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I've been enjoying for _exposure.txt lately, and it's got me thinking about spec work again. So hold on.

I don't begrudge anyone who wants to get free art. As someone who is in the final stretch of getting a game ready to publish, I know that the whole freaking process is expensive, and there is no way that I could've afforded to pay myself the rates I charge, and I'm pretty reasonable.

But here's the thing, my game has art because I made it. Art is what I'm comfortable doing. Writing rules and graphic design are painful, painful things for me.

And yet I'm doing them. And I'm growing through the process, and the game is more distinctly mine because of it.

And this is where I kind of get miffed about this whole thing. Now this isn't a blanket statement, So many of you are super humble about this stuff, and y'know what? I would love to take on your project for free if I could afford it. As it is, I've got too many things I'm doing for free for myself right now.

But there are writers and developers and game designers who think that they are entitled to an artist, like their genius should attract a swarm of hopeful starstruck baby artists who "get" their vision and would wrestle a crocodile to work on it, and the thing is... They wont. We're all on the ground floor here, (If you've published less than ten things, games, books, whatever, you're on the ground floor.)

We (That's "We" creatives, not "We" Artists) all have pet projects that we're working on. (Ideas are like noses. Everyone has one and it's really hard to see at a distance why they're different) We don't have time to work for free, and we don't have money to pay people to do the things we're not good at.

And it's totally possible that the planets will align, and we could meet another creative who loves our idea so much that they're willing to pour their time into it. But you won't find this person from a job posting. You find this person by networking, building relationships with people online and off, swapping and critiquing eachother's designs.

So if you don't have money, and you haven't found that special person, what do you do? You Learn To Draw! Or program, or write, or whatever.

Robert Heinlein wrote:

"Specialization is for insects"

This thing is your baby. It's your playground. If you don't have an advance cheque from a publisher, (Which would leave you with money to hire an artist) then there's no need to rush things. You can take your time, learn to use a vector art program and a raster art program. Read some free tutorials on DeviantArt.

If you think that's too much work, then maybe it's time to set that pet project on the back burner until you're able to afford an artist who's done all of those things already for you.