I've got a game design, Now What?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I recently came up with a Yu-Gi-Oh/Pokemon/Magic type card game. My nephews have test played it and like it and as soon as I draw up some sort of non-disclosure, “we won’t copy it” type agreement for their parents to sign, I’m going to make a couple decks for my nephews’ friends to try.
I started it just to get an idea out of my head and onto paper, but now I’m halfway conviced it could be somewhat successful. My problem? I have no artistic talent to properly design the cards and no money to take it any further then I have. So, fellow dopers, any suggestions on what to do next, how to proceed?

Thanks in advance-DESK

2

I played the original Steve Jackson Illuminati card game. There weren’t any designs on the cards to speak of. They were all black and white with text and arrows. You could go that route.

If you are dead set on doing some type of artwork on the deck (face and back) you will need a graphical artist (especially for a big mass produced backing). They typically don’t charge too much and you can reuse it as much as you like. They may have some type of licensing agreement that you have to pay them when you start adding expansions or to modify the picture for expansions. I was looking into artwork for an album cover for a recording project and the graphical artist was going to charge about 200 bucks as a flat rate for a logo type of design that I was going to feature. I haven’t run through it yet.

Artwork for the facepart of the cards may be completley different. I would expect that the artists would do something similar as the original one. You can always commission those folk and say you want X number of drawings that reflect the essence of these cards and see what they put in. You should always be able to decline if they aren’t good or what you expected. However, you will still likely pay for their initial investment in time.

If you need to find artists, the local colleges will likely have some very talented students who would likely do it a bit cheaper than the professional graphical artist. Students can be flakey though so you should screen them more than you would by going through an agency.