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Time needed to make art assets

Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: Collaborations/Challenges
Forum Discription: Submit pixel art project ideas/templates or contribute to an existing pixel art collaboration.
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16438
Printed Date: 12 September 2025 at 11:53pm


Topic: Time needed to make art assets
Posted By: TimeSlip
Subject: Time needed to make art assets
Date Posted: 30 May 2013 at 1:21pm
Hello,

Hope this is in the right forum, please move it if I got it wrong.

I'm currently working on my first game, and looking for some advice and information. I'm hoping to hire an artist for my PC game over the coming weeks, and would really appreciate some help in figuring out costs.

I'm effectively trying to figure out if my requirements, which I'm currently compiling exceed what I can reasonably expect for my budget. Like virtually all first time indies, I don't have a huge amount of money to invest. I'm guessing that asking how long does it take to make a sprite sheet is about as pointed as asking the length of a piece of string, so I was wondering if some artists would be so kind as to post or link sprite sheets, weapon icons, illustrations (doesn't matter what setting or style) and give me a rough idea of how long it took, so I can get an idea of how much work is involved. Thanks for reading and for any help!



Replies:
Posted By: aferretsfury
Date Posted: 01 June 2013 at 4:17pm
im no master of pixel art or anything but i can tell you examples of my stuff,


http://dmhonoursproj.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/honours-project-critic-of-final-work.html - my examples

so yeah each sprite sheet varies in complexity and amount of animations but they all took several hours each,

al break it down to try explain what time it took,

design of character: 10mins - 1 hour what i labeled as vintage didnt take much time atall to design, however the stylised stuff took way longer for noticeable reasons

animation: this takes in account on me having to think what it is i want to do in the animation so from something simple like the idle (30mins) to the complicated specials (2 hours)

then i have to break these into the spritesheet i did this manually rather than a spritesheet compiler however as i did the spritesheets more for show than to be used properly they are not in a grided system doing this manually would probably add in another hour or so?

sorry these are all rough estimates and i am no pro (atleast i dont think i am) but i hope this helped in someway?

EDIT: just to add, the time would change drastically on the art style you want it to be like basic 8 bit stuff or the more complicated stylised pixel art and whether or not you intend to create sprite sheets manually or not


Posted By: TimeSlip
Date Posted: 19 June 2013 at 5:35am
Hello aferretsfury,

Thanks for the reply, and sorry for my slow one - i've been on the move for the majority of the last 2 weeks. Some quite nice work on your page. Definitely the result of dedication and effort. I especially like the one where the thunderbolt (special attack?) hits the character.

Yep that is helpful. So how long would you say the 11/19 spritesheet took? There's a lot more in it than what I need, but it might be a good yardstick.

The whole time I've been working on my game, I've been making a conscious effort of minimising the graphical assets needed, which leads me to my next question. I have 1 main human sprite sheet, with 11 unique frames, but I need 3 extra sprite sheets (with all 11 frames, one for each weapon). Do you think it would take much time to change the weapons?

Also, there are multiple human characters in the game, so do you think it would take much time to make cosmetic changes (colour, detail) to these 4 sprite sheets (1 main, 3 different weapons)?

Thanks again!



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