Hi,
I am totally in the dark about the salary of a decent pixel artist. I'd like to start on a bigger programming project, i would love to make a Jrpg game, but lack the ability to make appealing characters and mobs for it. I havent start working out exactly what i would need but i'd like to see what price range i'm up against. So here is a list of what i would need at the least.
4 main characters, about 32 * 48 with movement and some basic emotion animations consisting of 3 frames each.
4 portraits of these characters 128*128.
50 unique mobs and for each mobster i would need a couple (2 to 4) different color variants. Size ranges from 96*96 to 256*256 but most being around 128*128.
10 bosses 256*256
Like i said i'm clueless at how much time these things take to make and the budget i would have to put up against it if i set my sights on a cool indie Jrpg.
[edit]
Forgot to add that there are no palette restrictions as this will be developed with XNA for PC, xbox and maybe win phone too.