Why are the artists flakes...?
hmm. Honestly, for many it's their nature. You have a lot of traditionally trained and experienced artists who either can't or won't limit themselves by size or pallete color.
You have many of the new-wave artists who are all about the computer, but a big problem with many of them is they're to reliant on filters and effects. Also you'll find that many of them lack basic design and work skill that you need...essentially Photoshop Abstract Trendwhores.
Need a fleshy sphere with steel claws, tentacles and oodles of sharp-edged glowing shapes. No problem. Ask them to draw you a tree and you're screwed.
Out of all the things I've ever done or tried to do, the single hardest thing was rolling up my sleaves and attempting to do GameBoy graphics.
For many people, drawing a character in a 32x32 square is like asking a writer to make you a short story without using adjectives and articles.
They just can't do it. They can't visualize it and they can't actualize it (I sound like a fucking motivational speaker).
And to get it to look GOOD, hell that's another thing all together.
So from my experience a lot of people just can't do the small, low color graphics...for whatever reason. A lot of people can't focus on a project that occurs over the Internet (they need someone in their face all the time). And a lot of people just can't draw or animate as well as you think (or they think) they can.
Hell, I'm one! My character drawing skills are sad to boderline pathetic...I'm working on them though. My animation chops have dropped through the floor as well, but again...working on it.
I've had a lot of experience in game-mods and homebrew projects, usually I'm on the art team, sometimes the lead. If I were to offer advice, it'd probably be:
1) Be an asshole early.:
When things are fresh and new and easy going, people love to work. When things get old and stagnant and annoying...people magically disappear. Coincidentally, that period happens at the most difficult portion of the development cycle.
Try to weed out the weak by making the first few days a little hectic. Ask for short development cycles, be critical of the work if it warrants criticism. If they stick with you, give them a little more leash and let them enjoy. You'll know that your chances of them sticking around for the duration are much better than average.
Set deadlines for art submission, if they fail to meet it, let them hear about it. Don't go off the deep end, no one likes being chewed out by someone who is paying them nothing, but set the tone for the project. Let them know that they volunteered to do the work. Try to appear concerned, ask them if they can really spare the time to work on the project. If they say 'yes' then let them know that you appreciate them giving you their time, but the deadlines serve an important purpose of keeping everyone working. He wouldn't like it if the game was 80% done and the programer disappeared. If they say 'no', thank them for the time they put in. Remember that person, never let him work on your team again.
While some people may thing it's unnecessary or taking away the fun from something that supposed to be fun...it's just a test. You wouldn't let someone join up on thier word that they can animate characters, would you? Of course not, you'd ask to see some samples. Same premise. Of course it's all in fun and everyone should have a good time, but it will eventually become a hassle. I promise you that. You need to have a team that will stick it out to the very end. Better to find out early than much later on.
2) Don't be afraid of being professional:
There's a reason people act the way they do in a buisness environment. Contrary to popular belief, it's not always because of some old stodgy white dude's rules. Many times it's because it makes the work more productive, makes the final product better and makes the work easier.
That's right, beleive it or not, having a regularly scheduled meeting that everyone is expected to attend save so much time and hassle it's amazing. One day a week, everyone figure out what is good for them. Anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour. Every one tells everyone else where they are and what they've been doing. Keeps everyone on the same page and the flow of information going. Everyone in IRC for a few.
Emails are great too. If possible, daily. At the bare minimum of twice a week not counting the IRC meeting.
And with all that, my grand rule. BE HONEST. If you didn't do anything, don't lie about it. Say you didn't do anything and tell them why. Hopefully if working on the project is something you really want to do, the excuse will be more than adequate. If it isn't, then maybe you really don't want to work on it.
One of the single most damaging pieces of information to any project like a homebrew game is the "Assumed Level Of Completetion" where everyone gets together and says 'Okay, Blaine says he has all the characters except Drunken Shaolin Briggs and Dr. DIY Von McDoogle. Dave has half the code done, Bob has about a quarter of the sounds done and Eric is about done tweaking the animation. That makes us about 60% done!!!'...when in reality Blaine only has one character done and doesn't even have sketches for the other ones, Dave spent the week building a Supergun and the code is still at 30%, Bob has no idea how to convert the audio to a raw format and Eric moved to Guam and no longer has a computer.
So when that house of cards falls, and it will fall, that 'yay we're half done' mode quickly turns to 'what the fuck!! we're no where near done'. The death of the project will soon follow.
and
3) No one here is Miyamoto:
Essentially, people are not ALLOWED to wear many hats. If one person is really good at coding, let him code. It doesn't matter if he can draw too. Whatever he does best, have him do that. PERIOD.
Having one dude doing three people's job will either produce shoddy work, drive that person to insanity, or just make him hate the project and quit (a fourth option is he succeeds at it with flying colors, immediately realizes what he's doing, and gets a job working at Planet Moon on the sequal to GIANTS.). In all scenarios not only is a member lost, but quite possibly all the work he has done up to that point.
So get someone to do the programing, maybe more if you need more. But that's it...they program.
Now, if you do have someone with killer Kung Fu at several things, don't neglect to use him, BUT, DO IT AFTER HE'S FINISHED HIS MAIN JOB. Remember that, maybe write it down somewhere. CTRL+C and then CTRL+V. Got it? Good. If your artist can do music, whenever the art is TOTALLY DONE, then see if he wants to help out the musician. Don't set aside the music for him, find someone else to do it until he can help. You never know what may happen, he may just reach his fill of everyone and doesn't want to do anything else. That's fine.
When you're not paying the personelle, don't be afraid to minimize thier work load. The man already contributed. If he does the sound as well, he'll be doing twice as much as everyone else. If he chooses that later on...fine, but don't let people accept it first thing.
Hopefully that's a little helpful for anyone who's gonna try to get something together.
If I come off sounding preachy or anything...sorry, but I've dealt with so many different games/mods/websites/magazines etc. that have never seen completion it makes me fucking sick.
These are just tips I have from personal experience, maybe I'm right maybe I'm not. But just keep it in mind, either way.