Hello everyone,

I'm looking for an artist or artists that would be willing to touch up and tidy sprites for a tech-demo that I am currently developing.  I want to put emphasis that this is a *tech-demo*, not a full-fledged professional project.

I would like the project to look decent enough to attract interest, and I know that my programmer artwork won't cut it.  However, my artwork is good enough to be used as a basis for an artist to touch-up or at a minimum, get a good idea of what I'm looking for.

As for the game itself, it will hopefully look like a cross between Final Fantasy IV for the SNES, and Phantasy Star 4 for the Sega Genesis.

Final Fantasy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THIrgJ6mzp4
Phantasy Star 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPMxoOdO_Io

Right now, I currently using graphics from Open Game Art, or sprites ripped from the games above in question.  This is working good for testing purposes, but prevents me from releasing screenshots due to copyright concerns.

As for specs, I'm very open.  I'd like the game to be styled as an old-school RPG, so using a limited palette would be necessary.  However, each palette has it's pros and cons (Dawnbringer's vs. NES vs. Genesis vs. Snes), and I'd gladly discuss and talk about it with the artists in question.

Basics:
Tile size: 16x16 tiles that are resized to 32x32px (nearest pixel)
Tile sprite sheet size: 128x128px for map tile sprite sheets, any other sprite sheet can vary
People size: 16x32 sprites that are resized to 32x64px (nearest pixel)
Character Face (GUI) sprites: 42x42 sprites resized to 84x84px (nearest pixel)

I currently have samples of a basic sprite sheet (interior of a prison), a sprite sheet of a person walking (from Phantasy Star 4) and a picture of a Character Face (from Phantasy Star 4).  These should give a good visual reference to what I'm striving for, as in how things are displayed.

As for "hey, what does your main character look like!" I'll send sketches, drafts, or just an idea with basic characteristics to get the point across.  I'm happy with mostly anything, as long as it frees me up to do computer programming (which is what I'm good at!)

Focus:
As this is a tech-demo, my main focus at the moment is to get the overworld system up and running.  This pertains directly to players moving around towns and exploring dungeons.  I actually already have code that facilitates this; I have an interactive scripting system developed that handles player and town-people spawning, as well as player and town-people movement + conversations with them.  I would like to develop and optimize this code further (without having to worry about graphic creation).

The specs I need for these graphics are listed above.

Long-Term:
However, what I *don't* have are specs for graphics needed while a person moves between one town and the next, as well as enemy battles.  It isn't that these two things are difficult and I haven't gotten that far; it's that both of these are going to be very unique to this tech-demo and that I will be needing to do a bunch of kinesiology research before delving into this section.

As for timing and deadlines:
Work how you see fit.  I work two jobs, lift and run daily, and try to have a social life.  I know you have many obligations too!  However, it would be nice to know that if I send out an email with some sprites, that within a week I'd get something decent in return.  Or something vastly improved based on mine.  If not, I can just rip sprites from elsewhere or create very poor visual representations on my own and use them as a stop-gap until I get something nifty to replace them with.

My website is: http://www.playbukketgames.com.  I have finished four products for iOS and Android, with free versions available for download for Windows.

Thank you!  My email address is kernja@playbukketgames.com



Edited by anwserman - 25 August 2013 at 2:20am