Hi,

All of you when you started must have found it hard to get excellent images which you can use for a game. So how did you go about obtaining images ? 1. Did you make your own. 2. Get someone to do it. 3. Or are there sites which give free images with just the catch that their names have to be in the credits. If some of you do use the 3rd option I would like to know from where you obtained them.

Thank you.

I think most people would have the ability to make their own, or ask their artist (if they have one) to make it. You could get another person/company to create them, but I think you'd be looking at a surprisingly high cost.

If you can't afford to pay for art because you are only an aspiring game developer, then your best bet is to strike a deal with an aspiring game artist. Find an artist whose work you like and see if he/she would be willing to work with you purely on a royalty basis. Or if you can, offer a token $50 or $100 up front and then a royalty on the backend. This lets them know that you are at least somewhat committed to the project.

When doing this, it helps of you can develop a large portion of the game (if not all of it) with placeholder art. This way the artist can see just how serious you are, see that the game is pretty much there, and also get an idea for the feel of the game when they make their art (sometimes when you know how something is going to be used, you get different inspirations).

As far as how to find artists, probably the best way is to look at some other indie games that are similar in style to what you want to do. Check out the credits for the game, or send an email to the developer and ask who did their art.

Finally, make sure you offer them a fair deal on the royalty. Just because you spent a year on the game while they only spent 3 weeks on the art, don't offer them a measly 5% royalty. Give them a real incentive. Remember, without their art, 95% of nothing is still nothing. Give them a 15% to 30% royalty. If it was a short project, and they made an equal time contribution, consider a 50% royalty. Of course, if you have a lot of people involved in the project, this becomes hard to do. And whatever you do, DO NOT promise a 30% royalty to 6 people :) (I know that almost goes without saying, but some people try to be sly and do stuff like that).

LordKronos, I believe what Gautam means is where to get the game pictures you see on websites. You know, the ones advertising the game that are often 3D rendered images of the game characters, etc.

Though your advice about general game art is still good. :)

Hey,

Thanks for all your replys. Lord Kronos - your post definitely helped. As I find it extremely difficult to draw I try to do as much with whatever I can manage or have. Unfortunately that just doesn't cut it. It just falls short of being sellable game as the graphics become crude. Being an aspiring game programmer and still being in the students era its hard to find the resources to pay an artist. Well Lord Kronos, I will definitely be ethical when it comes to royalty deals. Giving away 30% royalty to 6 persons when I myself(being on the optimistic side) won't get more than 30%-40% royalty would probably result in a miserly amount to all of us. Regarding lots of people, currently I am the only one in this project, so that issue doesn't really arise. As the saying goes once bitten twice shy. You can guess why I said that :).

To Dax :
I would like information on that as well. Any knowledge gained is a good thing :)

If you would like to learn how to do 2D game art there is a great forum called Pixelation (http://pixelation.swoo.net) which was formed after a guy named Tsugumo made a tutorial on pixel art entitled So You Want to be a Pixel Artist (http://pixeltutorial.cjb.net/) . The community there is quite accepting of new and budding artists and I have found them to be invaluable in helping me (a coder) improve my own art skills.