How much would a sprite and character portrait artist cost
How much would a sprite and character portrait artist cost
Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 12:27
I have and idea for an Action RPG that I'm making in game maker. Its a dark fantasy story and I'm wondering how much Sprite Sheets and Character Portrats you get in japanese style RPG's are. Like these :
That's likely way too vague for anyone to answer.
* How many characters?
* How many independent tile sets ?
* How many tiles per set ?
* What resolution and color depth ?
However, I can at least give you some broad boundaries.
This sheet shows the NES Metroid enemy set: http://www.spriters-resource.com/nes/metroid/sheet/1776/ . Expect to spend something like $100 to $300 for roughly this quantity and skill level. Adding in all of the other tiles from that game would probably clear $1000.
This sheet is from Seiken Densetsu 3, one of the best looking SNES JRPGs : http://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/seikendensetsu3secretofmana2/sheet... . Expect to spend several thousand on each moderately-sized tileset at this level.
These are just general estimates. If you're contracting a lot of labor and willing to pay upfront, you may get various discounts. If you merely take an inclusive license to the work, allowing the artist to retain copyright ownership and resell to other interested parties, you may get a discount for that as well. There's also a cross-over threshold at which it is cheaper to have a full-time employee working on your project rather than a freelance contractor. I find it unlikely anyone working with game maker is going to reach that threshold.
Presuming that professional work is too expensive for what sounds like a hobby project, I'd recommend you start scanning through the assets on this site for something you can use or easily adapt. There's a lot here, and it'll take a long time if you want to actually evaluate it all. Make sure you check the declared licenses (and can abide by the terms). Try reading the FAQ and the forums if you have any questions about how CC licenses work.
I have the tilesets for level design covered so thats not a problem. I'm just looking for charcter sprites sheets with walking and attacking animations + mecilanies animations. The number of characters is a about 13 so I would assume 13 sprite sheets. My current budgit for over all spriteing would be $50 a sheet. + $60 for character portraits with 5 or 6 expressions on it.
If I had the requisite art skill (I don't), I'd consider it at that price point. I think you'll probably be able to find someone as long as you keep looking and are willing to make some concessions and do some negotiating here and there.