When to start paying for art

The short answer: much later than most new designers think, and the trigger is your publishing path, not your enthusiasm. Art is one of the largest costs in making a game, with full illustration and graphic design for a mid-size game commonly running from a few thousand dollars into five figures, and art bought before the design is stable is money spent illustrating cards that may not survive.

If you plan to pitch publishers, the answer may be never. Publishers license your design, not your artwork, and they commission art themselves as part of development. Money spent on illustration for a publisher prototype is almost always wasted. What that prototype needs instead is clean, readable graphic design, which you can do yourself or hire cheaply.

If you plan to self-publish or crowdfund, art becomes essential, but only after the design is locked. The sequence that protects your money: finish iterating, run blind playtests, freeze the card list and component count, then commission art. A useful early exception is a single piece of key art, such as a cover or one signature illustration, which anchors the game's identity for marketing and helps you brief future artists. Some crowdfunders commission key art plus a handful of showcase cards for the campaign page and fund the rest of the art from the campaign itself.

Whenever you do spend, spend on graphic design before illustration. A game with clear layout and plain art plays better and pitches better than a game with gorgeous paintings and unreadable cards. Illustration sells the box, but graphic design makes the game work.