General Question For Independent 3d Artists/Modellers

#1 Ryan you are asking a somewhat generic question that will only give a generic answer: 'Charge what you need to charge to live and what you think that your skills and talents are worth.'

With that said you can charge based on two methods, an hourly rate and a flat rate.

The hourly rate can be anywhere from 20 to 200 dollars per hour, this of course depends on where you live (the Cost of Liviing), who the client is, what the going rate is in your area, how much of a rush the job is, what their budget is and of course how good you are. Getting people to accept an hourly rate is usually difficult and even more so if you don't have a lot of experiance and projects to wow them with.

The Flat Rate is essentially based on your guesstimate after meeting with the clients. You figure out how long it will take you and then multiply that by hour hourly rate (though this number will be slightly lower since you know you will be getting X many hours of work) and then by a 'fudge factor' variable (this is to cover your butt in case something takes longer than it should or if you get the impression that the clients are picky or perhaps slow, etc.). The variable for fudging is anywhere from 15% extra and upwards (you decide).

With that in mind you need to remember ultimately that people will be looking at your experiance doing this stuff if they are going to deal with you. So if you lack experiance do some volunteer work or get a job. If you want to make some money modeling for Indie game, I unfortunately must burst the bubble and say that that wont happen, Indie games do not have the money to spend up front on an artist and if they did they will use the most experianced people from the community.


Logan

PS: I am surprised and mortified that your program did not cover this subject or the very basics of business management. I would make this comment to your course coordinator so that they can correct it for future classes.

#2 Before you start worrying about how much you should get paid, worry about if someone will hire you in the first place.

First, build your portfolio. A personal website is fine. You can also edit your GG profile and add some work samples.