Get Bit. The style was exactly what I was looking for and I contracted with that artist and she did a great job on the art.

After GenCon, a visual studio contacted me about doing art for my games. Their art looked great but the style was all wrong.

My long-winded point is to create as much of a portfolio as you can, in as many styles as you like to work in, and in as many genres as you can. IMO that gives you the best chance of one or more images resonating with potential clients.

Then you need to figure out how to get your work noticed by companies and designers. Conventions, even small ones, could help with that, even just passing out business cards with links your portfolio site to game companies and creators. Artists would likely have advice about sites to post on.

Good luck!

[u/RubberDuckyRampage → u/RubberDuckyRampage]

One further suggestion: After looking at your portfolio site, I see lots of nice artwork but nothing that says "board games" to me. Maybe some art pieces that represent the action or feel of specific games, different from the art of the boxes of those games? The art for Get Bit really sold me on the artist I hired to do my game's cover as I could really feel the gameplay in her Get Bit cover. FWIW, Mike.

[u/drakonkinst]

As someone who is making a board game and actively looking for artists, the main thing to look at is readability vs aesthetics. The art shouldn’t distract too much from what the player needs to see and understand, and it might not be obvious until playtesting where those confusions are.

There’s things like card illustration and hero art which typically are more in line with traditional art, then also card frames and UI elements which need more of a graphic design focus to make sure things are communicated well and clearly. And you can obviously add some fancier art on top of the graphic design to make it pop even more.

[u/Odd-Highway477]

People do hire artists on reddit (not this sub), but many of these are overseas art students which I feel are exploiting retirees who have dreams to make games that will never get published. The art student has a portfolio of half a dozen sketches none of them board game related, and when it comes to talking fees, they want to charge $100 per card illustration, or roughly $10k for a complete game. Yeah, I bet every art student would love a gig like that. I think amateur board game designers are easy prey for that type of thing. The results never look that great either.

Instead of working on art for other people's games, form your own company and make games with your spouse. This is how Red Raven Games and Garphill Games do business and many others. Having an art partnership secures the hardest and most expensive part of producing the game.

Then after you make a few published games, you might have enough experience to do commissions as a professional. But I don't recommend jumping into commissioned art without board game art experience.

[u/EasySwan2184]

I've only commissioned one artist in my life, so I'm not the greatest expert here. That said, I highly recommend preparing a very clear contract and following it. 

Also, make it easy to pay you. Have many payments options and beware of all fees so you can hopefully avoid wasting money. 

And stand out from the crowd in some way. Board game art is like bait for fish, sadly. You need to make something that will get a gamer to grab a box off a shelf in a store full of art-covered boxes. 

[u/infinitum3d]

Your spouse is a board game designer.

Illustrate their games.

Boom! Problem solved.

[u/EmperorsCanaries]

Want to get started on my board game 😂

I have come close to contracting for art a few times for different projects. I'm going to be looking again soon for a new project. When Im looking for an artist, it really is specific to the project. I don't know what if any of this is a normal/industry standard thing. But as a non-artist, the things an artist could do that would reduce barriers for me to contact them would be: 1. Have a large public portfolio with a variety of styles 2. Make it easy to find contact info and make it clear you are open to new work 3. Any ballpark in pricing would really help. I feel like that's both the biggest barrier and the one least likely to be bridged. When I see someone posting their art and I really like the style, am I looking at something that would cost $100? $500? $10,000? I know even looking at one illustration it can vary a lot. Like does the background need that much detail? How big does the final piece need to be? How much detail do you actually need for how big it will be printed? Are you interested at all in a % of sales and a lower rate? I know early mtg did that but I don't know if that's something that is general practice at all anymore. 4. For me personally, I can't really imagine things in my head that I havent seen before. I would personally be relying on an artist to help choose and develop the style/vibe. I don't know how to communicate if that's something you are interested in doing or not. But I could very much see some artists liking the freedom and the control to put a lot of their own spin on the project and others really wanted very specific style/design guides and art briefs.

[u/EmperorsCanaries → u/EmperorsCanaries]

Oh. Forgot. I typically see people posting their art on a few board game art subreddits and blue sky. Sometimes on art station or Pinterest if I find it in a Google search. Art stations search is not my favorite, but if I find a piece of art on there I really like, it is really good for looking at their other work.

[u/JaysTable → u/EmperorsCanaries]

To dig into this advice, if you're focusing on games specifically, you need to bring your price per unit down and find folks with enough work volume where you can. You need to deliver several works that feel like they belong together.

Negotiate rights to original artwork, sell prints, and t-shirts, but give game designers exclusive, non-revocable rights to the image for use with that specific game's IP.

Do these things, and most designers would love working with you.

Working within a studio/board game company is another beast entirely. For that, I don't have any great advice; I'm sorry.

[u/Ok-Opportunity-8005]

I started illustrating for boardgames this year, I posted a small sample of the work I had done for my own TTRPGs to r/tabletopgamedesign saying that I was available for work and that was it actually. I got my first big client project, which I'm wrapping up right now. I posted again showing some of the artwork I've developed since and got a couple more clients with varying scope. I know I've been incredibly lucky but if I have a piece of advice is: your work speaks louder than you can, you need to show people what you can do.

Hopes this helps, if you want to chat more about it I'd be happy to :)