How much will this cost approx?

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3 comments, last by Orymus3 11 years ago

Outsourcing art, I need some assets done for 2D pixel-ish art nothing too complicated. 'Cause right now I'm making a skeleton for a game just don't have any art, so I'm thinking if that gets all done and goes well I could put some GOOD art into it(Not my crappy shit). I honestly have NO idea even approximately how much this will cost. I'm hoping around 300 bucks or so though.

-A character and running animation.

-3 Other similar to each other characters

-Background with a foreground, middleground and a background.(Day/Night)

-Tiles/platforms about 4 kinds

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I'm hoping around 300 bucks or so though.
-A character and running animation.

I doubt you can even get the first thing on your list for $300.

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

I'm hoping around 300 bucks or so though.
-A character and running animation.

I doubt you can even get the first thing on your list for $300.

I'm not looking for a professional quality here, I just want some 2D art for a flash game around this quality(http://funny-games.biz/back-to-zombieland.html)

If it's going to cost that much then I can just spend more hours on it myself I guess.

Look around on DeviantArt if you want to work with something cheaper. Sprite animations are somewhat-maybe-almost easy to find at around $20 a frame, possible to find someone that goes down to $10 or so. Even then to get a stable running animation for a 2D platformer it's going to be around 4 frames for each direction(left/right 8 total), min 5 for jumping, Some idle's lets go with 6, damage/death for another 4. So even going cheap that's still around $500 very quickly for "simple mechanics".

There is of course another route of using art already made. A bunch is free for use for all kinds of work ranging from commercial to open source , and for other misc. work that the other didn't attach a license to they're usually willing to allow use for commercial work at a pretty nice discount. Some artists even love working for open source projects and lower their prices to around $1 a frame, and maybe around $2 an hour(these are a pain to find, and are catch-22ish since you'll need proven and quality work AND you can't ask for this pricing).

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As weird as it is "simpler" art like what you posted can actually end up A LOT more expensive than a larger sprite. The spriter needs to spend a lot more time getting every pixel perfect, since each pixel changes a larger amount of the piece. The amount of experience required to make your version of simple is just higher.

Even using fewer frames is likely to push a price up instead of down.

When hiring an artist just treat is like you're hiring a programmer so many of the same type of issues can show up(I'm assuming you have programming experience).

You also need to think about this: Do you really want to hire someone that does not have other people/projects competing for their attention(forcing prices up), there's possibly a reason.

for 2D pixel-ish art nothing too complicated

Most people don't realise this, but pixel art generally means that you need to make each frame by hand (agreed, its just "a few minor edits" to perform an animated version of a still frames, but on such a small sized sprite, even a small edit takes a considerable amount of time).

Your request is anything but "nothing too complicated".

That said, I often found that pixel art is one of the most expensive art I've had to order from 3rd parties / freelancers. Perhaps it would be best do do it yourself if you're on a budget.

I've commissionned a project on which the overall pixel art work (which I initially though was "not complicated") would've amounted to 30k$. Managed to get things streamlined and limite the scope down to a sizeable 5k$. That, on an indie (personal) budget is still a tremendous lot!

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