free lance artists/ partnerships

# 1 30-04-2011 , 01:30 PM

rm3d
Join Date: May 2008

Location: northern ireland

Posts: 184

hey guys i am hoping some of you can help.

what it is, is i have to create a business plan for a made up company for my university business module, and i decided on a 2 man company specialising in 3d modelling and animation, with some special effects and 2d animation. user added image

. but its really hard to find out prices and quotes for what to charge for this kind of work. just wondering if any of you guys are free-lance and might give me some advice on what to charge for work or any advice on websites to check out.

basically any advice you can give me about what its like working in this area.

really appreciate any help.
thanks

the more I Think I know about Maya the less I seem to know about it.

check me out www.rm3d.co.uk

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# 2 30-04-2011 , 04:38 PM

The Nurb Herd
Join Date: Oct 2007

Location: London

Posts: 2,381

what assets do these 2 have? do they have commercial licenses for maya? do they use nuke or after effects and have licenses for those? ...prehaps photoshop and zbrush too? are they rendering in mental ray or vray or renderman or something else? they need licenses for those. How many machines do they have? I would work out how much that is going to cost and factor that into the price for their first couple of jobs.
you could go down the open source route. Might make a more interesting project.

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# 3 30-04-2011 , 05:05 PM

rm3d
Join Date: May 2008

Location: northern ireland

Posts: 184

mmmm damn thats alot to think about user added image

, well i am thinking, Maya with mental ray, adobe premium suite and maybe mudbox, 2 machines; one each, and one machine dedicated rendering to start with. but i do like the sound of open source. i really dislike this module user added image

so the less to write the better, so i might go open source and then i dont have to factor in costs for licenses and it could be a unique selling point as i could charge less because i don't have to get back the costs from licensed software (which can get costly) etc.

the more I Think I know about Maya the less I seem to know about it.

check me out www.rm3d.co.uk

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# 4 01-05-2011 , 10:35 PM

Administrator
Join Date: Jun 2009

Location: Prague

Posts: 827

It's quite difficult to find info on wages online for the simple reason that no one likes to know the guy next door is doing the same job but getting paid twice as much for it user added image

Have a look at vfxwages.com it's a rough guide to what people are getting paid around in the industry also you can check out specific freelance rates on sites like this https://www.ifreelance.com/find/provi...spx?ba=2&sc=57

Another thing is the project triangle where the point is "speed, quality, price - pick two" so if something had to be done fast and be of high quality it will be expensive and so on.

The size of a client's business is something else that matters, if I ask you to do a banner animation for my lifestyle business you'd quote lower than if a large corporate like coca cola wanted an advertisement done.

The final thing when quoting for projects is whether a client can provide you with continuous work or not, I see this argued back and forth, but the point is that if someone can provide you with a steady flow of work over time they help take some of the insecurity out of freelancing or running your own studio and for this they often expect to pay a lower hourly rate than for a one off gig.

Good luck with your project, I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun user added image

Nilla

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# 5 01-05-2011 , 11:44 PM

rm3d
Join Date: May 2008

Location: northern ireland

Posts: 184

hey thanks for that user added image

, both websites are really useful especially vfx wages and i'm loving the minimum charge per hour info. its hard to find information on anything in the sfx and animation industry, its all about trade secrets and not revealing how you did such and such user added image

but also your right no one no matter what job, likes to say how much they are earning.

any tips on what to type into google to get more info on this sort of thing? apparently i am not searching the right criteria user added image

the more I Think I know about Maya the less I seem to know about it.

check me out www.rm3d.co.uk

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# 6 02-05-2011 , 08:35 PM

Administrator
Join Date: Jun 2009

Location: Prague

Posts: 827

You're welcome, I think the problem with searching on google is that you'll get a lot of irrelevant info especially with the term freelance. Try searching actual cg forums like cgtalk and highend3d there's a lot of info on these kind of things there, not specific numbers but it links in blogs, pipelines, articles etc.

There was an interesting article on the area a few months ago as well about Studio Aiko and how they started out as a small studio, might give you some inspiration https://area.autodesk.com/inhouse/bts..._from_tel_aviv

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