paid sprite work

Hi all,

I've been developing my own Heroes 2 project for some time now (mainly the sprite work) and wanted to see if any artists would be interested in some paid spriting. Nothing copyrighted of course, but I would provide the "idle" sprite for a creature I've done and essentially work with you on a frame by frame basis, and I could even provide guidance for the animation sequences if necessary.

I've put together quite a few creatures myself, many of them fully animated, which are included in this post. As you can see, some of them are only in the concept stage, and others (completely animated) I would like to redesign.  They're sort of jumbled together in a mismash with original creatures from the game (many recolored and/or resized) along with some excellent custom creatures created by various community members.

If you don't see an "incomplete" underneath a particular creature, it's because it's fully animated = ).

If anyone is interested, please PM me.

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ok,firstly let me say how excited i am, some of your creatures look amazing,would love to see them in game.
secindly,nobody cares about copiright,this is a mod fir an old game and these guys are not selling it,you oaying someone else to create art is far removed from any complication you may have.

now to your main post. you have money to spend,how much? depending on the artist and deal you make you can expect anything from 30 to 70 dollars for animating a sptite. add 20-50 for creating a high quality one.
numbers are very exoerimental,just ti get an idea.
now,what can you do ? there are 3 ways:
1 )deviant art. a website full of artists,send a few messages,look at orevious work,and you will find someone
2)forums,4chan art board,reddit etc again,you need to search a bit,but the tallent is out there

3)websites like freelancer. if you have money to spend this is an ideal one,if you are lucky you can get a really good deal. this is basically a program for specific jobs. you can make a listing for 3 sprites fir example. you add your budget, ask for example work or even a few animation frames and find the right person/people. many are from poorer countries,so your money is worth a lot more. you are also in control of your money,so if you are not satisfied with their work,or if they are nit honest,you dont have to pay. this is not usually a problem if you atr carefull,therr are many with hundreds of completed prohects and sayisfied customers.

does this make sense? what is your average budget? also,sorry fir my grammar,im on my phone

also, i assume these will be allowed fir the swmod,no ? if yes, i suggest you cooperate with orzie and other people from these parts, you dont want to end up animating a creature that doesnt fit or animating a creature twice...ps,what is your project about

Thanks for the compliments! My project is essentially just a large scale Heroes projects that would build on the H3 engine and include as much content as possible (creatures, items, etc.) from all of the Might and Magic games. For me, just playing a single large map for a few days is a great escape, and the more content you have, the greater the variability in gameplay.

As for pricing, I guess I'll discuss that individually with artists as opposed to just throwing out there what I have to spend. I've done this with other artists in the past, and through discussion, we feel out an average and reasonable per-frame rate. I'm actually talked to some folks at Deviantart already, and am hoping to get some interest from the Might and Magic faithful community.

Good to know about the copyright stuff, but I still like to be clear and fair just in case!

What you are talking about is essentially Heroes 3: Succession wars mod, are you not aware of it or do you want to do your own thing?

Also,and this is the most important question in all of this, if you make your own mod, will you make this art available for other H2 modders? Will you work together with them on the technology side? Having 2 mods that want to do the same thing( and not working together) would be a sad thing for fans...

As for the copyright, I am no lawyer, but I was connected to many modding scenes. Essentially, using game assets owned by ubisoft and making anything commercial is illegal. Even using the art style can be illegal in some cases, because of intellectual properly laws.

However, firstly, you are not selling it(art,technology etc). Secondly, you are paying someone else for custom art. There's nothing illegal in that. If I see a movies(lets say avatar) and pay an artist to make a custom Tshirt/painting/song etc with avatar, it would be insane for it to be illegal...It's very different from doing anything commercial, it's for personal use. If you sell your mod, its the same thing.

As for your mod, I told you, something like Freelancer.com (and other websites) are the perfect thing for this. Do you understand how they work? My English isn't perfect...However essentially you are acting like an employer,asking for employees to to a specific task. I would suggest you check it out, it is the perfect thing for what you ask, you will get not only better quality but much better price I think.

You need an account to see, however I am looking at the art/design section. Plenty if jobs, probably hundreds of "workers" there, impossible not to find a good deal with someone who knows what they are doing.

No project is for commercial gain, only fun and a way to pay tribute to the original series. And on that note, yes, it's essentially just piggybacking off of the Succession Wars mod--I just intend to further customize many things (i.e., different towns, new creatures, various other things), and anything I add/change is of course free for anyone else to use.

good to know! you should make contact with the hsw team. 8 suggest making another thread where you only share the art,maybe your favorite sprites or those that are finished. curious what they will say
i really like the angel and the horsr,also the death knight on the horse has potential

It's very interesting, indeed. As for mod, I believe that adding this new creatures as an separete pack would be the best solution. We've got plenty of our own monsters currently, awaiting animations and implementation. Also our Russian brothers are pretty strict, when we're talking about copyrights (Owlbear, come back! ).

Uhm wrote:

It's very interesting, indeed. As for mod, I believe that adding this new creatures as an separete pack would be the best solution. We've got plenty of our own monsters currently, awaiting animations and implementation. Also our Russian brothers are pretty strict, when we're talking about copyrights (Owlbear, come back!  ).

what do you mean copyright ? using swmod assets in his own game ? i dont think thats an issue if they talk it out.
as for the art, does it have no place in swmod ? like i said,the black horse and angel look almost hw quality for me.

I mean that some of shown creatures were made by different Heroes fans and we don't know if all of them want to see their creatures in our Mod without permisssion. Opposite, if gk1981 has permission, he can do whatever he want we're happy that someone is rebuilding our work.

The goal for me is to have every creature at the level of quality of original H2 sprites, so thank you for the compliments.  Anything I make will obviously be for my own use primarily, but of course those other guys can incorporate them into their mod if they so choose.

For me, the most fun thing about H2 and H3 was just the feeling of vastness when exploring a map, and the more content that is added (i.e., creature and item variety), the richer the experience.

And FYI, I actually did reach out to the SW guys and was encouraged to post here!

I am really under impression of your works and would help you developing your work even for free. However, our team is in hurry, because everybody are waiting for v0.8 release and some of us are fighting with exams currently We appointed our main goals around 3 years ago and consequently realizing them step by step, trying to create a stable base for further improvements. When a new version will see the light of the day I can help you with additional creatures in any way (mod or adding monsters owned by you directly to the game), but I am rather poor in animating. None of us is a professional artist (well, Dr Slash is an author of two games   ), all we do, we do in our free time, but maybe someone else will be interested in a full-time job.