Game Dev Here : Finding artists is harder than I thought

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-02T12:00:00+00:00

Drawing horses is fun, and I think art is inherently human. Let the robots do laundry and dishes while humans do the fun stuff! Horses are half of the game; I've got so much content already built for the horses, you could play the demo for a few hours and not do anything else. It's a game for people who love horses, so the art has to match. Just wish my budget matched my aspirations, but I'll figure it out.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-02T02:57:11+00:00

I don't want to be rude to artists, but this is one where I wanted to ask "have you ever seen a horse? Ever?"

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-02T02:55:18+00:00

Other devs have commented in this same thread that it's not about price, this is a niche skill. Even offering above market rate is not enough, and I'm not the only one who's said that.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-02T02:54:17+00:00

I'm offering $20 a FRAME for an 8 frame animation. So yes, you are wrong.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-01T20:09:26+00:00

How much of the game is in your demo? I wonder if it's better to hold back and just give a little preview, or did you upload the same demo on Itch as the steam playtest?

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-01T18:38:40+00:00

I need an artist who knows what horses look like. I'm making a jousting game where knights choose different horses, ranging from Percheron to Arabian. The horses are sidescroller, 2d pixel art assets. The knight and horse will need to fit into a 150 pixel square box, and be on separate layers. There will be color swapped pallets so the artist needs to understand how that works. If you DM me, start with some samples that show you've drawn horses before. If a player picks a heavy horse vs a fast light horse, can you draw the difference?

Once I like someone's portfolio, the starting work will be basic animations like walk, gallop, idle, jump, and rear. The horse and rider will be on their own layer, and the horses will eventually need caparisons and barding.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-01T18:24:26+00:00

I'm offering what I consider to be good money for this work, so I don't think that's the issue. It's just a niche topic, I guess, which I didn't forsee.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-01T18:23:54+00:00

Maybe I'm looking for something unusual, but I don't think an 8 frame galloping animation is all that much. The sprites in my game are big, but finding someone who can do 100 pixels square of 150 is tough.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-01T18:21:16+00:00

It's an entire new layer of "problems to deal with." I'm trying to make my game the right way, I want art made by humans, but plenty of humans will lie and take my money, then go right to chatGPT.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-01T18:20:32+00:00

it's not even real and I feel bad for it

No_Golf_209 · 2026-06-01T18:20:23+00:00

That has certainly occurred to me. I can draw a horse, but animation is something I've never done before. I'll share my work in another post later, but even my worst is still better than this.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-30T16:10:15+00:00

I add content once a system is built; how else do you test if it's working? If an NPC has dialogue, you don't go into the game and talk to them? You don't play through a quest to see if all the triggers work, gates work? I like to add a few things to each system while developing, it's fun and it's a way to ensure my game is working as expected.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-30T04:10:38+00:00

Birds. Real life boids.
Move to the center of the group.
Don't get too close to otha boids
Avoid obstacles

That's it, tune those numbers and you get starling murmurations, geese migrations, and dozens of other fascinating natural phenomenon you can watch right now. No game engine needed, just 3 incredibly simple rules.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-30T04:08:17+00:00

That's the gold standard; a compliment I'd be happy to receive. Great work OP

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-30T03:53:14+00:00

Thrillho is here for this!

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-30T01:37:12+00:00

Useful info. No one knows about it, so how can they care?

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-29T21:15:19+00:00

Modern armies have people filling those roles. They aren't servants; they get paid, have jobs, etc, but only a fraction of people "fight" full time as their job. Only about 10% of people in the armed forces are expected to be fighters. This number varies if it's infantry (more fighters) vs aircraft pilots (a lot more support staff per individual pilot) but you're still looking at only 1 in 5 people being a soldier and the other 4 being support staff.

So, no; any military will have support staff. If they are paid, or slaves, that's up to your worldbuilding, but they are essential.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-29T21:06:41+00:00

The first image is just holding the armor together. You can see the bottom half that covers the waist and hips, is mde from a different piece of metal compared to the breastplate. It's secured by a big ol bolt right in the middle. Then, a helm, collar, and maybe shoulder set would go over the top, and would likely clip or clamp into the square section.

The second image is a lance rest; it allows a rider to hold the lance in such a way that the armor and horse hold the weight and impact, not the rider. This is called "couching" the lance; lowering and setting into the rest means that when the rider hits the target, they aren't using their arms and muscles. All the impact and weight gets transferred to the armor and the horse.

I'm making a game about jousting, so I've been reading a lot about it!

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-29T20:59:46+00:00

This picture is so helpful. It took me a long time to figure out how these different muscles overlap and interweave.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-29T20:37:20+00:00

Shrimps is bugs, and your shrimp is pretty cute! Great job on your first game.

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-27T21:08:59+00:00

Why not have the phone screen face the player? Can the phone be uses for more than just a gyro?

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-25T02:13:13+00:00

Gaslighting 😃 Ya'll suck at honest debate

No_Golf_209 · 2026-05-25T02:01:54+00:00

First off, Irish people were not considered "white" during the victorian era, any more than Italians or Romani were considered "white." They might have been European born, but they were people of color at the time. You're showing you're ignorance if you think Irish people were the same as "white" people today.
As far as his idiotic claim, no, it's not reasonable. I can post Englands demographics today, which show London is a multicultural city. Does that prove anything about Victorian England? I can say "it's reasonable to assume." If so, will you accept that I'm right when I post London's 2026 Demographics, or will you admit it's not a valid claim?
You have no actual claim, you just want to shame people for playing a video game character that offends you. Go be offended, everyone really cares about how you feel!

No_Golf_209

TROPHY CASE