"Venture out into the vast blue seas and find out more about your girlfriend than you ever dared to ask!"

If you look carefully, the hero himself never states it's his girlfriend - it could well be his cousin, his aunt or his department head of finance.

The GF idea rather appears to be a fabrication of the ignorant, chauvinist town lifeguard, who will surely receive a harsh scolding and a juicy fine during the court scene finale. <-- Spoiler 

Seriously, it's a retro-styled game that's light on story. I wouldn't see this as a platform for refined social commentary... and even in that case, you can find some in the characterization of the other actors, if you look quite closely 

Goddamn that looks good.

Thank you for the nice words regarding the art, because I am... kinda the one doing it.

The game is still heavily under construction indeed, and I'm planning to add a ton more flourishes to the atmosphere and especially the characters!

Thanks again, and stay tuned!

Updating with something painterly - these are from a Strategy game I'm working on with a couple of friends. There are a number of factions with several mythical creatures each.

I'm posting the high-res versions. These are going to be scaled way down in the final game - I thought you'd appreciate the detail

I'll open a devlog as soon as the first build is running!

So, er, are you going to release this as a free, noncommercial indie game?
Just checking, because your posts seem to suggest something ambitious.

Also, could I ask if you're coding, or writing, or developing the game in some other function? Thank you.

These are BEAUTIFUL!
The style would fit one of the GBA/DS Mario RPGs perfectly!

Nothing else to add, just that your work is superb.

 Probably important enough to warrant a double post: I had a closer look at the Nautica project, and judging from what Eddie told me about the game, the gameplay is absolutely unrelated as well. eddietree's game is basically underwater exploring with some sailing interspersed.
 It's very clear that the image was only posted for inspiration regarding atmosphere.

 I'll make sure not to create anything graphically resembling Nautica, now that I've had a look at the game.

 That's a promise!

Heya,

 I'm the art guy (if all goes well), and I assure everyone the graphical style will be as different from Nautica as can be! This is especially easy as I have to admit I've never seen, or played, the game

 I just popped in to say that I really appreciate the amount of detail and information in the OP. This goes a very long way to help artists picture the project and decide whether they'd be up for it or not.

I'm just bumping this up again - replies have been plentiful and I feel I have gotten to know great people, but no luck so far regarding potential collaborations. Some projects initially appeared promising, but abruptly ended after I sent out the first batch of graphics - am I that horrible? 

Anyway, I'm still looking for someone willing to create something together.
Some stuff I've done for people since the OP:


Candy Zelda!


(The character itself is *not* mine, but I wanted to create several versions suited for different game genres.)


(They're lying on the ground, you know?)

...And of course everything in the first post is still valid!

So if you're a coder looking for an artist, preferably planning to finish something publishable, then I'd be happy to hear from you!

I think a big thing about this would be the closer aspects of the graphics. I'm sure artists would be very interested in the following:

- What resolution are you shooting for? Half Xbox resolution, then upscaled (which would sound more realistic to me than full-on hi def)?

- How large are you planning the fighters to be? For 3D, this is a non-issue, but for 2D work, it definitely counts.

- What kind of moveset were you planning for your fighters? How many basic attacks, navigation moves, how many specials etc. Do you have a particle system on board which would take away some of the pressure of animating things like flames or sparks?

- You explicitly mention only character art. Are the GUI and the backgrounds done yet?

And one more thing, which is less of a question but more of a suggestion (I'm speaking as a newb here): I'm sure you are aware just how much work a decent 2D fighting sprite is. It's certainly one of the bigger challenges, and time investments, that 2D graphics have to offer.
So maybe you could go for a not too extremely dead serious approach and outsource each character (or more than one) to different artists, which would then appear in different styles?
That would invite a lot of creativity, I'm sure.

Hello all,

 the title says it all - I'm a 2D artist/illustrator/character designer and would like to participate in making a game to show around as a portfolio work. I do have a job, so I'd appreciate something I could do on the side (mornings/evenings) without a schedule that's too tight.
 
 I'm currently not looking for commercial works (smaller suits me better at the moment), but if you're planning to sell the game and give me a fair share, that would of course be very nice as well.

 Here are some of my pixel works:

 Witches! http://www.electric-zombie.com/2D/2d.htm
 Planes! http://www.electric-zombie.com/2D/planes2.gif
 Wizards! http://www.electric-zombie.com/2D/maguild.png
 Balls! http://www.electric-zombie.com/2D/elemente_2.png

 And here you'll find some of my illustrations:

 http://www.hussinger.blogspot.com/

 The most wonderful thing would, of course, be something to create together from the ground up, where I'd contribute to planning and making the game world and characters. As for scale - as I said - possibly a HD 2D fighting game with 50 characters animated at 30 fps wouldn't be the best thing at the moment. But a shooter, a roguelike, a game illustrated in stills, a platformer etc. would all be very nice.

 If you're interested and feeling inspired by my work, please drop me a PM.
 Thank you!