Build a Studio Inquiry Page for Concept Art Clients

A concept-art studio inquiry page is a structured "Work with me" form — separate from your portfolio's contact button — that collects a game studio's project type, budget range, deadline, deliverable count, and NDA status before you reply. It turns an open-ended "are you available?" email into a qualified lead you can quote from on the first response.

Most concept artists already have a portfolio site with a "contact me" box. That box treats a student asking for critique the same as a studio art director scoping a pitch-deck pass — both land as one generic email, and both get the same "thanks, tell me more" reply.

Disclosure and scope: FanBell publishes this guide and sells one of the tools it describes, so parts of it are product documentation for FanBell's brand inquiry form. The field checklist and the tool-neutral build path below work with any form builder, and every section that documents FanBell's own product is labelled as such. Last reviewed September 2026.

Copy this studio inquiry form template

The fastest build path is to paste the intake template below into any form builder and publish it at its own URL. The template is tool-neutral, runs on a free plan, and captures everything a quote needs: studio and contact, project type, target platform, deliverable count, NDA status, deadline, budget range, and available reference material.

Studio inquiry - [your name], concept art

1. Studio or company name * [short text]
2. Your name and role * [short text]
3. Work email * [email]
4. Company website [URL]
5. Project type * [key art | character turnaround |
 environment concept | pitch-deck pass | other]
6. Target platform or pitch context * [short text]
7. Number of deliverables * [number]
8. Is an NDA required before you share
 project details? * [NDA required | no NDA needed]
9. Deadline * [date]
10. Budget range * [under $500 | $500-$1,000 | $1,000-$2,500 |
 $2,500-$5,000 | $5,000+ | not yet approved]
11. Reference material, style guide, or
 IP bible already available? [yes | no]
12. Anything else [long text]

Confirmation screen text:
"Thanks - your inquiry is in. I reply by email within one business day,
with either a scoped quote or one question about scope."

Fields marked * are required and the rest are optional. Nothing in that template is tied to a particular product: it can be rebuilt field for field in Google Forms, Typeform, Tally, a portfolio platform's form block, or a hand-written HTML page, and the sections below cover the build paths, the deliverable maths, and the legal questions the NDA and budget fields exist to settle.

Is a dedicated studio inquiry page worth building?

Build one as soon as studio-scale leads arrive often enough that sorting them by hand costs working time, because the tooling itself can cost nothing. Tally advertises unlimited forms and unlimited submissions on its free plan, so the real investment is the hour it takes to write twelve fields and a confirmation screen.

Tally's own pricing page states that its free plan includes "unlimited forms" and "unlimited submissions", subject to fair-usage guidelines (tally.so/pricing). Typeform's help centre caps its free plan at 10 responses per month across all of an account's forms, its Basic plan at 100 responses per month and its Plus plan at 1,000, with 50,000 responses per month the ceiling on any Typeform plan (Typeform Help Center, "Free plan" and "Response limits"). ArtStation publishes a free portfolio tier alongside Pro at $9.95/month and Studio at $29.99/month. FanBell's pricing page lists $0/month with a 12% fee per paid transaction and states that "Brand inquiries are free" (fanbell.link/pricing).

One honest limit on that answer: no public dataset measures how many inquiries an individual freelance concept artist receives, so nobody — FanBell included — can tell you a break-even lead count. What is verifiable is the cost side, and on a free Tally or FanBell page that cost is $0 per month, which is why the decision usually turns on your own inbox rather than on market statistics.

What is a studio inquiry page, exactly?

A studio inquiry page is a single form that asks a prospective client for what a generic contact link never captures: what the project is, what platform or pitch it serves, whether an NDA is required, the budget range, and the deadline. It replaces an open email address with a structured intake step you control.

A studio inquiry page differs from a portfolio contact form, which usually collects only a name and a free-text message, and from a priced commission listing, where the price is already fixed and visible. A studio inquiry page sits between the two: it is built for work large or ambiguous enough that a real quote has to follow a real conversation, not a static price tag. On FanBell, the studio inquiry page is the Brand Collaboration Inquiries offer, described on its own feature page as "a 'Work with me' link that collects budget, timeline, and deliverables into a separate inbox, kept apart from fan requests".

Why not just use your portfolio's contact form?

A portfolio contact box leaves the sender in charge of what to include, so studio messages arrive as "we love your work, are you available?" with no budget, deadline, deliverable count, or NDA status attached. A structured inquiry page asks for those four things up front, so your first reply can be a quote instead of a questionnaire.

The ambiguity is not the art director being coy — it is that platform requirements are specific and email is not. "Key art for our Steam page" resolves to a 1232×706 main capsule under Valve's own asset rules, and Valve marks seven other capsule and library images Required alongside it (Valve, Steamworks documentation, "Graphical Assets – Overview"). A form field that asks for a deliverable count forces that number into the first message instead of the fourth email.

FanBell's Brand Collaboration Inquiries page describes the routing difference in one line: brand inquiries "have their own inbox, apart from paid fan questions, shoutouts, and services". A generic form cannot make that distinction, so a studio inquiry, a single-piece client commission, and a fan's paid question about your process all land in the same list; see separate fan requests from brand inquiries for the general version of that triage problem.

On reply speed, treat what follows as FanBell's practitioner judgment rather than a measured benchmark: we have no dataset on concept-art reply times, and the widely quoted lead-response studies measured B2B sales teams over a decade ago. What a structured form does is mechanical — the details you would otherwise have to ask for arrive inside the submission, so a same-day quote becomes possible without a back-and-forth.

What fields should the intake page actually ask for?

The intake page should collect studio name and contact, project type, target platform, deliverable count, NDA status, deadline, and budget range — enough to write a real quote without a follow-up email just to fill in the basics. A single open "message" field pushes that work back onto you and delays the reply.

At minimum, collect:

• Studio or company name, contact email, and website
• Project type: key art, character turnaround, environment concept, pitch-deck pass
• Target platform or pitch context (internal pitch, publisher pitch, marketing key art)
• Whether an NDA or confidentiality agreement is required before details can be shared
• Deadline and budget range
• Whether reference material, a style guide, or existing IP documentation already exists

The NDA field is on the list because U.S. federal trade-secret protection is conditional: information qualifies as a trade secret only where "the owner thereof has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret" (18 U.S. Code § 1839(3)(A)). The budget field is the one many artists leave off, and it is the field that protects your rate — though what a blank budget field means is opinion rather than measurement: in FanBell's editorial judgment, drawn from practitioner experience and not from any survey we can cite, a studio that will not name a range is more often still waiting on budget approval than sitting on an unusually large one.

What counts as one deliverable in a studio brief?

One "key art" request is rarely one image. For a Steam release, Valve marks eight separate capsule and library graphics as Required, each at a fixed pixel size, so a deliverable-count field turns a vague art request into a countable list you can price line by line before you quote.

Valve's Steamworks documentation lists the eight Required capsule and library images as a 920×430 header capsule, a 462×174 small capsule, a 1232×706 main capsule, a 748×896 vertical capsule, a 600×900 library capsule, a 3840×1240 library hero, a library logo at 1280 px wide and/or 720 px tall, and a 920×430 library header capsule. The same Valve page additionally requires a 256×256 shortcut icon, a 184×184 app icon, and screenshots of at least 1920×1080 in a 16:9 ratio, and lists a 1438×810 page background as optional (partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/assets).

Those numbers move, which is the second reason to ask rather than assume: Valve's own asset overview now states that Steam accepts larger asset sizes for most capsules and that "old dimensions are no longer accepted". A studio that says "we need key art" may mean one hero illustration, or the full Required set at current sizes; only the form can tell you which, before you price it.

How do you build a studio inquiry page without a dedicated platform?

Any tool that publishes a shareable form will work: a form builder such as Google Forms, Typeform, or Tally, a form block inside your portfolio platform, or a plain page on your own site. The requirements are tool-neutral — a dedicated URL, the twelve intake fields, a confirmation screen, and one inbox only studio inquiries reach.

The twelve fields come from the copy-and-paste template near the top of this guide. Build a studio inquiry page in five steps that do not depend on any particular product. First, create the form and give it its own URL, separate from your general contact address. Second, mark studio name, work email, project type, deliverable count, deadline, and budget range as required, and leave website and reference material optional. Third, add a required NDA question with two options — "NDA required before details" and "no NDA needed" — so confidentiality is settled before a brief arrives. Fourth, route submissions to a dedicated label, folder, or spreadsheet so a studio lead never sits in the same list as fan mail. Fifth, write the confirmation screen and the auto-reply so a sender knows a human reply comes by email and when.

The table below is illustrative and not exhaustive: it names three common paths and one example vendor price per path, drawn from each vendor's own published pricing page in September 2026. Vendor pricing changes without notice, so confirm the current figure on the vendor's page before choosing.

Typeform's free tier is thin for a live inquiry page but adequate for testing one: 10 responses per month is the total across every form on the account, and the next paid steps are 100 responses per month on Basic and 1,000 on Plus. Google Forms needs no separate subscription: Google's own sign-in page says you can "Access Google Forms with a personal Google account or Google Workspace account (for business use)".

The trade-off between those paths is bookkeeping, not capability: a form builder collects the same fields as a creator platform, but pipeline status, payment, and delivery then live in separate tools you reconcile yourself.

How do you set up the studio inquiry page on FanBell, step by step?

Setting up a studio inquiry page on FanBell takes one pass through the dashboard: turn on the brand collab widget, write the intro that tells studios what to include, confirm the required fields, check where submissions route, and draft the follow-up email. Each step below matches a field, screen, or automatic email the widget already has.

Sourcing note, please read before citing this section: FanBell's public documentation covers the offer at /features/brand-collab-inquiries and the delivery model at /how-it-works, and those two pages are the citable primary sources for FanBell's own mechanics. FanBell publishes no field-level specification and no changelog for the brand inquiry form, so the field names, budget brackets, status labels, and confirmation strings below are observed product behavior recorded on 2 September 2026, not documented specification, and they can change without notice. The reproducible check is to open the "Work with Me" form on any public FanBell creator page, which renders the same submitter-facing fields, brackets, and confirmation screen; dashboard-side status labels are visible only to a signed-in creator and are marked as such below.

1. Name the page. FanBell's brand collab widget publishes on a creator page under the public title "Work with Me" (FanBell public creator page, brand collab widget, inspected 2 September 2026). Point your portfolio's "Studio inquiries" or "Work with me" navigation link at that page, and leave the plain contact email for everything else.

2. Write the intro as an instruction, not a greeting. The collab intro field sits directly above the form. Use it to name what you take on and what a complete inquiry contains, e.g. "Key art, character turnarounds, environment concepts, and pitch-deck passes. Please include project type, deliverable count, target platform, deadline, and whether an NDA is required before details can be shared."

3. Confirm the required fields. On the FanBell form, contact name, work email, brand or studio name, and project details are required, and the submitter must tick a checkbox reading "I understand this inquiry does not guarantee acceptance. The creator may decline or request more information." Company website, product URL, and campaign goal are optional (FanBell brand inquiry form, inspected 2 September 2026; FanBell publishes no field-level spec, so open the "Work with Me" form on any public FanBell page to confirm the current fields).

4. Set the budget qualifier. The form's budget-range selector offers six fixed brackets — Under $250, $250–$500, $500–$1,000, $1,000–$2,500, $2,500+, and "Not sure yet" — alongside a five-option timeline selector (ASAP, This week, This month, Next 1–3 months, Flexible) (FanBell brand inquiry form, inspected 2 September 2026; these brackets are current product behavior, not a published specification). Your dashboard also has a preferred budget range and a rate-card table; filling both in tells a studio your floor before it submits.

5. Add the NDA branch in your intro copy. The FanBell fields are fixed, so the NDA question belongs in the intro text and in the "Project details" prompt: ask studios to state "NDA required" or "no NDA" in the first line and to hold specifics like character names, platform, or story beats until an agreement is signed.

6. Check the routing. A submitted inquiry is written to a separate brand inbox, not your paid fan threads, and triggers two automatic emails: a confirmation to the studio and a notification to you. The creator dashboard also labels each inquiry with a workflow status; the eight labels present when the dashboard was inspected on 2 September 2026 were New, Replied, Interested, Negotiating, Accepted, Rejected, Archived, and Spam. That status list is signed-in dashboard behavior observed on a dated inspection rather than published specification, so treat the count and the labels as current-at-inspection. The feature page documents the separate-inbox behavior itself: brand inquiries "have their own inbox, apart from paid fan questions, shoutouts, and services".

7. Read the confirmation message the studio sees. After submitting, the sender lands on a confirmation screen reading "Inquiry sent!" and "Thanks for reaching out. The creator received your collaboration inquiry and will be in touch by email if it's a fit" (FanBell brand inquiry confirmation screen, inspected 2 September 2026). That screen sets the expectation that a reply comes by email, so a concept artist is not also fielding "did you get this?" DMs.

8. Draft the follow-up email once and reuse it. A saved template is what makes a same-day scoped reply realistic around a production schedule. A working version:

Subject: Re: [project] — scoped quote

Hi [name] — thanks for the details on [project]. Based on what you sent ([deliverable count] [project type] for [platform/pitch], due [date], budget [range]), here is how I would scope it: [phase 1, phase 2], [revision count] revision rounds, [price] total, delivered in [turnaround]. If an NDA is required, send it over and I will sign before we go further into specifics. If the budget or deadline has moved, tell me and I will re-scope rather than guess.

How is a studio inquiry different from a priced commission?

A studio inquiry is a lead — a studio describing a possible project before scope or price is set. A priced commission is the confirmed, scoped deliverable that follows once both sides agree on terms. Treating an inquiry as if it were already a paid job risks doing speculative work with no signed agreement or deposit behind it.

Once an inquiry becomes a confirmed job, Creator Services lets you set a price and a delivery turnaround. The turnaround field caps at 120 hours — 5 days — per deliverable (FanBell Creator Services setup screen, inspected 2 September 2026; the 120-hour ceiling is current product behavior, not a published specification). Everything inside that ceiling is yours to set: "each service is defined by you: what's included, the price, the turnaround, and how many revisions (if any) come with it". FanBell's how-it-works page describes the delivery model as asynchronous: "Reply, record, or deliver asynchronously on your own time within the turnaround you set — no live calls or appointments to schedule". For a starting framework once a studio responds with a real number, see how to price your first brand collaboration.

Should the page ask about NDAs before sharing project details?

Ask about NDAs as one of the first things the form surfaces, not after you have already exchanged early sketches or references. Unannounced-title work is exactly the material studios are legally expected to protect, and discovering mid-thread that a signed agreement was assumed can stall a lead or put you on the wrong side of a confidentiality obligation.

That expectation is written into U.S. trade secret law. Federal law protects information only where:

"the owner thereof has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret" — 18 U.S. Code § 1839(3)(A), definition of "trade secret" (uscode.house.gov)

Requiring an NDA before disclosure can be one such reasonable measure, but 18 U.S. Code § 1839 does not enumerate which measures qualify, and the U.S. Department of Justice frames the test as situational: "Each trade secret owner must assess the value of the protected material and the risk of its theft in devising reasonable security measures". Whether any specific NDA satisfies that standard is a fact question for a court, which is why a studio's legal team normally asks for one before a brief goes out. Practically, for a concept artist: a studio that needs an NDA should say so on the inquiry itself, so platform, character names, and story beats wait for a signed agreement; a studio that does not need one can move straight to scoping. Either way, the inquiry submission itself is not the confidential exchange — it is the step before one. This is general information, not legal advice.

When does a studio deal need a written contract?

Sooner than most artists assume, and in two U.S. states it is a statutory duty rather than a preference. New York City requires a written freelance contract at $800 or more, Illinois at $500 or more over a 120-day period, and both give the freelancer payment within 30 days of completed work when the contract names no date.

New York City's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection states that "all contracts worth $800 or more must be in writing", counting all agreements between the freelancer and one hiring party that total $800 in any 120-day period, and that where a contract sets no payment date "the hiring party must pay you within 30 days after you complete the work" (NYC DCWP, "Freelance Worker Rights"). The same DCWP page states that a freelance worker who is not paid on time has "a right to collect double the amount you weren't paid", plus damages for retaliation and attorneys' fees and costs (NYC DCWP).

Statewide, the New York State Department of Labor records that "on August 28, 2024, the 'Freelance Isn't Free' Act added Article 44-A to the General Business Law to provide protections to freelance workers", and the department publishes a model contract that can be used to meet the Act's contract requirement. Illinois sets a lower trigger: the Illinois Department of Labor's Freelance Worker Protection Act fact sheet requires a written contract where the work is "$500 or greater over a 120-day period", with payment due by the contract date or within 30 days of completing the services (Illinois Department of Labor, FWPA fact sheet and FWPA FAQ). Most U.S. states have no such statute, so treat these thresholds as the floor where they apply, not as nationwide rules — and ask on the inquiry form who signs contracts at the studio, so the paperwork starts with the lead rather than after delivery. This is general information, not legal advice.

Who actually owns the concept art after a studio pays for it?

A studio does not automatically own the copyright to concept art just because it paid for it. Ownership turns on whether the work qualifies as "work made for hire" under a signed written agreement, which is a separate legal question from who funded the piece — and the U.S. Copyright Office sets four criteria that all have to be met.

"If a work fails to satisfy any of these requirements, it is not a work made for hire." — U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 30: Works Made for Hire, revised August 2024

The four requirements for a commissioned work are that it falls within one of nine enumerated categories, that a written agreement exists between the commissioning party and the creator, that the agreement expressly says the work is made for hire, and that all parties sign it (U.S. Copyright Office). A freelance pitch-deck illustration is not automatically covered by that list, so an inquiry page should surface ownership-versus-licensing early rather than after delivery. Registering art you do own is cheap by comparison: the U.S. Copyright Office charges $45 to register one work by a single author who is also the claimant and which is not a work made for hire, and $65 for the standard online application (U.S. Copyright Office, "Fees"). This is general information, not legal advice; a solo artist taking recurring studio work should have any standard agreement reviewed by a lawyer.

Does a studio inquiry page replace direct client commissions?

No. A studio inquiry page handles larger or ambiguous studio-scale leads, while direct client commissions — one character sculpt, one prop, one asset — are still better served by a priced listing a buyer can act on immediately. Keep both live, because they answer two different buying moments.

Keep the two paths visible without merging them: a fixed-price commission tier for individual buyers, and a separate inquiry form for studio-scale leads. A studio landing on a page showing only a $75 prop-commission tag may assume you are not equipped for a larger pitch-deck job, even if you are. Artists doing 3D or CAD commission work alongside studio inquiries can see how that pairing works on 3D artist commissions and studio inquiries.

Does FanBell find studio clients or guarantee a deal?

No. FanBell's brand inquiry form organizes inbound leads; it does not pitch on a concept artist's behalf. FanBell's Brand Collaboration Inquiries feature page states plainly: "This collects and separates brand inquiries so they don't get lost; it doesn't guarantee deals or negotiate for you". You still evaluate, quote, and close every deal yourself.

There is no follower minimum to enable the form, and a FanBell page is free to start with no monthly fee — the pricing page lists a 12% platform fee "per paid transaction · $0/month" and notes that the fee "is configurable and may change as the product evolves". Because that page also states "Brand inquiries are free," submitting or receiving an inquiry carries no platform fee; the 12% applies only when someone pays through the page, such as a confirmed Creator Services deliverable. Card processing is billed separately by Stripe, whose published standard U.S. online-card rate is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful charge (Stripe Pricing); international cards and currency conversion carry additional fees.

Frequently asked questions

The questions concept artists ask most about a studio inquiry page are whether follower count gates it, how many images a "key art" brief really contains, which FanBell offer a studio message belongs in, who owns the finished art, and whether the platform takes a share of a deal negotiated off the form. Short answers follow.

Do I need a certain number of followers before studios will send inquiries?

No. FanBell sets no follower minimum for the brand inquiry form, and its feature page notes "you don't need millions of followers; a focused, engaged audience a brand wants to reach is what matters". Whether a studio finds you still depends on portfolio quality and visibility — the form removes friction from intake, it does not create demand.

How many images is "key art" for a Steam release?

Eight, if the studio means the full store and library set. Valve's Steamworks documentation marks a 920×430 header capsule, a 462×174 small capsule, a 1232×706 main capsule, a 748×896 vertical capsule, a 600×900 library capsule, a 3840×1240 library hero, a library logo at 1280 px wide and/or 720 px tall, and a 920×430 library header capsule as Required, alongside a 256×256 shortcut icon, a 184×184 app icon, and screenshots of at least 1920×1080. Ask for the count on the form, then price per asset.

Should a studio message go through Paid Private Questions or Brand Collaboration Inquiries?

Use Brand Collaboration Inquiries for the initial lead — a studio describing a project, budget, and timeline. Paid Private Questions is a separate, text-only offer meant for a specific fan question, not for scoping a studio-scale job.

What if a studio wants full ownership of the concept art?

Clarify it before starting any work. A commissioned piece only becomes "work made for hire" — with the studio as legal author and copyright owner — if it falls within one of nine enumerated categories and all parties sign a written agreement expressly saying so (U.S. Copyright Office). Otherwise ownership is governed by whatever license your contract grants. This is general information, not legal advice.

Does FanBell take a cut of the eventual studio deal?

No. FanBell's pricing page states "Brand inquiries are free" and applies the 12% platform fee only to payments made through the page, such as a confirmed Creator Services deliverable. A brand inquiry submission is lead collection, not a transaction, so it is not charged.

Start with the tool you already have: paste the twelve-field template from the top of this guide into a form builder, a portfolio form block, or a plain page on your own site, follow the five tool-neutral build steps, and you have a working studio inquiry page today with no new account anywhere.

If you would rather have inquiry intake, priced commissions, and payment on one link, Create your free FanBell page and give studios one real inquiry page instead of a portfolio contact form that loses half the details you need.