What's a reasonable price for buying 2D sprite artwork? I'm writing a simple shareware/indie shoot-'em-up, and I'd like to hire some help with the artwork. I believe a straight-up $X per image approach would be better than promising royalties which may or may not eventuate. And I'd like to have an up-front price if at all possible (rather than negotiating payment from scratch each time). The existing artwork is the best way to illustrate the quality and style that I need: (32x64 pixels) Turret Truck (128x128 pixels) .. i.e. nothing too spectacular, but adequate for a casual shareware game. So what would be a reasonable compensation to offer an artist per image? (And is this a realistic approach to hiring help with a project?) Any advice would be appreciated. Cheers, -Tom [Edited by - TC_nz on January 12, 2008 3:48:39 PM]

Hi Tom,

I don't know what the competition charges, but we would charge about 10 to 15 USD per image. And ours would look a lot better.

For more info, examples of our work and contact details, please check out our Sticky topic on GameDev here.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Dennis
CoffeeShark.nl

That sounds ideal, thanks.
I still need to lay a bit of groundwork, but when I need the new content I'll be in touch.

Cheers,
-Tom

That's great Tom, good luck with the groundwork and we look forward to doing business with you :)

-Dennis
-CoffeeShark.nl