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[Got_Rhythm]

Apologies if I don't embed this properly, I'm doing this from my phone.

I'm curious how much I could reasonably expect to pay for this character including the brief animation (ignore the background).

http://orig05.deviantart.net/e8e3/f/2014/195/7/d/frost_attack_by_z_studios-d7qnl0i.gif

More importantly how much could I reasonably expect to pay for the same character with 5 different animations of the same quality / complexity.

If you do not feel comfortable telling me publicly please feel free to private message me. Thank you!

[Mittens]

I've never paid for pixel art, but try comparing it with works you consider equal on the Unity Asset Store or Unreal Marketplace or whatever other sites you can find that sell game stuff like this.

In order to sell a pixel art character it would need to come complete with a good range of generic animations, like at least
jump, walk, run, die, melee attack 1, melee attack 2, ranged attack 2, ranged attack 2, interact, crouch, crouch walk, fall and land

[Got_Rhythm]

Thank you for the advice.

I should have clarified, I am making a turn based battle RPG (similar to the old 2D Final Fantasy games), so the character would not be walking or jumping etc, they would just have a few different attack animations.

[nnyei]

I've never paid for pixel art, but try comparing it with works you consider equal on the Unity Asset Store or Unreal Marketplace or whatever other sites you can find that sell game stuff like this.

Anyone who sells stuff on the Unity Asset Store or Unreal Marketplace expects their work to be bought many times by many different buyers. That's why the artists on there can afford to charge lower prices than one would usually charge for a one-off commission. If you're actually looking to buy art from someone who creates their art for you and no one else, then you have to expect higher prices (unless they willingly undersell themselves) than you usually see on these stores. In that sense, they don't make for a good reference point.

How much an artist will charge you for this kind of work varies significantly. How experienced they are, how fast they are able to create it, how desperate they are for the work/experience, how much they're willing to undersell themselves in order to meet an indie dev halfway.

I'm personally a 2D artist focusing more on vector art, hand-painted sprites etc. and rarely dabble in pixel art so I don't feel all that comfortable making an estimate on this. I mostly just wanted to comment that the Unity and Unreal stores can't be treated equally to paying an artist to work for you exclusively.

[amateurhour]

If it was a one time sale (i.e. it's not going on the asset store, you own the rights to it, and I'm not making money off the game)

I'd say ~50 for the base image (roughly 1-2) hours of work plus $10 per frame of animation

so if you wanted 5 animations that were each 8 frames a piece you'd be looking at $450-$500 for the one character.

If I were taking a job like that and designing multiple 10+ characters I'd probably just charge a flat rate.

That's about the range I've heard from various artists who have worked on commercial projects and don't mind sharing their commission rates at conventions.

You could look one something like reddits game dev classified sections or look in various pixel art forums to see if someone would do the work cheaper, but that's what I'd expect to pay from someone doing that level of work and able to stick to a timeline, which is just as important.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

I agree with above, although 'quality' is tough to measure. It depends a bit who you get as your artist, and who you can hire depends on exactly the kind of art you want (since certain 'styles' or levels of polish are only accessible to more skilled artists). Expect $25-40 an hour for pixel art and consider yourself blessed if you find someone cheaper. This doesn't look particularly technically challenging, so I would estimate it on the low end - the several hundred rate quoted above sounds like an accurate ballpark. Definitely don't expect to pay unity market or turbosquid prices for custom pieces, the market and value of the work is not even similar.