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[JPirotta]

Changing terms and prompt.

[JPirotta]

The sample art would remain in possession of the artist unless the artist was contracted to do the entire project.  It is merely to assess capability.  I have updated the prompt for clarity--we did not mean for each sprite to be precisely 640x480.  Rather, we want the art to be "at home" in that resolution, if that makes sense.  An average character would be about 215x215 based on the reference images we were using from Street Fighter 3. 

As you can probably tell, our grasp of the terminology, is preliminary, so bear with us. 

We used this article to obtain our pricing structure:

http://2dwillneverdie.com/blog/how-much-do-sprites-cost/

We went with an average of the "high end" prices per sprite.  (Article lists high end price for 500 sprites at 7000-20,000; 7k + 20k = 27k/2 = $13,500/500 = $27/sprite.  We will gladly take some input from people as to whether or not that's a fair price, but from our offers that we have taken from some other potential candidates, we have determined this to be a fair, if not higher than usual, bounty.  However, it's entirely possible that we are not conversant enough with the actual process of producing good quality sprites to know what will go into this, so if we need an education in this respect, have at it.  We know the toy and illustration side, but the digital art is something new to us--we are only casually conversant in sprite art as gamers and fans.

We do not want to reveal any existing art at this time to protect the secrecy of the project.

[Miguelito]

Actually just as a bit of feedback, you have very good taste in requesting Street Fighter 3 as a template for style questions, which is arguably the pinnacle of 2D pixel art. However, have a look at this guy:

Ryu from SF3 is about 110 px tall in his normal stance - with a quality most artists could never even dream to achieve (even if a few frames in this gif seem to be in the wrong order). Really top notch and probably outside the table from your article.

Your average sprite size is 220 x 220 px, which is so incredibly far off the scale in terms of creating art like this it's very debatable if the approach is even sound, even setting aside all questions of payment. KoF did it by rotoscoping 3D models (not that SF3 didn't use tracing as well, just that it was hand-drawn cels) and using a shack filled with Korean slave laborers, and the result really looks less than convincing:

Wooden choppy Terry Bogart here is about 280 px in height, which is closer to your intended size.
Perhaps this makes it clearer that the basic approach in itself should perhaps be reconsidered in terms of scale.

Generally you will find people willing to work under any conditions for any sort of pay - there are firms in Asia specialized on exactly that sort of thing. Only you need to know where to look, and I'd wager it's a bit difficult to expect a careful artist's touch, or proper professional post-submission care.

Edit: Ah, and it might be a good idea to release one of your sketches as an example for the style and level of detail you want - "colorful and detailed" is one thing, but the phrase isn't really very specific in terms of content. If you're too hesitant to do that, then maybe some comparable piece of art.

[JPirotta]

This is very helpful thank you.  Please see the PM I sent you.