budgeting questions

Uh oh, budgets. Thats always a fun thing to do. :D

There is no straight forward answer for budgeting, becuase there are so many variables. Thampson, a good start is following what Phacker said. Another good idea is what you've already done with the Guild book. Get a rough starting point of what things will cost. Then get ALL the info from your client. This means: what is the story like? Do they have all the stories or do you have to come up with them? How many characters? Is it action packed or dialogue driven? Do you have to design the characters? What about vehicles? Do you have to design those too? Do you have to paint all the BGs? Do you have to storyboard all the episodes? Is the dialogue already recorded? What about color schemes? How detailed are the characters?

All these things need to factor into your budget. Once you get all the details, do a rough estimate of how long you think you can do it in, and how much you are willing to get paid an hour to work. Now double BOTH of those figures and that should be a good budget to present to your client.

Once they agree to the time scale and budget, get half the money up front, a quarter of it when all the character designs, animatic and about a quarter of the rough animation is done. And then you get the rest when you deliver the final animation.

Also get them to sign off on work that you have done, befor you move onto the next stage. For instance, have them sign off once you get all the character designs and turn arounds done, BEFORE you move on to any animation. Write it in to your contract, and DO write up a contract, that if they change something after they have signed off on something that you charge them extra to fix it, and stick too it, don't let them slide.

I hope this helps you out some, and I hope this works out for you. One little personal note. I find that the cheaper the client, the more nit picky they tend to be. Just alittle heads up.

-The Ape