A project that I have been working on for a while has reached a point where I need art assets. Problem is the asset store does not fit my needs as I need specific art and specific themes that cannot be found generically.
What are some good resources to look through to find artists willing to work on commission for projects?
I did not know this existed, thank you.
Browse around artstation.
If you’re looking for 3D work, another good place is polycount. I’ve gotten work done by people there pretty often.
I appreciate the input.
This.
I’ve looked everywhere. I consistently get good and reliable artists on Polycount. Be sure to have reference images of what style you want, as well as technical specs and be ready to pay a reasonable price for your assets. How large are the images you need? Do what size textures, if it low, mid or high poly, things like this.
Depending on the quality you want you should be ready to pay upwards of 15 up to maybe 40 dollars an hour for work.
Make it easy for people to do art for you, pay them on time and you’ll get fantastic work from the many good artists out there.
Edit: https://polycount.com/categories/freelance-job-postings
Are the artists there capable of design work? As a programmer, dealing with fiction - I don’t have design art to reference. I have general ideas from similar games that are in my art direction document but I don’t have design art to say “make the model look like this”.
Part of what I will be paying for is concept art as well based off of my own descriptions.
I would say most artists have some kind of concept knowledge. But for a larger project you might need a concept artist
Any resources for concept artists? 
I hate only being a programmer.
I outright skipped the concept art, a competent 3d artist doesn’t always need it. U may need some for promotional material obviously… but you could even pose the 3d models and use that as a base later, just an idea…
One thing you can do to avoid outright copying concept art that already exists, is find a few reference images that are similar and ask the artist to provide something kind of in the middle.
You can view the listing i made some time ago for some fish assets I was looking for:
Hope this helps, if you have any more questions i’ll be around procrastinating working on some character controller stuff…
I haven’t done recruiting for concept art, but if i were you i’d try to find some back end channels like hobby pages on reddit or deviantart. If you know what style of art you want, i’d try to find some people who do it at a high level just for fun and offer them money. It’ll be a bit harder than just going through a contractor but you can save a little money if you want to find a diamond in the rough, cut out the middle man, and support an artist just getting on their feet in a mutually beneficial arrangement.
If you needed pixel art for example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pixelart
You could find some artists who do pixel art there. You could try polycount too in the same forum there are artists of all types
.
Personally I don’t like paying for concept art. I like paying $$$ to make my actual game and the less i spend on concept art the more i have for more important things, and if it goes well maybe i’ll get some concept art later for promotion type stuff.
IMO a lot of the expenditures of making a game is a lot of “giong through the motions” and playing house. MANY fantastically successful games don’t have concept art, faster than light, minecraft, binding of isaac, etc.
Oh and last advice for now, don’t pay any $$$ till they make art of the quality you want. Standard practice is they work on something relatively doable, they can finish in a day, they show you a downressed screenshot, you both agree it’s good enough and then first payment is made, pretty basic from then on. They finish work you think is game ready, then you pay them again. This is the most important time that you give them feedback and let them know if this is what you ACTUALLY want. Give feedback even if you think it’s perfect, think about how it needs to be to fit in your game and if they can alter the asset, take criticism and deliver the updated product, that’s someone you want to work with.
I let the artists know i don’t give a crap if they finish ahead of schedule, if they give me art worth 200 bucks in several hours I get all my art that much faster and we don’t have to play any games, but you should have some concept of how long it takes to make your art. I chose fish for my game because the assets were much easier to work with than humans so if you’er looking for high end character art you can expect to pay a good bit more than 200 per asset.
Lots of concept artists at artstation too,
Yeah I agree its not always needed. I’m doing a fantasy battles game and I can say “this race kind of looks like this” and my art document provides some examples of existing games for an idea of what I’m going for (ie not low poly count, mood, atmosphere etc). We will see where that takes me I suppose and if I have to revisit for some concept art I’ll take it on the chin and pay for some concept plates to be done to help smooth out the transition.
artstation is where all the artist in the world gather and post their work publicly. So you don’t have to waste time with anybody who you aren’t certain can deliver the style and quality you need. You browse around, bookmark the people you like, and send them messages. “Got money. Need art.”
polycount is good too. But anybody on polycount is most likely on artstation as well.
I’ve been looking on artstation for a zbrush modeler to do a character but most of the artists seem to already be working at large studios. Coming from AAA myself, I know they won’t do freelance and if they did it would be for $10,000 minimum just to make it worthwhile.
I’ve also been asking on behance and the zbrush forums and I’ve gotten zero replies. I have a budget of up to $2,000 for a single character head sculpt that I have seen artists create on twitch in less than an hour, and I still can’t get any interest.
I swear, I’m in a twilight zone episode or something.
Anyone found anyone on Unity Connect? It seems to be dead and completely useless
My “group” was able to find people through it. I don’t remember the details now though. It’s been a good year at least.
I have used it once or twice with good outcome. But I have experience with hiring, I dont know if thats a factor 
I haven’t tried Connect yet. I have experience with hiring too, which makes this latest effort completely baffling. Last time I posted on cg channel (mind you, many years ago), I got hundreds of replies.
EDIT:
Hmm, it just occurred to me that I may not be getting replies because I never stated it was paid. I just assumed they would know that. Based on some other info I’ve been reading around here, there’s a lot of cheapskates, scammers, and dreamers hanging around job boards.
I guess I need to be upfront about the money so people don’t just ignore it.