Hello.  I'm Yama, and I am currently looking for artists to assist me in the creation of a 2D fighter based around a surreal horror/adventure game by the name of Yume Nikki.  I'm calling it "Dream vs. Dream".  The game is inspired heavily by doujin fighter projects such as Melty Blood or Ougon Musou Kyoku.  A great amount of it has been already planned out, but I cannot proceed much further with the project without some artists on my team.

I need artists for a variety of different sections.  Since this is a big project, I do not want to lump it all on one or two people unless they really want to do the work.  More than one person can apply for any one section, and one person can work on multiple sections.  The sections are:

Character Art, which is working on the character sprites.  I have two styles in mind for the character sprites.  If you're interested in the job, I'll show you the styles I have in mind and you can go with which ever you'd like to do.  Feel free to add a little of your own twist to the style, though.  This job will be difficult to do alone, as the character amount is high.  Do not worry too much though, I have all the motions planned out and plenty of reference pictures for every character needed.

Background Art, which is working on stage backgrounds or backgrounds for menu screens.  I have exact ideas and references for all of the game's stages, so there need not be any guesswork involved.  However, there are a lot of stages, so it'll be a difficult task alone.

Special Effect Art, which is working on miscellaneous special effects, like the fire effect on a fire attack, for example.  This job shouldn't be too tough, but it will take some collaborating with the Character Artists to make sure we're getting everything right and making everything "pop" as it needs to.

Misc. Art, which is menu screen stuff, in game HUD, etc.  This job shouldn't be too difficult, but not as easy as the Special Effect artist's job.  I have concepts of what everything will look like, but no more.  It'll be your job to bring it to life as best you can.  I understand that this is a poor way to do things, but my abysmal art skills prevent me from making anything more than rough sketches at best.

In regards to payment, I'm going on a "name your price" basis.  I do not want to offer a low price and then feel like I'm being stingy, but at the same time, I do not want to offer too much and then get ripped off.  So please ask whatever price you find appropriate.  I am not particularly rich, but I will make a great effort to pay whatever you ask.  I can send the money via Paypal.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post!  If you've got any questions about Dream vs. Dream, the art sections, payment, or anything else, feel free to ask me!  I'd be more than happy to answer any and all of your questions.  I hope to hear from someone soon!

-Yama

Here are the styles that I have mind:

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/DarkOverord/Sprite-stuffs/tSR/scarlet_weather_rhapsody-yuyuko.png

The important aspects of this style is that it's a cartoonish chibi style that still manages to convey a good bit of detail and emotion.  The cartoon chibi quality meshes well with the designs of the characters, as well.  It exists as a secondary style in case this next style is too difficult to pull off.

http://uboachan.net/fg/src/1310967124555.png

This style is preferred, but it seems a little more difficult than the previous one.  I like this style because of the fact that it fits the character designs nearly perfectly.  It's also a decent size.  If this style can be done, I'd prefer it.

In terms of the budget, I have some free money that I'm directing entirely towards this project.  I understand that this will be extremely costly, but it's a challenge that I know I can rise to meet.

In my terms, "not particularly rich" is having 200 dollars in free money to spend on the project, and being paid 40 dollars every other week.  In addition, I will be getting a little minimum wage job sometime soon to help pay for things, and some money will definitely go towards this.  I think it's decent, but I'm definitely no moneybags.

I understand that that is still probably not enough, but what I think could work is that we could work out a deal where X animation is worth a certain amount, and I can pay per animation, rather than make a deal for the whole package of work.  That way, I can work towards paying the separate animations, which would be considerably more manageable for me, and would completely avoid any nasty situations where I couldn't pay up.

It may also be beneficial to understand that the current work is being put towards a demo version that only has some of the content.  This is a large and very ambitious project, so I intend to cut it into pieces rather than work on it all at once so that I can recover a little after working on one section rather than try to do it all at once only to crash and burn.  This project would be next to impossible for one such as myself to finish all in one consistent run like that.