LOVE RUNNER NEEDS PIXEL ART (DEVELOPED BY EX-BIOWARE DESIGNER AND UNITY VET CJ CURRIE)

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Hello, my name is Nathan Moller. A few months ago I left BioWare to move closer to home which is the Seattle area. I had worked on Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic before I left. Here's a highlight reel of my work at BioWare, as well as some machinima from before.

While I'm looking for the right job, I'm keeping busy with an awesome little game idea that came to me while I was messing around with games on my Android, iPod Touch, and iPad, called Love Runner. I started a blog to discuss it's development throughout the entire process, and even posted the design doc online for all to see. I think it's going to be a fun little project.

We're building it in Unity. I came here because I know there's a lot of good pixel artists that hang out here. My apologies for not being an RM-specific development.

I'm fortunate enough to have a Unity veteran like CJ Currie working on it with me, as well as some great chiptune music lined-up. There's no up-front money, as we're all doing this on our own time and dime, but there will be profit sharing on the sales.

So any artists out there feel like a little side project, or perhaps something to skin your teeth on and add to the resume? You can contact me at munansen2+unity@gmail.com if you're interested. The game is meant to be decidedly old-school in look and feel, so please have some appropriate pixel art that looks like it's from the 8bit or 16bit era to show.

Thanks!


Nathan
I think there's a specific forum where you ask for help :-) Chances are being from a big company, you must have dozens of contacts. You should try deviant art if you're looking for pixel artists.

I'm an ex Bethesda programmer coincidentally.

I know a studio that would do all work for free and A+ quality, however, they'd get 50% of everything if you don't pay them a $5,000 retainer. They've worked on Drawn Together and the Scribblenaut's games.
All the people I know work for said big company, or another big company, and can't go near an indie project such as this. This is one of many sites I've posted on.

Thanks for the heads-up, but no one's getting 50%.
Deviant Art, go to Deviant Art. Get someone to hop on board. Pitch your game to them and pitch them working for free. Chances are, they're as bored as you and they'll go for it :-) I've done it for some of my indie games. Works well.

No one should get 50%, but its a pro studio in Korea. I've found and heard through my contacts, its the music people that make the most money, unless you go cheap. 1 great composer > 20 good artists.
Yeah, deviant is one of the sites I've already posted on. Apparently there's a virus going around preventing people from following up their own emails. /shrug
I've noticed a lot with deviant art that their ads sometimes carry viruses (according to my anti virus)... or at least false positives of viruses.
TFT
WHOA wow wow. two tails? that is a sexy idea...
445
The game is meant to be decidedly old-school in look and feel, so please have some appropriate pixel art that looks like it's from the 8bit or 16bit era to show.

i am glad ex-bioware employees can go from producing million dollar video games such as mass effect and then decide to work on an 8-bit game(baby-ware). lmao. reach for the heavens my friend.

also, i am a firm believer in paying commission for hard working artists and spriters. regardless of any project unless you are personally designing a game with friends and people you know. supporting the indie scene is also supporting the most important and critical part of your team(composers, artists, spriters, etc).

i think if you're seriously looking for pixel artists, you should probably get a part time job to pay commission from all of these hard working artistic people. without them, there is no game.
YDS
member of the bull moose party
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Magi
Resident Terrapin
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I believe your quest for a pixel artist would be much more fortuitous if you just cut out the middle man altogether and just used palette swaps of the Samurai Pizza Cats game. Nobody will ever catch it because I guarantee you anyone who owns an iPhone has never even held a Nintendo controller.
post=213440
i think if you're seriously looking for pixel artists, you should probably get a part time job to pay commission from all of these hard working artistic people.


This. You'll be hard pressed to find a pixel artist who will do this kind of work without anything up front.
Ciel
an aristocrat of rpgmaker culture
367
post=213402
Yeah, deviant is one of the sites I've already posted on. Apparently there's a virus going around preventing people from following up their own emails. /shrug


that virus is called 'a.exp32' short for 'artist exploitation by cheapskate 32 year old burgerking employee'
I smell impostor. There's no way to verify the identity or legitimacy of the opening poster.

This is why you must have money up front or there's no way to tell if you're pretexting and/or going to actually pay the artists. Why else would you come out and say you're someone from a well-known company yet not have down payments?


In either case, if you're spending time to make this game on the side why not learn how to pixel art for yourself? It takes time? Well that sure doesn't stop a game engineer like me. You wouldn't have to pay an extra person down payments or anything though and I'm sure your game would sell just as well if the gameplay is solid. This should be a fun learning experience for you if you are truly who you say you are.
Why y'all being such dicks? I mean, sure it's kind of fishy, but what do you think is going on here?

There are lots of people who enjoy making pixel art but have no programming/design skill/desire, why wouldn't a person like that throw their lot in with this dude? It's not like he's saying "give me all your pixel art and the rights to use it based on nothing yes yessssss" he's saying "Hey is anyone interested in working on a project with me for mobile phones?".

This isn't 1998. If someone steals your pixel art you can go after them, legally, and stand a very good chance of winning. He's not saying "MAKE MY GAME FOR ME NOW, I WILL POCKET ALL CASH".

If somebody wants to get to know this dude and work with him on a team project, go for it. Not everyone can afford to pay people to make games, even if they intend to sell them at the end.

If you're not interested, then why bother posting in this thread at all? Anyone dumb enough to make a whole game's pixel art for someone they haven't gotten to know deserves the hard-won lesson. I BETTER SAVE THE POOR IDIOT PIXEL ARTISTS FROM THEMSELVES AND CALL THIS GUY A DIRTY LYING THIEF!!!

I assume that the game will be made concurrently with the pixel art, no? So obviously, as the game is fleshed out, the pixel art will come to life.


All that being said (personally I hate and mistrust everyone), perhaps it'd be easier if you posted direct examples of your work, as opposed to a "here's a generic trailer of some stuff I maybe did or didn't make"?

Jesus guys, I am not saying we should all let this guy into our SECRET STASH OF CREATIVE MAGIC but do we all have to be dicks to him from the get go (of course if he's not the real Nathan Moller then fuck him, but don't IMMEDIATELY ASSUME there is something fishy going on).
You're the encyclopedia self-destructica definition for over reacting.

I'm saying it's strange, but notice how I still have thoughtful advice in case this really was an actual person. However, pixel art isn't exactly the kind of thing you need expensive equipment and training to do. You can do some impressive stuff in Paint if you wanted to even though there's much better free programs made specifically for pixel art out there.

It's not hard to pick up pixel drawing. The point I'm making is simply that you can draw OK art and it will still sell in the app store as long as you really are skilled at making fun games.

I'm not even directing this at anyone else than him, I'm just telling him what he would have to do to get results should he decide to hire a pixel artist. It seems rare to find someone willing to help you for free or for little, you usually only get results if you jiggle a nondescript bag with a dollar sign printed on it in front of someone's face (or a black briefcase full of bills).

"but don't IMMEDIATELY ASSUME there is something fishy going on"

You haven't been on many forums with pretextin' meat puppets and bots have you? Some of these can actually form intelligible thoughts and be somewhat convincing.. usually because they're the former. You can actually find these jobs on Craigslist and get paid to register on various forums and do elaborate schemes to farm people's information, it's a sad sad world sometimes.
Ciel
an aristocrat of rpgmaker culture
367
post=213627
Jesus guys, I am not saying we should all let this guy into our SECRET STASH OF CREATIVE MAGIC but do we all have to be dicks to him from the get go (of course if he's not the real Nathan Moller then fuck him, but don't IMMEDIATELY ASSUME there is something fishy going on).


DONT WORRY BUD i think EVERYTHING IS under CONTROL here FOR NOW. FUNNY THING is this is no different from one of those HEY GUYS I NEED 15 ARTISTS 10 CODERS 6 COMPOSERS to MAKE MY GAME for ME topics because the DIGITAL INTERNET POSTER namedropped BIOWARES
Wolf: How was that an overreaction? On the outside chance that this is a real person, one positive post isn't going to even be noticed in a sea of negative ones unless it's ridiculously verbose, is it?

Also, it wasn't directed entirely at you or even sort of at you. Your stance of "try it yourself" isn't overly negative or dismissive, so I don't have any problem with it.

Ciel: Except it is, because there is already someone who is going to code the entire thing. I'm not actually sure what this dude is saying he'll do, but there are lots of pixel artists who are looking for coders, so why not let them team up with someone who might actual have some idea what he's doing?
post=213440
The game is meant to be decidedly old-school in look and feel, so please have some appropriate pixel art that looks like it's from the 8bit or 16bit era to show.
i am glad ex-bioware employees can go from producing million dollar video games such as mass effect and then decide to work on an 8-bit game(baby-ware). lmao. reach for the heavens my friend.

also, i am a firm believer in paying commission for hard working artists and spriters. regardless of any project unless you are personally designing a game with friends and people you know. supporting the indie scene is also supporting the most important and critical part of your team(composers, artists, spriters, etc).

i think if you're seriously looking for pixel artists, you should probably get a part time job to pay commission from all of these hard working artistic people. without them, there is no game.

oh you are SUCH a TROLL
OBVIOUSLY all this talk ABOUT PAYING artists FOR THEIR work is trolling IT CANNOT be COMMON sense

gee tft strop trolling gee you are such a troll wow you troll really wow
Hi there!

http://pixelation.wayofthepixel.net/ is where a lot of professional and amateur pixel artists gather for critique and to look for work (both paid and unpaid). I spent a few years pushing pixels professionally and these guys helped me right from the very beginning in both honing my skill and getting my first few gigs, and while I haven't been active there in years I can vouch for a lot of the vets there. Prominent mobile/handheld game developers headhunt there regularly. If you want a spriter who loves to specifically sprite and knows how to work the pixel medium instead of some digital painter who thinks their skill will perfectly carry over, go to Pixelation.

The harsh reality is that your response is probably going to be very underwhelming unless you have money to spend. There are plenty of pixel artists willing to work on a free project to get experience and portfolio material, but this lack of experience shows. "Profit sharing" is the mantra of flakes and con artists in this particular business and is not likely to get the warmest reception. You might not need to break the bank, since this is a pretty global industry and the USD is still desirable in a lot of countries, ailing as it is :p but you're going to learn very early on the difference between cheap art and good art. Budget for the quality you want, and best of luck!
Thanks for the site, uh. I've found some interested parties, but if I need more help I'm sure that site will be helpful. There's some awesome stuff there.

As for me being a con...guess we'll have to wait and see.
*sorry for multipost. Got server errors and didn't think it went through. No delete button :(*
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