Does TSR pay artists?

In short, yes, we pay all creators a cash payment who are awarded one of our artist badges!

So that we can bring you the community's very best content, we keep some 200 or so badged artists supported for what they continue to bring to our site daily. We don't expect them to do that for free. It works well for everyone:

it lets people earn some extra cash
it encourages people to keep creating for a game they might no longer play
it ensures our site offers more of the best content than any other site
it ensures we have in the region of 700 new downloads every single week!
and, instead of you having to pay individual artists, one small payment gives you unrestricted access to all content from all badged artists the moment it's released

What do they earn?

Every Featured Artist is paid individually based on:

the complexity of content they create (for example, painting some new makeup or creating a new hair mesh will attract very different pay rates)
how much we need the content type
the skill level of the artist
the quantity and quality of their work (we apply EA's standards for texture sizes and polygon counts)

Pay does vary greatly based on these parameters. Select Artists are paid a small amount as they're just starting out on their artist journey and can typically reach up to $200 a month, but everyone who becomes a Select Artist does so because we've seen their potential as a Featured Artist one day. Featured Artists are paid more depending on what they create and how much demand there is for the creation type, with some earning around $1000 or more a month for more complex creations such as 3D meshing if the quality is top-tier.

To read more about our badged artists and how to become one, see Becoming a badged artist.

How are they paid?

We issue payments through PayPal. We regret we're no longer able to support payments through any other method.

Payments aren't taxed at source so artists are responsible for their own tax affairs.