Hey. This paper is being rewritten a bit to accentuate some stuff that was left out before. I hope the updated version will make more sense for both sides discussed and will help more artists and studios build even more productive relationships!

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The productive way to treat your outsourcers





Hey, what's up, guys! This one was actually a long time coming. Outsourcing is a very common thing nowadays, but still for me it always felt a bit too rough on the corners. During my time as a videogame artist I've tackled the freelancing issue from both sides of the barricade. I've been reviewing tons of art during my time in-house and I've also done as much assets, as a freelance-artist for different companies across the world. And here are some thoughts that strung a note in my mind, concerning the issue.

This paper in no way tries to compromise any side involved in the outsourcing services. Most of the examples here describe worst case scenarios (that are not that uncommon), because as much as positive issues deserve praise I didn't have to make a whole paper out of it=). I've personally worked with great people who consciously or subconsciously realize all the issues discussed here. And yes the paper has more radical advices for the employer then the employee, just because the employer has a lot more control over the situation in my opinion, while the employee is usually left to agree with employers' terms or abstain from entering a business relationship.


The Point Quite unusually, this paper is going to have a sort of a recurring main point that could technically be the root of much, if not all evil. 3 magic words. And no it's not “I love you”, unfortunately. Even though I do love you guys, for showing interest in the subject.

The words are “ART IS SUBJECTIVE“. That's it. Having worked with a variety of clients as a freelance artist I've been tremendously surprised, how many of them are so ultimate in their judgment of “beauty”. When you work in a single company for years you really forget that there is something else out there. The right way is your way, just because you need to follow it. It's like patriotism – your country is the best just because you were born there. But art Is subjective. As subjective, as things get in life. Peoples' perception of beauty, style and even realism vary endlessly, depending on the background they come from. And if you don't like threading water you better learn this for good.

What does it mean for you as a company outsourcing your assets? It means that, if you hired artists with a sufficient enough portfolio\CV to believe that they have the necessary skill, than they probably just can't do a bad job. But they are much more likely to do a WRONG job. And those things are not to be confused, since they are to be treated completely differently.

Outsourcer does a bad job, when you doubt his ability to do your art on a needed quality level. Outsourcer does a wrong job, when your critique has nothing to do with fundamentals of modeling, texturing, UVing or painting. Both bad and wrong jobs seem interwoven a lot of times and leads\outsource managers have a very hard time separating those, because both those issues fall into the same old plain “Bad” folder in our heads. And that is counter-productive.

What do you tell to a person, when he does a concept of a character with one leg shorter than the other? You say “Dude, that's unacceptable. Go learn anatomy”. What do you do, when you get a model with unwelded vertices all over it and, with no smoothing groups and inconsistent texeleration? You say “It's bad, go learn how to model and UV”.

But imagine that your graphical style strays from realism (and almost every game does, to some extent) and you don't like the texture someone painted for you? You say “It's ugly. Too noisy, highlights are too broad, looks kinda bland too, so why don't you put some color into it, those smaller shapes are way off and man, put some darker colors into it, to add more contrast. PLEASE FIX”. And each time I wonder if we could've nailed it the first time. I also wonder if it ever crossed the mind of the one who is writing, that some people might find those “wrong” features attractive. Or maybe that the people the outsourcer used to work with right before you, considered ugly the features you find pretty. Tastes differ. Or maybe even like this: TASTES DIFFER. Too much, probably. For a freelance artist every new client or project is a study. And not so much in artistic theory, but in you – the employer. There's no way an artist could know what you want, like or prefer until you clearly explain it to him in an understandable manner. Every artist you hire will start off doing a wrong job, especially if your style is not photorealistic. And you - the employer will be even more culpable for it then the artist himself. If someone starts doing the right job straight out of the boat it still isn't his fault. Those things just happen and It's up to the employer to separate the wrong doers from the bad doers and to educate them in a right way.


For the employer

Care All right. First of all there still are people who are just plain rude with their outsourcers. It exists and we can't pretend it doesn't. And it's understandable to a pretty big extent. When you have like 10-20 people asking you all the same stupid questions and making all the same dumb mistakes day after day, you eventually start to lose your temper, especially when you have a department to run inhouse. One place, where I worked actually had an outsourcers' haters club and the tales of their “stupidity” were spread on a regular basis. Some people actually take pride in outsourcers not being able to satisfy their needs, taking it as a sing of them doing a very sophisticated job. The others take freelancers as the most money whoring kind of artists that want to squeeze as much squid out of you as possible and do the least amount of work possible. So you just squeeze them back. And all of this never does you any good. Happy employees make for a much better product much faster, even outsourcers. The real objective of a Good Manager is to make people feel good while making them do what needs to be done. And not just get the job done by any means.

Motivate I don't know how many managers are aware of that, but freelance artists, just as any other artists, have their own morale that greatly determines their output. As far as I'm used to seeing, managers think the only thing you need to invest in your outsourcers is the money. But people aren't shops, where you just exchange money for goods. As much as you can have a depressed dysfunctional team in-house, you can easily have a similar one spread all across the world.

Andrea Toyais - Blizzards Sound and Casting director has recently given an interesting speech about her work (that kind of women actually makes me feel sorry we don't allow them to travel on the inside of bus here). I was especially interested in the bit about working with voice actors. One time while the actor was in an isolated recording booth the two sound engineers started arguing about what to have for lunch. The actor couldn't hear what they were talking about, but seeing them arguing immediately led him to think there was something wrong with his performance. He immediately lost his flow and became very hard to work with. The lesson to learn here is that if you want people to give their 100% you need to create a positive productive atmosphere for them to work in. The same goes for your freelance artists.

It might seem strange at first, but freelance artists do not need to hear you opinion on their work. If you've learned to distinguish bad work from wrong one, and you know your artist is doing wrong – do not tell him about it. The only things that are of any practical importance – are the things you want to change/see in the final asset. Everything else is secondary and could be harmful for the process.

For example, if you ask a guy to make you a tree and he does, you could tell him that the silhouette looks too stiff and boring OR you could tell him that you want the tree bend more and the branches to spread a bit further. It's nothing to you, but the second kind of answer would make the artist feel the least amount of psychological pressure. Someone would probably think “Why should I bother with all of this – I pay those guys money and I just want my goods”. Well you actually pay your inhouse team too, and you still invest in keeping them happy and motivated, so just choosing your words seems like a little price to pay.

Because here's how things go, if you don't choose your words for too long and keep claiming things “bad”, artists usually get fed up and take a break from your work or just start performing worse, which should be obvious. And this is where you get your delays from, or a seemingly endless amount of iterations on a single asset. The more you tell someone how bad their work is, the more pressure they feel, the worse they perform. You don't necessarily offend your artists, since then they are probably used to it, but you definitely cripple their motivation. And you don't want none of that. A little bit of education and encouragement can go a long way.

When I started working with outsourcers, I couldn't believe that those people were as “stupid” as everyone told me, so I adopted a different policy from the start. With every mistake outsourcers made I tried to go into the rule or any kind of theory behind it, to fill them in on the general knowledge, rather than just point out a mistake. And you know what? Even though it takes quite a while to sort out all the misunderstanding you might have with your outsourcers, there was quite a tangible result. I started getting models that I only had like 2 or 3 comments for, instead of the long pages I used to scribble in MS One Note. To be honest I don't believe that you could ever eliminate mistakes completely for we are all humans and you cannot let you guard down, but you can significantly cut on the repeating mistakes, saving a lot of yours and your employees' time and money.

Provide The next most important point after treating your outsourcers right, is to actually know what you want. And by know I mean know. ‘Cause sometimes clients hand you a rough 5 minute pencil sketch and maybe a list games they want they their style to be similar to. And the outsourcer is left to wander in the dark room full of rakes. And when the artist actually comes up with something, the client is eager to correct: “You can't have this, you can't have that, and yeah the color and the texture should be different because the asset is not in the dungeon, but in a sunny forest.” And then they maybe share with you some examples of the similar work they already have done. And the artist is left there to think that had he this amount of reference in the beginning, the work would only take him a day instead of three. And you, as a company don't just lose time, but you lose credibility. Because good artists wouldn't work with a customer, who obviously doesn't value their time or their hard work. And when you're left with only lazy artists you start spending weeks on assets that could be done in a day by a good artist that is well informed. It a question of business ethics. If you're a willing to sacrifice a day of your business partners work to save half an hour of your time, then you better get ready to be treated likewise. So please take this extra half an hour to prepare everything that might come in handy for your outsourcers.

When providing feedback think, if the outsourcer could possibly know the things you are about to tell him, and how much of those things are company/project specific. Imagine yourself never working in your company, would you still understand exactly what you have meant? If not, then try to think of what you've done and what you can do, to make those issues clear to other people, who are not living and breathing the project you work on.

And don't forget what the previous chapter has taught you: artists need to know what you want to get, and not what you don't. Sometimes clients just point to a spot they find wrong and demand it corrected, leaving the artist to wander in the dark once again. Counterproductive once again. Finding a mistake is not finding a solution.

Quality Costs A certain type of managers, that were mentioned before, can say, that the outsourcers they worked with aren't worthy of a better attitude, since they are indeed lazy, indifferent, money sucking creatures. And yes I could easily believe that, since there is a fair amount of unscrupulous, indifferent outsourcers populating the market. And in case you're unfortunate enough to encounter such on your business route, you just learn your lesson and don't work with those people again. And eventually you meet good hardworking people that are more than eager to make your project shine. And I can guarantee you, that there is whole lot of them. And then your opinion of outsource artists changes and you don't view them as parasites anymore. You just realize that there's the same amount of bad people as everywhere: in management, PR or plumbing or wh atever else.

So if an experienced outsourcing manager still holds on to his bad opinion about outsourcers, then there's one thing I could assume with a pretty high degree of probability:

You're working with the cheapest people possible.

Those people are obviously not the most motivated kind, because they know someone earns more for the same job. And I'm sure you're not helping them, to get motivated in any way mentioned in this paper. You just demand a lot and supply a little. A little money. As a result you get a poor job that takes a lot of time and company resources to bring to a polished enough state. You curse, get angry but never leave them to look for someone more proficient. Why? Because you're up for the cheapest thing. Some people feel more in charge this way, because they think they can achieve more by punishing then supporting and they also save money. But consider this:

All the inhouse resources that are distracted from the main work for the endless feedback iteration cycles are huge waste of funds, since the hours of work of your lead artists spend distracted are worth a lot more, then you would additionally spend per asset if you outsourced someplace more qualified. Additionally, the manager usually has the final say in where to outsource to, but it's the leads and other artists involved that are going to feel the tension of working with incompetent and indifferent people, draining their stamina and leaving them dissatisfied. And you want your team in the best shape possible.

You can actually break the cycle if you start caring about your outsourcers more. You provide them with all the info they need, take all the time to fill them in on any questionable points, choose your words, praise their good job and eventually you'll start receiving assets of far superior quality then you're used to. It's just that the artists would also find themselves more valuable this way and soon will ask for more money. So either way – Quality Costs.


For the employee

As much as I feel that employers are the ones, that have more control over the situation I think that business is a lot like love – it's all about both sides. And if something goes wrong you can't blame one, without blaming the other.


Do not invent! One thing that I had to learn when I started doing outsourcing jobs is that it's no place for your imagination. When you work for someone else your aren't there to make something beautiful, even though we'd all love to think that way. You are there to make, what your client wants you to, to deliver on his personal vision. And it could and would contradict with your own personal taste, so be ready for it. Art Is Subjective and good freelance artist is not the one who makes the most “beautiful” things but the one who is able to understand his clients desire and deliver it just the way the client wants. You have to be a psychologist to some extent and study your client for his preferences and dislikes.

That's why you do not invent things unless specifically asked to. If you want to avoid redos you'll have to follow the provided reference to the last brush stroke, because you never know if that brush stroke was put there intentionally or not. Only use your imagination in places where you weren't given any specific guidelines. And still you'll probably end up being corrected, so clear things out as much as possible, before you start investing hours of work. This way you can rest assured that if any redos will follow – it wasn't your fault.


Don't be shy to ask! Now to clearing this out. It was an important point for me, because I was actually pretty shy to ask questions, being afraid that it might seem unprofessional. Wrong decision. If you think you'll figure things out while working, then chances are you'll stand corrected. Once again, take your time to evaluate what you are about to do and don't be afraid to ask questions, whenever you have them.
But don't forget to try to think for yourself first.


Do vertical slices! As much as in the overall game development you should do vertical slices while working on your assets especially if the style is unfamiliar to you. For example you texture a piece of cloth, a bunch of bricks, a couple of planks and send back to your employer asking if you should do the rest the same way. Believe me, you don't want to do the whole asset only to find out, that you were going in the wrong direction from the beginning.


Be friendly! Sometimes working as a freelancer can cause a serious stress, because you could just be caught up doing wrong job, but hearing your client consider it plain bad. You can get upset, angry and well, who knows, start doubting your professional abilities. Don't. Whenever you feel irritated by a client always get down with him and figure things out. Lack of proper communication just builds up tension, so in case you feel something's wrong, you discuss it in the most positive and friendly manner possible. And it usually turns out that no one ever wants to be a prick. You're just different and need to find a way of understanding each other.



Epilogue As an epilogue I'd like to tell you a little story I remember from belarusian literature class I used to have when I was little. I don't know why, it's been so many years, but still I remember it:

One day a peasant was riding his carriage somewhere along the road. The Sun and the Wind saw him and decided to make a bet: the first one to rip the jacket off the peasant wins. Wind wanted to go first. He blew really hard but the peasant just wraped himself tighter in his cloth. Wind gave up. And then the sun came out, gently shining on the peasant. He felt the warmth and took the coat off himself.