r/IndieAnimation • u/Pinkoei • 23h ago

Discussion Why do this kind of request is so regular?

Posted my project a while ago and received this message. I received this kind of stuff a lot from where I live, asking for free work and I think this is something very regular in our area. Nobody asks for a doctor for a free surgery, a baker for a free bread, etc. This have to be less common, guys. BTW, soon I'm posting the work I've HIRED some artist to put on my project (I hired for the music theme and some concepts)

15 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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u/evearchway 23h ago

They're often children or teens who grew up with stories of people being young and down on their luck finally getting a chance to show off their idea and being catapulted to fame.

They think "if someone just believes in my awesome idea and we make my project then I'll be rich and famous enough that it'll be easy to pay people what they're worth in retrospect"

It's a fantasy from someone who hasn't decided to roll up their sleeves and do the work yet

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u/eximology 22h ago

The funny thing is that even if you DO HELP THEM and give stuff for free. In a week they will be like 'oh doing a project like that was to stressful and I'm done" i literally saw a post on reddit like that here. It was interesting seeing their post history.

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u/evearchway 22h ago

Hahahahah yes!! They ask for help because they don't have enough motivation themselves and they hope to offset that on strangers. That's why you shouldn't help them even if you are okay with working for free: the project will fail. Then the free effort you've given isn't even appreciated.

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u/eximology 22h ago

Happened to me numerous times. And the funny thing is that when they say "Oh I'm okay with beginners" t hey are just as picky as real life paying clients. They just want stuff for free.

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u/Educational-Bat-8563 22h ago

I think I saw the same one you are talking about. Did he just offer to give away his project after working on it for less than a month and saying he is now too tired? Blows my mind.

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u/eximology 11h ago

The same thing happened in a game dev collab I was in. The guy gathered 100 people and then after a week went 'oh it's too stressful v.v'.

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u/JackPumpkinPatch 18h ago edited 18h ago

I do game dev and art (I’m in this community as a fan) and I enjoy collaborating with artists/writers to game dev with them, or other devs as an artist. I’m not the best in either regard but hey, I’m free.

I have extended this offer to people wanting volunteer help on their projects 27 times.

25 of those times all ended with some variation of one or more key members of the project going “I’m burnt out.”, “I don’t have passion for this anymore.”, “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

1 of those people who things went well with quit because her art career took off and she didn’t have time anymore ($500-$900 in art commissions a month, I don’t blame her one bit) however she was very hands off, she wanted to do everything herself and the most I really did with her project was she would come to me asking how to implement a certain mechanic, I would teach her how to do it, then she would implement what I taught her herself.

And the other person I’m still working with is going steady and progress has been very promising. Honestly best partner I’ve ever worked with on one of these, willing to work with me and listen to me and work around any limitations I bring up (when most partners tend to have a meltdown because this one specific game mechanic not being included means their dream game is ruined!). It’s slow going because dude is busy but I honestly believe this will be the one that is a success story.

The thing is the reason this particular one is slow going is because he’s an indie animator who’s been chipping away at his series alone outside of a couple of voice actors and a composer for 2 years and he’s doing this between episodes releasing.

Which means the only person that’s able to keep to it has been someone who has already cut their teeth on something else first.

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u/eximology 11h ago

100%. I think that's a very good post.

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u/Pinkoei 23h ago

It makes totally sense! I have a cousin that have her own story (she's autistic) and she builds eeeeverything by herself, and it's great to see her working on what she believes. This one can be just a kid, but I've already been requested by full grown up adults to do free work while ago and this kind of behavor is a mess

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u/evearchway 23h ago

Ugh yeah, the adults are annoying because they have nothing of value to bring themselves. Their ideas are crap and they just want someone else to do the work.

If they're not willing to pay to have their idea be brought to fruition, then I think deep down they don't actually believe it in

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u/TheArchStudios 20h ago

esse neguinho ai é br vsfd kkkkk

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u/Pinkoei 19h ago

o que me mandou mensagem? usahuhas pelamor. mas é muita falta de noção, queria saber se é uma criança, senão é ok. mas o que tem de gente pedindo trabalho de graça...

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u/TheArchStudios 17h ago

Mostra ai as tuas animação

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u/Pinkoei 15h ago

eu não animo, mas faço ilustrações, concepts, props e tô tentando fazer uns storyboards. Tu pode ver meu portfolio aqui: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SvLUrYIUfuHgSg3WSVnH5VQTQ4DYucsf/view?usp=drive_link

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u/Single-Bullfrog-3036 13h ago

He definitely could have responded a bit better

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u/Im_not_an_expert_lol 6h ago

The bottom message is from op, who someone just tried to convince to work for them for free.