The last time this person was "hiring" I sent in a sample, they didn't respond for a very long time (6 days) and once they did it was to ask me of rates and for an additional sample, so I followed through which isn't something I typically do, but I was feeling generous and I had some time to kill... I did a rough sample, wasn't liked by the guy and so I redid that to something a little more fitting.

I was then asked for more samples of my own work (portfolio) which I shared...

I followed up a day or so later with the response of "we're thinking" and I responded in kind to ask if they would let me know once they were done thinking even if they went with another artist. I never heard back from them at all. I have no idea why but I did provide my lowest indie friendly rates which they said were competitive too.

Here are the samples that I created for this person's work, which are better in my opinion, than what they ended up paying for which is the character set sample shared in the OP's post. Anyway, here were my rough samples of sprites  based on the true original ones. Also note that I ended up just using them for something else anyway because I never heard back from:



I just wanted to share my experience. Maybe there was a good reason, maybe not, but just note that this happened, however I have managed to use the work that I did with something else anyway with a few tweaks here and there so it wasn't a complete waste of my time.