An informative guide for crushing dreams.
There are a lot of people who send us messages about joining the art staff of Neurogalaxy. They often send us items they've made and clothing they've drawn in order to entice us into hiring them. While we do genuinely appreciate those who want to help us, we have never hired anyone this way and probably never will.
If you want a short answer, you aren't good enough. There are a lot of deep misconceptions about the position in general that I've seen in about 100% of the people who want the job. Let me just clear some of those up right now.
I can draw whatever I want!
Well, yes, you are physically able to do that. You can draw whatever you want for NG as an Artist. But the question is, will it get used? More often then not, no. You can design NPCs, pet enchantments, items, whatever you want, but it's not up to you if they get used. If you make a ton of items and other nonsense based on your original characters, it will more than likely be outright rejected.
You don't decide what you work on. The admins tell you what to draw. If you don't do the work assigned to you, you're out.
It's easy to draw this stuff!
Right? Mercenary clothing has to be the simplest thing ever. Just some quick shading, aaaand done! Anyone can do this!
Sorry, but no. Mercenary clothing has a VERY strict set of rules in terms of color palette and shading style. In fact, the only people who can do it are Chiru and Kiaryi. Yeah, that's right; they're the only ones who can draw the clothing items. The process isn't simple, either. It involves a lot of resizing, shading, layer shenanigans and is very time-consuming.
Recoloring is super easy, I can do that!
Recoloring involves carefully picking out colors from existing items by looking through hundreds of clothes that exist on the site before any editing is done. It is an extremely tedious process, so no, you can't just choose colors by playing with the hue.
I can just draw items or pets, then!
There is no person on staff who only does one thing. Tyriel did programming and wrote book excerpts. Sgtdroopy wrote Lloud's stories and is working on updated the FAQ in addition to moderating. I won't even get into all the crap that the assistant admins do, lordy. My point is, you need to be multi-talented. Someone who can only draw pets or items is much less useful than someone who can do them both and more.
I can design clothes and NPCs and stuff too!
We really don't need any more people telling us what to draw. Our Artists can come up with clothes well enough on their own. We don't really need designers for NPCs, since none of them are especially deep or unique. They have some clothes, and some personality, and making those things isn't really a skill that we need an entire separate person to do.
Well... I'll work for free!
Not a single person has ever said this and been able to reproduce Neurogalaxy's style or meet our standards of quality. (If you've got the skill to get a job with us, you should really aim a bit higher than NG anyway.)
What? My art isn't BAD!
It probably isn't. But like I said, we have a standard of quality and a particular style that we adhere to with all of our items, mercenary clothes and pets.
Take a look at these two items; one from Subeta and the other from Neurogalaxy. They are vastly different, anyone should be able to tell that. One is brightly colored, and one has more small detail. But there are other things, too. The line width, the pose, the size, the palette; they are all carefully picked in both instances. It's not enough to be a good artist, you have to understand the things you are drawing. Everything it means, and everything it is.
That's what it means to be a professional artist.
That's so mean!
And that's why you won't work for NG. Nothing I've said was insulting; only a painful truth. I'm sorry if I've hurt any feelings, but these things need to be said. You can't take things like that personally if you want to have a job as an artist. Quite frankly, your career will be full of people ripping your art apart with critique. You need to have a good sense of humor or you'll be trampled.
This is a job, an actual profession, not a daycare.
You can be the most amazing artist in the world and still be fired for having a rotten attitude. It is like that in just about any job you take. Your skill will ALWAYS be second in the workplace to how well you can get along with the people around you. If you argue with the staff, or throw a fit, or complain too much then you WILL be fired.
None of that applies to me! I'm a great artist and a great person!
We don't hire out of the community. Applications are submitted to us through Agoge Inc.
