Chapter 54: Scheming to Earn the Shop Owner's Money!
For now, everyone's assessment of these characters was: pretty cute, distinct traits, but no idea what kind of motley crew they were supposed to be...
This was within Chen Mo's expectations. If you looked at the characters divorced from the story, it would be a miracle if you could figure anything out.
Chen Mo asked, "Goldfish, if I had you finish these character concept arts, including detailing and coloring, about how long would it take? Doesn't need to be too refined; just follow the dimensions of my line drafts."
Su Jinyu thought for a moment. "Hmm... these cards aren't too complicated. Four or five days should be about right."
Chen Mo shook his head. "Three days."
"Huh?" Su Jinyu hesitated. "Three days isn't impossible, but the quality would definitely suffer."
Chen Mo said, "That's fine. For cards this small, displayed on a phone, a little less precision won't matter. Slightly lower quality is okay too; we can optimize them gradually later. Right now, the priority is to get the quantity out."
Su Jinyu nodded reluctantly. "Alright, I'll try my best."
Wen Lingwei said, "If it's just detailing and coloring, I can help too."
Chen Mo was taken aback. "Are you sure? These are official game assets. At the very least, players shouldn't be able to find any flaws."
Jia Peng reminded him, "Shop owner, senior sister is a legitimate art prodigy, you know. She takes on concept art commissions on the side."
Chen Mo suddenly understood. Right, Wen Lingwei and Jia Peng were all part of the school's publicity department. The publicity department regularly painted posters and made display boards. Without some hand-drawing and image-processing skills, how could they become department heads and deputies?
"Great, having you help out will save a lot of time," Chen Mo said.
Wen Lingwei gave a meaningful smile. "So, shop owner, how much are you planning to pay me? My concept art usually goes for five thousand a piece, and that's the friends-and-family price."
Chen Mo: "...I didn't realize you were such a big shot, huh?"
For card concept art like this, prices varied wildly depending on the artist's skill level. Some charged eight or nine hundred a piece, others eight or nine thousand, and some even more.
Of course, you get what you pay for. The work of a good artist versus an average one would definitely differ in composition, lighting, color, and so on.
For someone like Wen Lingwei to charge five thousand a card, even as a friends-and-family price, that was already the level of a moderately well-known artist.
Chen Mo said, "But that five-thousand friends-and-family price includes design, composition, and communication with the client, right? I've already got the line drafts here, and the dimensions are several times smaller than your usual concept art. You're just handling detailing and coloring. I'll give you two thousand. Deal?"
Wen Lingwei: "Cheapskate."
Chen Mo: "..."
Wen Lingwei said, "Fine. Since you're so pitiful, two thousand a piece, one piece every three days. But don't complain about the pace with just me and Goldfish."
Chen Mo looked at Jia Peng and Chang Xiuya. "If you two want to draw, you can also..."
Jia Peng quickly waved his hands. "We're nowhere near senior sister's level. At most, we could help with some basic monster cards. Don't leave the main character cards to us."
Chen Mo nodded. "That works. We'll need monster cards later anyway, so I can assign some to you. I'll pay you market rates."
Jia Peng waved dismissively. "No worries, money isn't important. Just give us whatever you think is fair."
Wen Lingwei raised an eyebrow. "Oh no, that won't do! The shop owner is loaded now. *Plants vs. Zombies* must be making him two million a month, right? He can spare a few thousand."
Jia Peng nodded. "Good point. Alright, market rates it is."
Chen Mo: "..."
Wen Lingwei continued, "And what about you and Goldfish? Don't tell me you're not paying her just because she's your assistant."
Chen Mo said, "Same as you, two thousand per card!"
Wen Lingwei nodded in satisfaction. "Mm, that's more like it."
Su Jinyu had been about to say she didn't need the money, but then she thought, why fight against cash? So she happily accepted.
Chen Mo was speechless. These people were really scheming to earn the shop owner's money!
Chen Mo roughly divided up the cards.
Su Jinyu and Wen Lingwei were both highly skilled artists, more than capable of handling the main character cards. Plus, communication with them was easy, so Chen Mo planned to assign the most important main character cards to them.
He also reserved some slots for the other students who could draw monster cards.
At a pace of one card every three days, it would take Wen Lingwei and Su Jinyu a ridiculous fifty-four days to finish all thirty-six main character cards. That was obviously too slow, especially since this was only part of the card pool—the total was over three hundred cards!
This was different from making *Plants vs. Zombies*. In that game, many zombies could be reused, and the plants were simple to draw. But in a card game, the cards were essentially the game itself. If they looked ugly, players wouldn't pay. Chen Mo dared not cut corners on this.
So, to compress the timeline, he would need to outsource the art.
Chen Mo asked Wen Lingwei and Su Jinyu, "Do you know any reliable art outsourcing companies?"
Wen Lingwei thought for a moment. "I know one. A few friends are artists there. Their skill level is decent."
Chen Mo nodded. "Good, give me their contact info. Oh, and do you know any animation production companies?"
Wen Lingwei and Su Jinyu both shook their heads. "We know a few, but no connections."
Chen Mo said, "Alright, that's fine. For now, just focus on finishing the main character cards I picked out."
Chen Mo turned and went upstairs.
Su Jinyu called after him, "Wait, shop owner, what type of game are we making next? Why do we need so many card concept arts?"
Chen Mo said, "Don't rush it. You'll find out in a few days."
...
Back on the second floor, Chen Mo was already feeling drowsy. It must be a side effect of the super accelerator.
Using the contact info Wen Lingwei had given him, Chen Mo got in touch with the person in charge of that art outsourcing company and discussed his needs.
Chen Mo would provide the line drafts, which would save on the costs of character design and line-drawing, and also shorten the timeline accordingly.
In the end, Chen Mo settled on a price of 2,200 per main character card and 600 per monster card.
Monster cards could be drawn more casually, so the price dropped significantly.
Estimating this way, the total cost for the full set of cards would be roughly 360,000 to 370,000.
Of course, some monsters could be slightly modified and reused, but no matter how much he squeezed, he couldn't get it below 300,000.
It was a lot of money, but Chen Mo didn't feel the sting. This was already as low as he could push it. Spending 350,000 to acquire a complete set of card assets was something he was fairly satisfied with.
Among these, Chen Mo assigned the seven key cards—Ai Mu Ti, Sha Man, Dai Zei, Lie Ren, Da Xiao Jie, Hui Zhang, and Da Da Jie—to Wen Lingwei and Su Jinyu. At a pace of one card every three days, it would take them a month to finish.
Su Jinyu also had to handle game design matters, so Chen Mo couldn't have her drawing cards all the time.
Additionally, Chen Mo allocated some monster cards to Jia Peng and the others, all at market rates.
The remaining cards were all handed over to the outsourcing company. Within two months, every single card would definitely be completed without exception.