Question on time spent doing Pixel Works Genrally

[Synel]

Hello.

I know an artists skill range tends to vary the time taken on pixel art quite a bit. What I wanted to ask was specifically in terms of character sprites around 32x70 pixels in size.

If anyone's familiar with Ragnarok Online I'm looking for an estimate on sprites along similar qualities and design as those used in game therein.

[MysteryMeat]

That depends entirely on skill and experience of the respective artist. Something comparable to that would normally take me between an afternoon to over a day, depending on pay rate and complexity of design. That's without factoring complications like interruptions or distractions.

[Synel]

Thank you for the response. If you don't mind me asking for clarification though, are you talking about a single "sprite?" I know spriting is a tough art but that's a lot of time spent.

I need quite a few done to be honest. If it takes that long relatively for one I might be in for a very long project.

[eishiya]

The RO style is complex and has a high colour count. Such things take a long time, even when working with templates and predefined palettes as the RO artists (plural!) probably are. Even experienced, speedy artists will likely need at least several hours per sprite, plus many more hours for the animations, many of which have to be done essentially from scratch, as moving already-pixelled limbs around can only get you so far.

If the artist also has to design the characters instead of working from a design, expect to add at least a few more hours for that. Design takes experience and time.

[Ai]

Thank you for the response. If you don't mind me asking for clarification though, are you talking about a single "sprite?"

Do you mean a single frame, or one animation, by 'sprite'?

(i suggest avoiding the term sprite, as it is not specific enough. RO also has animation that ranges from good to pretty damn cheap. Ideally, you would cite one or more particular animations or static frames as a concrete example of the scope of your question)

[32]

Definitely for that detail and size I would be expecting a couple of hours, possibly more per frame. I wouldn't be aiming for this unless you have significant funding behind you, depending on the number of characters you could easily be looking into the 6 figure range for a full games worth of assets.

[MysteryMeat]

Branching off the above comment, if you want something appealing on the cheap try shopping around for something like earthbound's stylization. It's a fairly recognizable style and also pretty low-effort to replicate most of the time.

[lachrymose]

RO sprites you are talking years; given size and color count.
That is with a dedicated team of artists. Each character sprite has 8 visibly drawn directions which include walking, sitting, and attack animations, and unless your character clothing is mirrored exactly from the left side to the right side you cannot simply "flip" completed sprites to complete opposite directions.
It isn't hard to look up complete RO sprite sheets to see what I'm getting at.
Additionally, coming from personal experience you are better off downsizing your project unless you have substantial funding.

[Synel]

Gotcha. Sorry it took a bit to get back on here but again I appreciate the info.

And I suppose I meant frame when I said sprite. It depends on the class and what it's capable of but typically speaking it's 121ish frames for each class. I was planning on getting around 14 sets so yeah, long *** time -_-.

But it'll get done eventually. Seems there's gonna be a wait time for funds alone now that I've become aware of the details.