Just find something beautiful and take a picture, like a cloud formation or a vantage point looking at a bridge, or something like that.
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Wow thank you so much for all your insightful sharing. Especially the point on the design tri factor of cost, time and quality. @Consgay’s guide was definitely very helpful and it does put things into perspective.
@mjhuntley thank you for sharing the designer’s perspective as well! your work is definitely incredible! And I can only imagine the amount of time and effort put into creating those pieces. Wow.
@Eric_Moser thanks for sharing your experiences with getting cover art done. I totally agree on the point about cover art being really important in helping you stand out within what is already a crowded niche marketplace. And also to compete for attention with all those snazzier games with cool graphics.
Looking at everything as a whole, it does seem that a lot of the design process comes down to the relationship between the client (us) and the designer. And that definitely makes a lot of sense.
Also, I believe that HGs don’t make a ton of money -> does anyone have a ball park figure of how an average one would do? And of course, the differences between pay to play and completely free HGs (in terms of the revenue models) But I digress and I apologise.
But having such a limited revenue means that HGs are put in a relatively poor financial position to hire great designers. Which probably is why the current cover art can come off as ‘amateur’ and all that.
Its indeed a really difficult situation. With no quick solution. But something I think MIGHT work would be to commission a work and getting non-exclusive rights (so that the artist may publish the work elsewhere and earn money too). Or to be on the other end of that equation and use pre-existing work with non-exclusive rights. Correct me if I’m wrong!
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Thanks for the compliments on my work @nauhziy I really appreciate it!
You’ve got it spot on. Pay for limited rights (such as the rights for electronic gaming purposes only, leaving merchandise and physical products) or find an already completed piece and license it.
It also helps if you’re commissioning something that the artist is really into anyway. If they can take what would otherwise be a normal job and turn it into a super cool portfolio piece, that’s something they can get more mileage out of. I’ve offered reduced rates in the past when such perfect projects come along. Usually the artist gets more creative freedom in those instances as well.
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I believe it is very variable. Even between the two published projects I was involved with there seemed to be a significant difference in how well it sold. It also depends on if you are going for ad supported or a pay to play app and subject matter/length/reviews also seem to have a significant effect.
I’m pretty sure COG has said some projects have not made back the money they’ve invested in them (about $1000) and since you’re going to get about 25% of that, it does mean as a worst case senario the return could be very low to the point that potentially you don’t even make back what you’ve spent on the art. On the other hand, I suspect more games would earn more than this, but I don’t know for sure, or what the exact figures are when averaged out.
IMO it is probably not a good idea to spend more than a few hundred at most on artwork unless money isn’t an issue for you. It also depends if you’re setting aside time to write hoping for some income in return, or if you make enough to cover the costs of artwork you’re happy. I’m not saying that the artists shouldn’t charge what they’re worth, because they definately should, but it does mean that more expensive commissions are probably not going to be used by most of the HG game authors around here.
Although I think nice artwork does really help, there are examples of very popular games that I think have used stock images or basic editing.
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@mjhuntley
Gotcha! Thanks for all the insightful comments! 
I’ll definitely start hitting up all my art school friends right about now hahaha. So you mentioned that you’re a professional designer? That’s really cool! I can only dream about the day when HGs start getting big enough to hire pros like you haha.
So just a quick question about creative freedom, what would you say is a good balance? As someone from a completely non aesthetic background, I really struggle with giving good artistic direction. On one hand I know its frustrating to ask someone to go through the entire thought process, but on the other, if I had to give a brief, it would probably be like “a triumphant masked gladiator after a fight, but in shackles”. But more often than not, when working in teams/projects, the designers have always been able to come up with wayyy cooler/nicer stuff that I had even envisioned. So tl;dr how do I get that?
@Jacic
Hmm, that all makes a lot of sense. And yes I have read that some projects haven’t made COG money too (and when you factor in the royalty rate, margins get even narrower)
This is definitely a valid point, and I’ll definitely have to do a bit of soul searching about this. I’m sure that ad supported pieces get much more volume but less revenue and the contrary should be about right for paid pieces. I’m also wondering how ad revenue works out like is it based on clicks or impressions or traffic.
But yes, personally the artwork is at least 50% of why I bother to click, and the other 50% would be the title. At least before reading the descriptions and all that. That’s why I think that artwork is definitely something I ought to invest in, but at this stage, I’m definitely still figuring out how much I ought to spend and what kind of direction I should take.
Thank you so much for the great answer though! (and the fan art 
That was awesome!!)
Throwing a plug in for a longtime friend of mine who will be doing the art for NPT, as I know he is interested in taking other commissions. He’s actually the same person who drew Nuclear Powered Toaster back when it was a webcomic as well, so he was always my first choice. Anyone who wants to get in touch with him, his e-mail is suizopedazos @ gmail.com (spacing it out to deter the spambots). Put “Hustler sent me” in the subject line so he’ll know you’re on the up and up.
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