Do I fire my artist?
 

As some of you might know, I started my own business. We deal with satire, making fun of things, and trying to get them put on shirts. It's good stuff.

Unfortunately, I can't draw. So I comission most of my work.

Recently I hired an artist from another country (found him on Deviant Art). The problem with hiring someone locally is the fact that I can't find anyone locally that's worth a damn. So I found this guy off of Deviant, thought his stuff was pretty good, and had him draw me up some sketches.

Basically, what I want is a sexy black mage female. I want her holding a fireball in one hand with a staff in the other. I want her to have a smirk on her face, and I want it to look professional.

So this guy draws me up what he thinks...

http://blackhatcreations.com/images/bm.jpg

I like this, but I don't think it looks very black mage-like. The fireball is nice, love the hair, but it needs some definate work. I give him a couple of ideas and several days later, he sends me this...

http://www.blackhatcreations.com/images/black-mage.jpg

Now I like the smile, but not really feeling the staff or the bell bottoms. But what do I know? So I show my wife (always nice to have a second opinion). She recognizes it from one of her favorite games. Kudos if you recognized it too...

http://www.blackhatcreations.com/images/ff.jpg

How I work things out with my artists is that once I decide they will do the work, they recieve half up front, and half once the job is completed. So, I've already paid him half.

I feel that he's pretty talented, but am pissed that he mimicked another companies clothing for this job. We're a S-Corporation, and we're just starting. One lawsuit, and this could kill my business before it even gets on its feet. Part of me feels very betrayed.

My wife feels I should see what else he sends me after I chew him out about copying other people's works. My best friend thinks I should fire him and cut my losses. I'm somewhere in between. I can't really afford another artist.

I should mention that I've already sent him a rather pissed e-mail about this whole thing.

I'd like to have some outside opinions. What do you guys think I should do?

Well, you did say you wanted it more “Black Mage-ish”, right?

I mean, from what I read he gave you exactly what you asked for. If you didn’t mean “Black Mage” in the Final Fantasy sense then it was just a miscommunication.

So unless there’s something I’m not getting here, no, don’t fire him.

Edit: I think a pissed e-mail might have even been a little much.

Yeah, I think there's just some miscommunication. You said Black Mage-ish, he conjured up a hot chick in the BM outfit. FFX-2. Sure, he's probably being stupid thinking, "Well there's nothing wrong with using this for source material," but that doesn't mean you should fire him immidiately.

Just ask him about it. If he says it's all original work, then you can probably point out how obvious it is. If he says it was source material, then you can say he needs to be more innovative.

I think the problem is, you asked for a Black Mage, and when he gave you something original, you didn't like it, because it wasn't Black Magish enough. Then, when he gave you what you asked for- a Black Mage- it turns out that it really was a Black Mage. I'm going to jump on the "chalk it up to miscommunication" train, because you're giving him established characters to try to mimic, and when he actually mimicked them it was too close for comfort. Instead of getting angry, you should be more clear with your guidelines.

I think this satire thing could be difficult, because ultimately what you're going for is "get close but not too close" to well known characters. I think you're going to have to make a lot of compromises, because it's going to be difficult to communicate those kinds of ideas to other people. "I want a Black Mage female, but not really a Black Mage female." That's tough- perhaps you shouldn't use references like that when describing what you want in the future.

You know what else you should do? If you haven't done so already, you should find somebody who has established themselves in the T-shirt business, or some kind of enterprise similar to your own. Or, really, even another self-employed person in something totally unrelated. Just find this person, and talk to them, and find out how they got started. Ask them for advice. Ask them all sorts of business questions. Take advantage of other people's experience and mistakes by learning from it. If you're trying to go this whole thing alone, don't. It's a big undertaking, and there's people that can help you. I don't think any of us here on the Forums are really the best people to turn to when you're making business decisions.

I agree with the other people. I think you are reacting too angrilly to fast. You need to talk to him and MAKE SURE you two are on the same ground about plagerism and style and stuff like that. If you didn't go through this before with him, it's just as much your fault as it is his fault that it looks like FFX-2 stuff.

So apologise for your pissy letter, get on the same page about what happened, and if he does it again, can him.

At least that's what I would do.

Also, Crodevillian Team made me think of this. But maybe, in the future, instead of saying "draw a black mage" to him, you need to get more in detail, like what you're LOOKING for in a black mage. Long cloak? pointy hat? a more tribal feel to it?

He needs more than "draw a female black mage", as an artist, I would be confused as to what to draw as well by those guidelines.

Hmmm....looks like I might have over-reacted.

I guess it's just from a business point-of-view, I can get my ass sued over this kind of stuff really quick. Square owns the rights to that outfit, they can argue that if they wanted, and they would win. We're tiny, we wouldn't stand a chance.

I should also say that the e-mail I originally sent him was less "pissed" and more "irritaded".

I'll toss him another e-mail apologizing for this, and explaining my viewpoint.

Nah, I know that. I come to you guys for opinions when it's about art or concepts, not necessarily how to run my business. There's a lot more to this then just one artist. It's been fun so far. I just needed some outside opinions because the messages I was getting inside my box were very mixed.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to give advice to me. Not something you have to do.

I can tell you how to run your own business. Can but won't. I think a small business owner should follow his gut when starting out. There needs to be a development of confidence, a learning from mistakes, so that as the business grows in scope the owner can as well to handle it.

Entrepreneurship is something they havn't written a good book for yet, and I'm sure they never will. Everyone is self-taught.

Well, it's obvious that he looked at Paine's FFX-2 outfit and used it as the basis for his second drawing. I'm not sure if that's a cardinal sin, though. You did, after all, ask for something "more BlackMage-ish" and that's what he gave you.

Actually, I can somewhat relate to your position, though. I am an author who's working with an artist for concept designs for characters for a webcomic we're going to be doing together starting this fall. I'm blessed with a girl who, generally speaking, tends to understand what I mean; when I ask her for something, she usually nails it, because we know each other in person and have developed a kind of bond where we have a mutual understanding of our styles and what we tend to expect from one another.

But even then, she occasionally gets a few things wrong, and when she does, I've learned the best approach is to be very specific with her. As in, get into the itsy-bitsy details of precisely the look you want. What this basically means is that as a concept designer or an "author" for a character look, you have to actually research the terminology artists use so you can speak 'their language', even if you're never actually going to draw the pictures yourself. You need to be able to identify shades of colors you want, the kind of shadowing you want, the exact texture of the clothing you want, how tall he or she is, the structure and layout of the appearance as a whole. Then you can tell your artist down to a T what you want your Black Mage to look like, instead of just saying you want something merely "more BlackMageish."

For example, I'd say that the problem with the FFX-2 black mage is that it's not a terribly dark or gothic portrayal of a character; FFX-2 is a lighthearted game, so the "black mages" don't really even have the kind of look one would expect given their craft. You might want to ask for something darker and more befitting her profession. If so, use specific terminology so that the artist understands with much greater precision what you want your character to wear and how you want to differentiate the look from FFX-2.

It's just as frustrating for the artist in situations like this. The very first commission I ever got was from a little band out in California who said they really loved what I did with the Black Mage Spiral o' Crazy, and could I please make them something like that with their band name, CD title, and catchphrase. I was so thrilled and flattered that I spent all that night working up the scratchiest, spookiest, grungiest spirals and letters I could, in what I thought was suitably creepy greyscale. As soon as it was all finished, I zipped up the files and sent them along, waiting like an excited puppy to hear what they thought.

The next morning I found out that they'd forgotten to tell me that they were a ska band.

Should I have asked more questions before taking on the work? Yes, and I still regret that I didn't. But should they maybe have given me more information about themselves, their message, and what they wanted the look to say about those things? Well, yeah. Artists aren't mindreaders.