Category Archives: smArt Management

Artist Career Tips, Outsourcing Management, smArt Management, smArtist thoughts

7 Tips for Writing smArter Emails

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Ever wished you were better at writing emails you want a response to? Here are a few handy tips:

  1. Get to the point. No one likes reading rambling emails. Respect my time and my attention span by staying on-topic. Keep it short because I’m not interested in reading a novel.
  2. HAVE a point. When I’m done reading an email, I want to have a clear Next Action. If you don’t give me one, you shouldn’t rely on me to come up with one. The best way to do this in my experience is to ask a direct question. If you don’t have a question, I’ll probably look at the email and think “Hmm. Okay. Next.” But if you ask a question, I have something to do.
  3. Answer my question. If I’ve asked you a question, answer it early in the email and directly. Don’t make me dig to find it.
  4. Regulate your paragraphs. Keep your language simple and your paragraphs orderly. Too few paragraphs that are long result in a sea of text I won’t want to read. Too many paragraphs that are short turn into a broken-up jumble of text I won’t want to read. 3 to 5 lines per paragraph, and 2 to 4 paragraphs is reasonable. Separate your ideas in a meaningful way and if you change the subject, start a new paragraph for it.
  5. Have an active voice. Don’t say “I could do this” when you could say “I am doing this.” Speak to show you’re taking action and doing stuff instead of sounding passive. Using exclamation points conservatively can also liven up an email. Finally, a strategically placed smiley face to add personality. Have an active voice! 🙂
  6. Heed the rule of 3, 4, 5. If you’re itemizing something, or listing things, or organizing thoughts, try to keep them in threes, fours, or fives. People like these numbers and they’re easier to remember and understand than arbitrarily huge numbers that won’t fit in your head. 7 is a good number, too, but usually only for articles and not emails.
  7. Sign your name. This seems obvious but a lot of people don’t do this. Sign with your full name to help make it stick in my head. This is subtle, but important. Professionals sign their name. 🙂

Does anyone else have any useful emailing tips?

Outsourcing Management, smArt Management, smArtist thoughts

Little Thoughts #3: Don’t skim emails.

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Something I’ve learned is never to skim emails. Sit down and read them. Assess what they mean. Understand their ramifications. Build a quick and rough mental time estimate of how long it will take to address what’s in the email.

You have three options:

  1. If it takes less than five minutes, do it immediately.
  2. If it requires more time than that, schedule it for later.
  3. If it’s a dead or already-completed issue, archive it immediately.

Watch your to-do list and your inbox clear out faster than you ever thought possible. 🙂

Artist Career Tips, Outsourcing Management, smArt Management, smArtist thoughts

Little Thoughts #1: Everyone likes to get involved.

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Here’s the introduction of a new series of little thoughts that won’t really fill out a full post.

Everyone likes to get involved.

If you have people in your pipeline that have to approve your work, at any level, they’ll probably want to get involved with your work. To make their mark. To make a difference. To take some form of action to justify the fact that they’re “doing their job.” Even if your work is absolutely perfect, they’ll have something to say about it.

This is often a pain in the ass, and it’s inevitable. More often than not, they’ll pick out something that’s a nightmare to change.

But hey, what can you do?

I’ll tell you. 🙂

What I suggest to you — whether you’re a manager looking at your boss, an artist looking at your AD, or an AD managing an artist — is find ways to leave your work looking about 95% complete. Make the final 5% it needs obvious.

People WILL meddle and want to have a hand in whatever you’re doing. Position your work in such a way that the final 5% that needs doing just immediately jumps out at them. They’ll point it out and suggest a change. You’ll say “Oh, shit! You’re right! I’ll do that!” then go in and fix it, show it to them again, get their approval now that they feel they’ve done their job, and the asset is done.

Everyone, everyone, everyone wants to feel involved. To have their say. To feel like they made their mark. Anticipate this! Simply define the boundaries in which people can be involved freely without severely affecting what you’re doing.

This requires a soft touch. Doing stupid, insulting, obvious shit like leaving a head off of a character or forgetting to color a concept is a slap in the face. It will make you look stupid and prove you don’t follow directions. Be subtle, be smart, and be respectful of peoples’ need to participate, and you’ll go far.

Outsourcing Management, smArt Management

Learning In Progress #9: Concept Art Repository

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Here’s to thinking out loud!

I’ve decided that I need to have a clean and clear concept art repository. As it is, everything is really spread out and too dependent on me remembering where random crap is instead of actually being intuitive. My motto: If it only exists inside your head, it’s worthless.

So where do I begin? Continue reading Learning In Progress #9: Concept Art Repository →

Outsourcing Management, Productivity, smArt Management

Learning In Progress #8: Rigging change lists

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I’m dealing with contractors that are rigging models now, and I was thinking, what would be the best way to illustrate the problems I find?

“Just look at the shoulders” is too vague. Saying “the knee looks funny when it’s bent” is a little better but not much. It seems like it’d be most useful to create simple markers to show when, where and how the rig is broken. How can I do that?

What I ended up deciding to do was create a test animation (if one didn’t already exist) and scrub through it to spot issues. Whenever I spot an issue, I do the following:

  1. Take a screenshot.
  2. Note the frame number.
  3. In Photoshop, circle the problem area.
  4. Next to the problem area, write down the frame number.
  5. Below the problem area, write a brief description of the issue. (if needed)

From there, I send the contractor the separate screenshots I take as well as the MAX file with the test animation. That way they can open up the MAX file, scrub to the correct frame, look at the screenshot, find the problem and quickly fix it. It minimizes the amount of written communication by being direct, visual and simple. Saves me time, saves them time.

This is the best I’ve got so far. Anyone else have any ideas? 🙂

Outsourcing Management, smArt Management

Learning In Progress #7: Changing naming conventions

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Here’s a simple lesson I’ve learned: If you’re going to change the file naming conventions on your game, start doing it right immediately and make no exceptions.

Sounds simple, but we have a lot of legacy assets we inherited that have naming conventions we’ve chosen to change. We also have some assets we made ourselves that have naming conventions that eventually proved to be a bit crap. Finally, we decided on a naming convention, but now we have the really old stuff we inherited, the older stuff we did ourselves, and the new assets we’re making now. That’s three different conflicting conventions. Cool.

I would go back and rename everything, but those are extremely deep and interconnected changes that touch hundreds of files. If any one of those is inconsistent, everything will come crashing down. All I can do is patch the problem.

So, if I’m doing any kind of modification on older assets, which naming convention do I stick to?

There were two things I could do:

  1. Stick to the old naming convention for that particular asset, so it’ll still make sense in context with itself.
  2. Use the new naming convention, even though it makes the new modified asset stand out and make less sense.

Ultimately, I decided that the smartest and best thing to do would be to stick to the NEW naming convention. Start doing it right IMMEDIATELY.

Fine, it’ll stand out and it won’t make sense in the context of the old named asset, but every NEW asset I make will bring things closer to a unified whole. Every little bit I can do matters, and the earlier I be decisive the fewer the problems I’ll have to deal with later. Less to rename later, right? It’ll be harder to deal with now but this decision will pay off later.

I’m surprised I waffled on that earlier considering how simple this decision seems to be, but everything is always different when you’re actually inside the situation and have a clear view of what’s going on. 🙂

Outsourcing Management, Productivity, smArt Management

Learning In Progress #6: Contractor Kits

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I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and a fair amount of work lately building perfect modular kits for my contractors so they can get started quicker and have to ask fewer questions.

The idea is that I’d like to have one single ZIP file that contains everything a new contractor needs to get started on his asset type.

So that leads to the question — what does a contractor need to be able to do his job? That’s a big list, so let’s give an example. If I were to hire a new animator, this is the type of data I would put in a contractor kit for him:

  • Technical specifications. For each asset type in my game, there is a guidelines document with detailed technical specifications. For animators, I made another post called On Contracting Animators that has a good list.
  • List of animations. There’s a complete list of animations for characters, creatures and other animatable objects that I store in another, separate document. I break down each type of asset into characters, creatures, animated objects, and miscellaneous. From there, I break each down into structured lists divided by their role in the game. For example, creatures are either Melee (hand-to-hand combat), Ranged (attack with guns or bows), and Caster (magic user). Each role has a unique animation set, so I list all the animations in each set. This is especially useful for when I want to create a new creature, before I even outsource it I can say “Okay, Fat Ogre 3 is going to use the Melee and Ranged Animation Sets.” I don’t have to decide which animations it has one by one every time I want a new creature, because I already figured it out beforehand. Then when I send the list of animations to the animator, I can simply copy and paste those pre-made animation lists. Time savings ahoy!
  • The exporter. I include a copy of our proprietary 3DSMAX exporter plugin, along with simple installation and usage instructions.
  • The tool. I include a copy of our proprietary Model Editor, along with simple usage instructions so the animator can create usable assets for our engine. Why should I have to?
  • Animation samples. I have directories set aside that offer example animations of every sequence for each type of creature and animatable object. There’s a directory for the Melee Animation Set that has sample animations for every sequence in that set, and so on for everything else that needs an example. I *never* leave gaps in reference for things like this.
  • Style guides. I include the style guides relevant to the race of creature he’ll be animating, so he can see the other members of that race, their size in relation to each other, and get a sense of their attitude.
  • Scale guide. I have a MAX file demonstrating the scale of the object in the world so the animator can get a better sense of scale and how to animate what it is I’m giving him.
  • FAQ. I’ve assembled a brief FAQ full of common questions I’ve been asked by my contractors. One very important note I’d like to make about the FAQ: It was a huge breakthrough to me to realize that every time I talk to one of my contractors to explain something or answer a question, I’m generating documentation. Everything I say is usable. So I just remember to write it down in one document, organize it, give it a coat of spit-shine, and my project is better-documented. 🙂 Documentation doesn’t have to be a big ugly mess that I have to sit down for hours and do… it can be incremental. (why answer the same question more than once?)

I have all these files set aside in a special ‘contractor kits’ directory under another subdirectory specific to them. For example in C:workcontractor_kits you would find Character_Art_Production_Kit, Animation_Production_Kit, Environment_Art_Production_Kit, etc. Zipped copies exist in each of these directories so any time I have a new hire, I simply copy and paste the ZIP and that’s everything they’ll need to know, in detail.

This is an awful lot of preparation and organizational work, but considering my circumstances (straddling art directorart managerproducerartist roles simultaneously) it saves me a LOT of time. Or, it will, once I finish putting all of them together. 🙂

To the contract smArtists out there — what kind of information and resources do you wish YOU had from your clients?

Outsourcing Management, smArt Management

Learning In Progress #5: Instant overview of contractor and budget information!

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Here’s a fun one: How do you keep track of a team of external artists?

First, define what needs to be tracked:

  1. Who’s working for me?
  2. What do they do?
  3. Are they active?
  4. How much are they being paid?
  5. What contracts are they working on?
  6. What date was that contract started?
  7. Has the contract been signed?
  8. Have they finished the work?
  9. Have they invoiced for the work?
  10. Have they been paid for the work?
  11. How much money am I spending?

This is a dizzying amount of information to keep track of, on top of simply managing everything they do at a low level. So what do I do? Click the jump to read more! Continue reading Learning In Progress #5: Instant overview of contractor and budget information! →

Outsourcing Management, smArt Management

Outsourcing a lot of tiny stuff made easier

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I have a handy tip for building a contract made up of lots of very small quick-to-make items with a fast turnaround, like icons. I only do this with long-term contractors that I’ve built a trusting relationship with.

Let’s say you want to outsource small icon art. Say $50 per icon for 75 icons. That makes $3750. It’s perfectly logical to break it down into the exact number of icons you need and pay them for each one, right? Of course. It makes even more sense to build this directly into the terms of the contract itself, doesn’t it? Naturally!

But what happens if, in the middle of the contract, you decide you only need 71 icons? Or 77? You have to quickly cobble something together for them to do, amend the contract, or add something onto the next contract, or create a new contract just for the overage. You can waste a huge amount of time trying to fix it in any one of these ways.

But I have a simple way around it — roll it into one bulk price. It’s a very simple three-step process:

  1. Itemize it. Figure out exactly to the number how many assets you need: 75 icons.
  2. Price it. Negotiate a fair rate for each asset: $50 per icon.
  3. Bulk it. Multiply the number by the price, come up with a total, and make that price one flat, flexible unit: $3,750 for approximately 75 icons.

You MUST specify carefully how much above or below that number ‘approximately’ is so no one takes advantage of the other. In this case, I think a cap of plus two or minus four icons is acceptable. Be ethical. This is supposed to save time renegotiating and amending contracts for you and your contractor, and is NOT to give you a tool to get more for your money. First and foremost, be a decent human and respect your people so they’ll want to keep working for you.

This has been a useful tool for me to save time with my contractors when I’m outsourcing really simple, small stuff whose numbers change constantly. Whenever I can, I make sure to keep the absorption even on both sides. “Whoops, I only need 72 instead of 75. That cool?” and “Crap, I need 76 instead of 75. That cool?” And never let it get too one-sided. You’re people, you’ve been working together for a while and you trust each other. “Hey dude, yeah, sure, I’ll get this one. It’s cool.”

If you abuse this to take advantage of a contractor, you are an asshole. This will bite you in the ass, and please stop reading my site. 🙂

Artist Career Tips, Outsourcing Management, smArt Management, smArtist thoughts

4 Tips on Making More Money as a Contractor

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Want to know how to make more money as a contractor? Here are some tips.

  1. Be fast. Show me you can produce good work quickly. Don’t drag your heels and always make sure to underpromise and overdeliver. If you think it’ll take a day, tell me two and get it to me sooner than that. I’ll think, “Wow, this guy is fast!” It’s vitally important to manage the perception of you and your work speed. Other ways you can do this is by immediately addressing concerns, changes and assignments and finishing them as quickly as you can. Who doesn’t like speedy service?


  2. Show me what I’m getting for my money. Make everything look as polished as possible whenever you can, even if it’s an early WIP. If it’s concept art, a cool and stylish background will do wonders for presentation. Even if it’s ugly, make it look like it’s not. Find a way to add style and flair to everything you send me. Small coats of polish lend a feel of professionalism and value. Don’t expect to be paid more just because you want to be paid more. Show me where my money’s going. Make me feel like I’m getting a bargain for what you have to offer and the cool-as-hell way you offer it. Who doesn’t like being dazzled?


  3. Remember that I am a CUSTOMER and you are a BUSINESS. Deal with me accordingly and focus on the kind of customer service YOU like to get out of a business. Act professionally, be responsive, meet or exceed my expectations and make me feel valued. Just because I work for a company bigger than yours (you) doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate or deserve that kind of treatment. Treat me right and I’ll reward you for it. I do give raises. Who wouldn’t reward a company that treats them well with more business?


  4. Do something special, just for me. Nothing I can use, necessarily, just bait. If you think I’m interested, or you want me to be interested, make a test asset in the style of my game. This will show that not only can you do the work, but that you WANT to. You’re so motivated to work for me that you’re ALREADY making stuff that I’d like! Never, ever spend too much time on this, and don’t give it away for free. When done correctly and intelligently, this is a VERY strong message to send to a potential employer. It’s worked on me before. 🙂 Who wouldn’t be flattered?