My Artist Left Me (And Took Half My Budget)

It all started a few months ago. I was at a point where I thought my chess management/teaching game was pretty much ready for a demo. Every system and mechanic was fully implemented; all that was left to do was find people for sound and art.

My programmer already knew a sound designer. After a few calls and looking over his previous work on Simpler Times, we quickly agreed on the scope of the job and the pay.

For the visuals, I reached out to an artist I had previously worked with during an internship at an ad agency. After a few video calls, he was on board. We agreed on a very generous budget for the basic art needed for the demo—which amounted to about 40 assets.

He asked for a 50% advance payment, and I gladly obliged. My game was finally getting published! I was incredibly excited to get a feel for the actual demand in this simulation/management chess niche.

The Waiting Game

After a few team video calls, we decided to wait for the art assets to be finished before adding the sound effects. In the meantime, the sound guy focused on some music sketches in the jazz, hip-hop, and old-school gaming genres.

Months passed, and we received very few sketches. When I confronted the artist, he told me he wasn’t feeling well and was experiencing burnout.

“Take your time, get better,” I told him. “But we do need those assets, because otherwise, we can’t make any progress.”

Around this time, I posted in a Facebook group for indie devs asking for advice. Almost everyone responded saying it sounded like a scam. I wasn’t convinced, though. I chose to trust the relationship and assumed I would eventually get the assets.

Another month went by with nothing to show but a few rough sketches. Attempting to stay productive, I focused on polishing everything I could control: the story, the dialogue, and the lessons. Meanwhile, the programmer and I worked on enhancing our existing mechanics.

A Glimmer of Hope

A few weeks later, the artist finally started making progress. I told him I could really use the chess pieces and the board assets to promote the game on our Facebook page—posting regular puzzles using the in-game art. Every bit of promotion helps, right?

The artist told me he would try, but warned that we needed to hurry up because he had other projects lined up. I laughed and said, “Yeah, you know, tell yourself to hurry up, ’cause we’re all waiting on you.” He laughed, too.

Soon after, he sent over the chess pieces and the board. I liked how they looked. The three of us—myself, the programmer, and the artist—hopped on a call for about an hour to discuss exactly how they needed to be exported so they could be integrated into the next weekly build. We left the meeting with a solid plan.

I was in heaven. Finally, my game was going to have actual assets. I was finally seeing a clear picture of what I was building.

The Ultimatum

The excitement didn’t last long. Mid-week, I got an email from my programmer: the files hadn’t been exported properly and couldn’t be inserted into the build.

When I reached out to the artist, he admitted he knew about the problem and said it was an easy fix—but he wouldn’t hand over the corrected files until he received the second half of the payment.

I was bewildered. I pulled out the art tracker I had made at the start of the project. Out of 38 required assets, only 6 had been made, and none of them had actually been successfully tested in-game yet. How could I pay the remaining 50% when so little was done? I counter-offered: finish half of the actual assets, and I’ll send the rest of the money.

He argued that our initial agreement was that the first half of the money covered concepts and sketches, while the second half covered the actual painting and finishing. I completely disagreed. While I remembered him saying that conceptualization was the hardest part for him, there was no way I would have agreed to pay out the entire budget before getting a single working asset into the game.

He claimed I wasn’t serious about the project, told me he was stopping the collaboration immediately, and asserted that he would be keeping the rights to everything he had drawn so far.

I pointed out that even by his own logic, he hadn’t finished the first stage. We didn’t have concept sketches for everything in the demo—just one UI element, a few characters, and the pieces. At most, that covered half of the concept phase.

No answer.

The Silver Lining (And a Harsh Reality)

The truth is, I was already quietly looking for another artist. Ever since he joined the project, our momentum had completely stalled.

Before his arrival, the programmer and I had a fantastic rhythm. We made progress every week, held long discussions about the game’s direction, and consistently hit our goals—me writing and testing, him coding. Every bit of my free time went into this game. But once the art delays started, I found myself waiting around, slowly stopping my own work altogether.

On top of the slow pace, the artist had already mentioned that he would be demanding more money if we continued working together past the demo. I was already prepared to let him go.

Still, the situation left a terrible taste in my mouth. Did I really agree to pay everything upfront? It’s hard to imagine I would have agreed to that, even if I’d had a few beers before our late-night video calls.

Anyway, life goes on. I told the programmer we’d find someone else. In the meantime, we decided to force the unoptimized chess pieces into the game anyway, just to see how they looked.

Boy, it was bad. Really bad.

The pieces looked incredibly cool as standalone art, but on a digital board, they were completely unreadable. You couldn’t tell what was happening. They were totally unusable for an actual chess game.

Lessons Learned

So, after spending half my art budget and losing months of development time, here I am: back to the drawing board. Literally.

But lesson learned. Next time, I will be crystal clear about milestones and deliverables, and I will put everything in writing.

It’s exactly the kind of corporate bureaucracy I wanted to avoid for a passion project. I wanted this to feel like a group of friends getting together to build something they believe in. Luckily, that is still the vibe with my programmer and sound guy. They do their parts, they deliver, and they get paid their fair share.

As for the art? The search begins again.