*Job Info
I am looking for a 2D pixel artist to re-do the main character combat animations for a tile based RPG.
I posted for this almost 1 year ago here, but the artist had to go to school, and now that the game is almost done I really need this to get done.  I also posted at www.gamedev.net for this.

*Company Info
GrayCoreSoftware is a Boston based "company", consisting of one developer (me) :)    I am not a professional company; I develop on the side as a hobby. The artist who did all the artwork for the first game left the state to go back to school, so I'm in need of a pixel artist.

*Paid: 100 US dollars
I paid the original artist 150 dollars for all the animations (monsters and main characters.  There are close to 80 characters all together (that means 400 frames total.), but I only need 10 of the character's animation sequence to be re-done though (see the image below).

I'm offering 100$  to re-do the animation sequences of the 10 main characters.  This is negotiable based on the quality of the work.

I can pay via paypal, or by check.  I'm good for my money.  I've never met my music composer (he's not even the country), but I pay him via paypal for his work.
Each frame is 64x64

*ScreenShot
This is the original animation sequences of the 10 characters that have to be re-done.
There are currently 5 frames of animation: 4 frames of movement and 1 frame of their "death" image.
I don't know too much about animation. I don't even know if there is software out there that can facilitate the creation of individual frames, but i choose 4 frames because originally each frame was done by hand. Any more than 4 frames would cause the workload to be too much, unless there is a program out there that do this easily.
If that's the case, I can easily change my game to animate more than 4 frames. The characters should not have any weapons or shields!!! I plan on super imposing the weapons and shields on the characters during the game.

Here are the 10 characters that have to be re-done.
They have to be roughly the same image.
For instance:
a) The guy with the staff has to Gandalf-like.
b) The first guy should look like a ranger.
you get the picture.


*Email address
zander@graycoresoftware.com

*Company website
www.gracoresoftware.com

If you have any questions, or I'm missing information, please post here

Hi Elk,
Oh no. Sorry, I guess I wasn't that clear. I didn't pay 150$ for that image. I paid 150$ for *ALL* all the images, including that one.  The above image is only 10 characters, each with 4 frames + 1 frame for their "death" state.  I paid 150$ for all *80* characters (which translates to 400 frames total for 150$).

Thanks for reference point though! (Do you think 100$ for my job offering is ridiculously too high? (Regardless, I won't lower my offer... I know pixel drawing can be a royal pain in the butt... at least for me, who can't draw to save my life.)

Hi Sabata,
I'm not sure I agree they are "horrible", but to each their own.  I think they're cute! It's true they were cheap (in all sense of the word), and you're right that you get what you pay for.  Unfortunately I could only afford to pay that much at the time.  If I could, I would have paid more for better quality graphics.

I'm curious what you mean by "real animation".  I'm a complete noob when it comes to graphics and artwork.  Do you mean more frames, or is the four frames enough, but having them be of higher quality?  Sorry to have low balled the price, but what would be a good asking price?  For sure, if the price is low, the quality is not expected to be high, but what would be an expected offer (I guess I can look at other postings, but I'm wondering what your take is.) 

I know for a fact that great artists like Elk and others will not stoop down and do this for this price :)

Hi Elk,
Unfortunately for me, I'm between a rock and a hard place.  The problem is that if I make the image of a much higher quality, then it will contrast too greatly with the rest of the graphics.  For instance, here's a snippet of some of the monsters:



I'm completely open to suggestions.  From what I'm hearing, there is no way I can afford to pay someone to re-do *all* of these graphics.  It is just orders of magnitude above what I can pay.  Hence, I'm looking for someone to redo the "player characters" shown in my first posting. Again, you'll have to pardon my ignorance on the amount of time it would take to do this, but I figured it would take an half a working day (4 hours), and at 24$ an hour, it was a good deal, but apparently that's not the case, and I apologize for it.  What do you suggest is a reasonable asking price for redoing the original image in my first posting? 200? 500? 1K? 1K+?

ps. Sabata, your drawings are awesome! If I ever make it big, I'll be sure to make my next game with graphics that are of equal caliber.


Edited by grayaii - 16 October 2009 at 7:07am

Yes, the images that are being displayed are indeed scaled and saved with high compression.  In the first game, each frame was 50x50, but I had to scale them up to 64x64 to meet the new requirements. (argh.  I'm no artist by any means, but I'm sure I messed it up when I scaled them up.)   They were original bmp files, but I saved it as a jpeg this morning to make it faster to upload.

I may be interested in the job. What do you want the characters to be doing? Is the animation of them walking, attacking, what?

Argh. Note to myself: Do research on an artist before giving them my hard earned money.

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=8561.0

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=9463.0

Joshua Astorian walked away with my 150 bucks, never to be heard from again.  It looks like he's done this to about half a dozen people already, and the thing that hurts the most is he's 1.) definitely online and checking emails, 2) still looking for small time jobs.

Well, as soon as my wallet has recovered and my temper has calmed down, I'll be re-posting this job offering.