Looking for artists!

Hi again!  It's time for me to start the process of looking for artists to collaborate on Before with me.  I need a 2D artist and a 3D artist, although I'm happy if they are both the same person.  If you are a Concept, 2D or 3D artist (or know someone who is) and Before looks interesting to you, please drop me a portfolio at sam@balancingmonkeygames.com.  To be clear - this is a paid contract job, done remotely.  There will be something like 2-3 months work, spread in chunks between early-mid next year.

Before is a low-violence city building strategy game set after civilisation has been destroyed by a weird apocalypse.  You are helping people rebuild after they emerge from the shelters they've lived in for decades, trying to help them either escape from the doomed planet or work with the mysterious guardians that have arisen in humanities absence to save the world.  A conceit of the game is that you as the player aren't playing this scenario exactly, but rather are playing a board game that recreates these historical events from the point of view of the descendants of those that experienced it.

Job 1 - 3D

You must have the following:

- Experience in lowish poly modelling

- The ability to define a cohesive look that will run through all the assets then create many distinctive variations

- Experience producing assets for Unity - the PBR pipeline specifically

- The ability to capture a 'look' off text descriptions and programmer art - I know what I want, but can't draw to save myself :)

- 3+ years experience working in the games industry

Submission Requirements:

- Send me a link to your portfolio or show reel

- Tell me a bit about yourself

Job 2 - 2D

You must have the following:

- Ability to generate UI-type assets for Unity.  You don't need to be a UI Artist specifically, but this type of art is the bulk of the work

- The ability to create something amazing off text descriptions and programmer art - I know what I want, but haven't learned to draw in the last 2 paragraphs

- 3+ years experience working in the games industry

- A tertiary degree in Design or Art is strongly preferred

Submission Requirements:

- Send me a link to your portfolio or show reel

- Tell me a bit about yourself

More details

The overall look I'm hoping to achieve for Before is as close to a real board game inside the computer monitor as possible.  The current state of the game (everything in this image is placeholder!) is:

Whereas the look I'm wanting is something like Hitman GO (but maybe less clean) or Wartile (but with much, much simpler models).

Too look at it from the other direction, imagine something like Mexica or Santorini but in the computer.  Note that neither of these match the specific look I want, they're just examples of board games with lots of 3D buildings :)

The things I need someone to help with are:

3D assets - all the people and buildings and trees and so on.  This is definitely the bulk of the work.  The buildings in particular need to be relatively simple but still distinct - telling the difference at a glance between a woodcutter and a stone quarry is vital.  Also, given the board game-like aesthetic, there will be very little animation - just static models for the most part.

In terms of specifics, I'd be wanting to get assets for the elements I have now built quite soon - about 20-30 buildings, a dozen terrain elements, textures for the tiles and roads and 1 person model with a few texture variations.  There will then be a second, larger chunk of work building the rest of the assets - something like 60 more buildings, a couple of dozen more terrain assets and whatever else comes up in development.  We'd work out between us whether that's a single chunk towards the middle of next year, or an ongoing process.

2D assets - mostly UI assets and icons for all the resources, but also some larger pieces such as menu and loading screens.  Even though I'm starting to look for this person now, the bulk of this work will be towards the end of the project next year - building all the final assets once I know what I actually need.

I'd also like someone to assist with defining the whole look - concepts, colour space, all that sort of thing, but this may come naturally out of the design phase for the 2D and 3D assets.  If this winds up being a separate role, it'd also ideally be happening early next year.

As I said above, I have no problem with having different people for each of those roles, or the same person for all of them.

So, if that sounds like you, please say hi!  I'd love to see your portfolio at sam@balancingmonkeygames.com

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