Time it would take to create this sprite

[SketcyH]

I greatly apologize if this is not the right section.

I was hoping to get a time estimate on how long, reasonably, it would take for a pixel artist to make a single sprite in color quality and proportion to a KH:COM (GBA) sprite.  I realize that, often, pixel artists like to work at a $X per hour rate.  However, since predictable flat rates are becoming more popular for budgeting reasons, I would like to have a general idea of how long a single sprite takes to develop so as to give a flat rate that better reflects the time and quality put into the work.  This will also greatly help me when making budgets for my project in the future.

Sprite Reference:

If this was in the wrong forum, I greatly apologize and ask where I might make similar inquiries in the future.  Thank you for your time.  It is greatly appreciate it.

[Seiseki]

Depends entirely on the artist and if there are references, like in your example Aeris which you can easily find concept art of.

[SketcyH]

I expected that it would vary by artist, but I wanted a general idea to mark out which time frames are too short and which ones would be too long.  Perhaps some artists in the community could tell me how long they think it might take them personally to create the sprite?  That way, I can compare the different answers to make a better educated decision when budgeting in the future. 

[YellowLime]

I would take around... 45 minutes or so? The level of polish could make this time vary between 30 minutes to an hour and a half.

Of course, with animations, a great portion of the previous frame can be recycled onto the next one, so while there may be a high "base cost", any other frames will take significantly less time (usually 5-10 min)

[SketcyH]

Oh, I see now.  That does make sense that one would recycle the base sprite. For some reason, I did not even think about it. 
Thank you so much for providing the time estimates.  I really appreciate your help..   

[Cyangmou]

It's not possible to make a generalization here. You obviously want frames. The characters are in terms of pixel art rather big.

There is the design process, the animation process and the revision process.

The animations also need to hae a certain amount of quality, especially very dynamic or characteristic animations need long time to plan and most probably more than one try to get it right.

some non standard animations were it isn't clear right from the beginning what is to do might take several versions as well.
If you need the sprite in 3 directions there is a higher chance that some of the animation needs to be done several times that the animation looks alright in every direction.

so effectively you are planning maybe a char with 120 frames, in the end the artist effectively draws a certain percentage due to the complexity more and regarding to quality you want there might be lots of edits. Don't- expect that the first frame you get will have the same quality as high polished game sprites - they also had their development process you don't see in the final product.

That's why artists usually charge hourly for unclear workloads - art is a creative process.