// Why Work With Us

NO AGENCY
MARKUP.
NO RUNAROUND.

We’re a collective of self-motivated freelancers and art school graduates who decided to stop waiting for the industry to notice us and started building something ourselves. When you brief BIG BACK, you’re working with a small production team that keeps things moving and artists who stay closely involved from start to finish — not a chain of account managers relaying notes back and forth.

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// The Honest Version

WE BUILT
THIS
OURSELVES.

BIG BACK started simple with commissions coming in and work getting split between friends who were good enough to do it. What began as one person routing jobs to people they trusted turned into something with a name, a direction, and a real question: why are we all doing this separately?

The idea behind BIG BACK has always been two things at once. A platform that gives talented artists a place to actually work — not just grind portfolios and cold-apply into the void — and a studio that gives clients access to that talent without the agency markup or the account manager in the middle. Through BIG BACK, artists get paid, clients get quality, and nobody gets a middleman.

We’re still growing into that vision. But the foundation is already there: a group of artists who trust each other, a pipeline that works, and a genuine belief that the best way to do good work is to make sure the people doing it actually want to be there. Every client project funds that. Every artist we bring in grows it.

17+
Artists in the Collective
6-7
Client Projects
100%
Direct Artist Contact
// What You’re Actually Getting

THE CASE
FOR BIG BACK.

Four things that separate working with us from hiring a solo freelancer or a large agency. Neither extreme is the right fit for every project.

01
Short Chains, Real Access

No stacked account managers, no creative director playing telephone between you and the person with the pen. Your producer keeps the project organized and on schedule, and you always have a direct line to the artist doing the work. Feedback loops are shorter. Revisions land faster. Work improves without the usual friction.

02
Collective Breadth, Not Just One Pair of Hands

Solo freelancers are great until your concept artist can’t also do the 3D prop work. BIG BACK Studios spans multiple disciplines — concept, illustration, character, environment, and prop art – so your project doesn’t stall when it crosses a skill boundary. We figure it out together.

03
Hungry Beats Comfortable

Established studios have established clients and established client pecking orders. You won’t always be at the top. With BIG BACK Studios, every project matters because we’re still proving ourselves. That’s not a weakness. That’s the whole point. You get artists who treat your brief like it’s their own.

04
Agency Quality. Not Agency Overhead.

We came up learning the same pipelines, software, and production standards as every other working artist, just without the layers of management that inflate an agency invoice. What you’re paying for is the work and the people making sure it lands on time, not a corporate structure built to justify itself. Competitive rates that don’t cut corners on craft.

// Real Questions

THE STUFF
YOU’RE
WONDERING.

We’d rather you ask these before we start than find out the hard way mid-project. No deflection here, just the honest answers to the things clients actually want to know.

Fair question. The short answer is: our training is the same as everyone else’s. We studied the same software, the same pipelines, and the same production standards as artists already working in the industry. The difference is we haven’t accumulated a decade of bad habits either. What you’re getting is craft that’s fresh, attentive, and with something to prove, which tends to produce better output than artists phoning it in on their fifteenth similar project. We’d also point you to our work and let that speak first.
We’ll tell you honestly upfront. We’d rather scope a project correctly and deliver it well than overcommit and underdeliver. For larger projects, we scope carefully, agree on deliverable phases, and build in checkpoints so you always know where things stand. We’re also a growing collective, which means our capacity grows too. If a project is beyond us right now, we’ll say so rather than wing it.
Yes. We deliver in whatever format your pipeline needs: layered PSDs, engine-ready assets, proper naming conventions, the works. We’ll ask about your target platform, engine, and spec requirements at the start of every project, not at the end. Delivery is part of the craft, not an afterthought.
You’ll have one point of contact per project — usually a producer coordinating the work, sometimes the lead artist directly, depending on project size. Either way, that person always has real context on the work and can speak to it directly. You’ll know exactly who you’re talking to and what they’re responsible for, and you’ll never be routed through a chain of people relaying your notes secondhand.
This is scoped per project rather than a blanket number, because a single illustration and a 40-card pack have very different revision dynamics. We’ll be upfront about what’s included in any quote. We build in structured feedback rounds at key milestones (sketch, refined, final) so revisions happen at the right stage and don’t cascade into expensive late-stage rework. Our goal is that you’re happy with the direction before we invest time in polish.
Right now: concept art (character, environment, prop), illustration (key art, splash art, card art, marketing), and 3D environment and prop art. Character modelling and rigging are in our pipeline as the collective grows. If you need something we don’t cover yet, we’ll say so, and we’d rather point you somewhere better than stretch beyond our current capability.
We quote per project after understanding the full scope: asset count, complexity, turnaround, usage rights, and format requirements all affect the number. We won’t low-ball to win a brief and adjust upward mid-project. The quote you get is the quote you pay, unless the scope genuinely changes. Drop us a line with your brief and we’ll come back with a clear breakdown.
Yes. We’re comfortable signing NDAs before a brief is shared, and we understand that unannounced work stays unannounced. We won’t put something in our portfolio without permission. If confidentiality terms are important to you, flag it in your first message and we’ll make sure everything is documented properly before we start.
// Still on the fence?
JUST DROP
US A LINE.

No commitment, no intake form with forty fields. Tell us what you’re working on and we’ll tell you honestly whether we’re the right fit — and if we’re not, we’ll say so.

Send Us a Brief See Our Work First