[Hiring] Seeking an artist for black and white illustrations to accompany chapter headings and breaks for my novel. I’m hoping to establish a good working relationship with an artist. I decided to start with one of the most difficult requests first, and will pay $100-150 for the initial 4.5” wide 6” high image. I am willing to negotiate. Images must be clear and small enough to be printed in a paperback book. I will provide specific details to the selected artist.

Novel's setting: Primarily swamps, mangroves, and forests. Most chapter art will not need a background, but several pictured scenes will. Most of the book is outside in nature with fewer sections in cities like ancient Teotihuacan, or villages with mudbrick or wattle and daub huts with thatched roofs. There is no iron or steel, and very limited copper, gold and silver. The novel is set in the copper age. There are no wheels. People journey with travois, coracle, dugout canoe, horse, indricotherium, and daeodon. As one does.

Visualized Characters: characters will look like people from all over planet earth. Some may look marginally red, yellow, blue, or green, which may be irrelevant with black and white chapter art. Most will appear human, but a few will have pointed ears, horns, tusks, elongated canines, etc. Non-human traits are usually fairly minimalized. Green people are just barely green. Like not really green green. A person with horns… tiny horns. Like pinky length at most. Some characters ornament themselves with feathers, claws, beaks, teeth, tattoos, scarifications, and piercings. Most wear Aztec/Maya-inspired clothing with inspiration from ancient dress from all around the world. Breechcloths, cloaks, cotton armor, tunics and dresses. They wear hides, leather, linen and cotton. High status/wealthy characters use better fabrics, more colors/designs. The wealthy use footwear. Many cultures in the book don’t mind nudity, but that can’t be visible in the book’s art. They use spears, javelins, atlatl, bone/stone knives, and obsidian-lined clubs, and slings. Hair length is an enforced class symbol.

Content of Images: There are four Perspective characters in my book. When the book takes on their point of view, I want that chapter to have an image representing them. Maybe full body or bust, along with an item or two representing them. I will send a list of items to choose from, such as an animal, a house symbol, a goddess they worship, tribe affiliation, items they use frequently, and some personality attributes/facial expressions that fit them. So that’s four POV character images, and then five tribes, five noble houses, nine deity images, nine object images, nine character images, and four scene images. Eventually I will need a cover artist. My plan is to finish revising/editing, try to get the book published, and self publish if I can’t get it published. I DO NOT WANT AI ART. My book has been created over decades without AI involvement. I don’t want AI in the art.

Timeline: I’m not terribly pressed for time, and I can’t do it all at once because of money.

The Artist: I will look at what you have done, and if I like it, I will pay for an initial piece of art. If it looks good to me, then we will move ahead on additional images. I may have more than one artist work on it if I need to, but I’d prefer to just work with one person or as few as possible.

My usage: My plan is to pay you and have copyright ownership of the art. If I use it, I plan to acknowledge you in the book by name and title or whatever the usual method is. I don’t mind putting in a link or something, as long as it’s not a problem for publishers. If I don’t use it, you still got paid, and you still have my thanks. My plan is to do my best to get my book published, pictures and all. If publishers don’t want it, I will self publish, pictures and all. I have heard that chapter art has a cost that is higher than regular words on the page, and it may be prohibitive. I don’t intend to do anything with the art other than put it into specific places in my book.

Your usage: I don’t mind you showing off the art you made. I might have you put a disclaimer next to it “made for X book.” or something like that. I’m not sure how these things normally work, and am open to discuss it all. I do have a contract to look over too, but again, I’m open to discuss and change it with the right artist.