I have been thinking about developing some Poser content to sell, but I want to commission the modeling work from a reliable artist.  I do know a little about modeling, but not enough to do a professional job.  I realize that this sort of thing always costs more than an amateur would expect, but I still really am not clear how much I am looking at.  Can any of you help to clarify this for me?

I'm guessing that if I don't ask a more specific question, everyone will ask me to be more specific, so lets take an example.  How much would it cost to commission just the modeling for a piece of clothing like this:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/ballgown-v4-a4-g4/90297

Looking forward to your answers, and please pardon me if this is a stupid question. :-)

I could hammer out a tri-poly, dynamic mesh without texture of that dress in under an hour.

But I wouldn't sell it to you so that you could sell it.  I would sell it myself, or enter a partnership with you if you wanted to texture it and/or retopo the thing into quads and rig it.

I don't think anyone is eager to model something only to part with it and watch someone else vend it in the marketplace infinately without getting a cut on the back end.

So, the hourly work I would probably ask for 20 dollars.  If you want to market it in the marketplace...I'd estimate that dress would probably sell about 100 units at minimum market price (5, right?) so that's 500 dollars split with RO that's 250 and I'm going to need 125 of that on top of my hourly....so

145 dollars gets you an untextured, ungrouped, unrigged tri-poly mesh of that dress.

A modeller might create a dress in a few hours, at rates from $10 to a few hundred dollars an hour.  To split materials, body parts and make it a conforming figure with the most common morphs add another few hours.

To sell a complete, working conforming clothing item would add a lot of money assuming transfer of copyright.  The person making it would have to consider all the sales he could make by selling it himself.

If you just want an obj file , to rig yourself it would be cheaper.

I believe a vendor sold off some of his product line at about 1200 - 1500 per figure but I could be wrong.

I think you need to clarify what you put into the deal, if anything.  If you had for example some design sketches for products then you could possibly go as partners with an existing vendor.

Something you need to consider, is the initial modelling is just that.. the beginning. You need to have additional morphs modelled for body styles, and might also include additional style morphs for various different styles.

Modelling is half the job, and sometimes you need to do additional modelling or grouping to make something conform properly, as well as adding additional geometry to make additonal morphs or slternate styles possible.

Honestly, IMHO if you can't model, you shouldn't consider making content.

It would be like saying you are a wood worker, and making furniture from a walmart partical wood boxed kit.

That said, Figure $20 an hour for the least expensive modeller you can hire. If it takes them 16 hours to do all the required work, thats a cost of $320.

Rendo takes 50% of the sales money, so that dress example you posted would have to sell more than 100 copies to break even... not make a profit mind you, just to pay for the modelling.

And you then have to do all the textureing, bump and /or displacement mapping and packaging and promo work.

And some products only sell a handful of copies. I recall a top name vendor who only sold 30 of a completely new rigged figure (something MUCH more complex), and months later ended up giving it away free because the sales were so dismal.

Its been said only the the top 20% of vendors can make a living doing this. if that is true, then consider what the bottom 50% are making.

Thanks for the feedback!  I really appreciate you taking the time to respond.

To clarify, in my example question I was only asking for what it would take to construct a .obj file.  I am aware that there are more steps to the process.  I may be able to handle them myself, or I may also consider farming some of those out as well, but the initial modeling is the minimum that I would like to hire someone else to do.  I need some idea of this cost as a starting point.

All of you have mentioned the possibility of a partnership between myself and the artist.  This is, of course, a perfectly good arrangement, but it has complications.  One entity has to collect the proceeds from the sales.  If that entity is either me or the artist, it leaves the other person in the position of having to trust the one collecting the money to give them their proceeds on a regular basis.  This does not appeal to me when dealing with total strangers, plus it is a pain for the person dealing out the money.  The other way to do this is to form a business together, but that is too much of a committment in my mind.

I would rather take the approach of paying a reasonable cost up front and taking my chances in the marketplace.  I think this is a better business model for my situation, because it is much simpler.  The artist must choose how much money will make it worth his time to release the copyright.  It is reasonable that releasing the copyright would increase the price, but you also have to consider the fact that there is value in getting a guaranteed amount of money for your work.  Selling in the marketplace has no guarantees.  I will be absorbing the risk of not earning back enough to make it worth my time or investment.

I would love to hear more responses, and if anyone has experience with this or with forming a partnership with an artist, I would love to hear about that as well.

Thanks again,

Quote - All of you have mentioned the possibility of a partnership between myself and the artist.  This is, of course, a perfectly good arrangement, but it has complications.  One entity has to collect the proceeds from the sales.

Unless you're planning to do your own selling, then the collecting entity will be the brokerage you sell through, and I'd be very surprised if they aren't setup to do the revenue split for multi-vendor items.

Ah!  Thank you nruddock!  Support for multi-vendor items had not occurred to me.  That would solve that problem quite nicely.  Now I need to find the answer to that question as well.

Attached Link: http://www.philc.net

I'm not affiliated with him in any way.  I have, however, bought several of his products and been very happy with them. 

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/service/index.php?categoryid=10

I'd suggest reading through the info in the FAQ on becoming a vendor here and/or the equivalent information provided by other brokerages.