RPGDX > Forums > Graphics > Seeking artists for RPG, Hero of Allacrost

Kuro · Last edited by Kuro on Thu Jan 12, 2006 4:10 am; edited 2 times in total

Howdy!

I'm working on an RPG called Hero of Allacrost and I'm looking for an artist to help out. I've put some information below so you can learn more about the project. If you might be interested, please reply here or e-mail me at roos@allacrost.org. Thank you :)

Brief Description
Hero of Allacrost is a single-player, 2D RPG. The game is modeled after SNES-era RPGs like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, but we have implemented our own flair of modern features and graphics. We are a well-established project and have been around for over 18 months now.

One unique aspect of HoA is that it originally started as a work of fiction, so it's a game designed around a story instead of the other way around. This adds a lot to the richness of the game. In addition, we are all hardcore RPG players, so we have a lot of ideas about aspects of RPGs we would like to change. For example, we are making a lot of changes to the traditional battle systems found in most RPGs, such as improved AI for monsters, longer and more challenging battles, more strategic use of spells and items, etc.

Target Aim
Allacrost is cross-platform and will be available on all flavors of Linux, Windows, BSD, and MacOS X. It is also designed to support multiple languages, from English to Portuguese to Japanese. The game is not-for-profit and open-source, licensed under the GPL.

Compensation
Because we will not collect any revenue for this game, we cannot offer you financial compensation. However, all of the current staff are quite content with putting forth their efforts into what we believe will someday be a great game to share.

About the team
The team is led by Tyler Olsen, a.k.a. the "dictator" :) We have 5 programmers, 5 artists, and 2 musicians. Unfortunately, due to school and "real-life" committments, some of our artists aren't able to contribute as much as they would like to, so we are really in need of extra help.

I personally joined the team in July 2005 as the graphics programmer. I've found this team to be a blast to work with, and the best thing is that our leader (Tyler) encourages everyone to input their creative ideas. On some projects, you just get a list of things to do, but with this project, we communicate a lot on the forums, and have a lot of great discussions on gameplay and art, etc. The team is very informal and friendly, and we share a lot of common interests such as being serious fans of oldschool games, anime, etc. We're also very understanding about scheduling- if you get busy due to final exams, new job, new house, whatever- that's perfectly okay.

Current state of the game
We have the base of the engine completed, and a fully functional graphics engine which supports some cool effects such as lighting, fog, warping, weather, etc. The game is functional, although there isn't much to see yet, because we have to fill in much of the content that makes up what the game is about.

Talent we're seeking
Here is a list of the specific areas we need help with:

> Map tiles (32x32 pixels)
> Map sprites and animation (32x64 pixels) and other map objects (trees, creatures, etc.)
> Character battle sprites and animations (64x128 pixels)
> Enemy battle sprites (64x64 pixels and up)
> Other battle art like visual effects (fire, etc.)
> Misc. art such as GUI art

If you don't fit neatly into one of these categories, but you are generally a good artist, I'd encourage you to consider our project. One of the artists on our team started out knowing nothing about pixel art, but he worked hard and now he's one of our most skilled artists.

As for tools, you can use whichever paint program you are comfortable with. We do not use palettes, so you can use whatever colors you want. The only restriction is that images should be saved in PNG format.

Here are some samples of art created by our team:

Thank you for reading all this! If you may be able to help us out, please drop me a line at roos@allacrost.org. I hope to hear from you soon!

Sincerely,
Raj Sharma

Adam · Mage Joined: 30 Dec 2002 Posts: 416 Location: Australia

http://forums.rpgdx.net/viewtopic.php?t=1313
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Kuro · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 4:16 am Post subject:

Ah, I see Roots has posted a bit of info about the project here :) That's a pretty old post, so I hadn't realized he'd posted too! Anyway if 2 different people post about the same project, separated by 6 months, and the posts aren't the same, I don't imagine that would qualify as double posting, but if it is then I apologize.

BadMrBox · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 2:57 pm Post subject:

I would say it does not qualify as double posting. I like the walking sprite.
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Roots · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:34 am Post subject:

The thing I love about site statistics is that it always allows me to find where Allacrost is a hot-topic for discussion (we've had a dazzling number of links to the site from this post). :D Anyway, yeah I am the aforementioned "dictator". Oh, and actually we have 6 programmers now, not 5. :)

Allacrost has been in development since June 2004, when I first started learning about game programming (and man, have I come a long way since then). A ton of game projects come, live for a few weeks or months, and then die silent deaths, which sucks because all the hard work people did essentially becomes useless. Since we've been around for over a year and a half now, I can say with confidence that your work will not go to waste if you join our team. I would hope that that would mean a lot to a potential artist or other game designer. And since we are in an almost desperate need for more pixel art at this point, your arrival would be worshipped by me personally. ;)

Anyway, I think being a part of this team is a great experience for people to learn, and I believe that everyone currently on our team enjoys the work they do. I always tell them that if they don't, they should either find some other part of the game they want to work on, or say good-bye to us. Finally let me include my favorite piece of artwork for our game :)

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Hero of Allacrost, a 2D RPG in development

tunginobi · Wandering Minstrel Joined: 13 Dec 2005 Posts: 91

Nephilim · Mage Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 414

That's a pretty great, atmospheric scene. Tell your artist he/she did a good job on that one.

You know, showing great stuff like that may make it harder to get artists to come on board, if they think that's the level of artwork they'll have to put out. ;-)
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Visit the Sacraments web site to play the game and read articles about its development.

js71 · Wandering DJ Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 815

Those battle sprites, and the walking sprite-- Beautiful. Just stunning. I'd join if I had the time, maybe... I could probably match that style given a little study time.

Kuro · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:40 am Post subject:

Josiah Tobin- I've seen some of your artwork here, and I was really impressed :) It's too bad you are busy right now, but please keep us in mind for the future! We could really use a guy like you on our team.

Nephilim- Haha, I never thought of it like that ;) Well, we certainly don't expect that every piece of art will come out flawless the first time. Even with the most experienced artists on our team, we often critique and revise the art at least once or twice. We have one really good artist on our team who actually joined just for the purpose of helping other artists with advice/critiques. As long as artists are willing to listen to criticism and work to improve, we're interested :) (Also, you must be able to draw better art than Roots's programmer art :D)

Anyway, let me post a couple of other images that I didn't get around to posting at the beginning:

1) Some sample map tile artwork:

2) Concept art for scorpion monster:

That scorpion is one of my favorite pieces of art from the game. The artist who drew the battle sprites I posted at the top is working on this one right now. (That one will be much bigger size than the others.)

Anyway... Thanks for the response so far everyone :) We haven't found anyone yet, so please drop me a line if you might be interested.

js71 · Wandering DJ Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 815

Kuro · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 4:55 am Post subject:

You're welcome, it was really awesome looking tile art. I especially liked the cliffs and the "cross-roof". I'm happy you might consider joining us in the future, we could definitely use an artist who is good with tile art.. Til then, keep it up :)

Gooseman · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:37 pm Post subject:

It looks like your artists are doing a pretty good job already!
I would offer my services, but they are fairly crap (my services that is).

Roots · Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 12:26 am Post subject:

Gooseman · Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 12:20 pm Post subject:

Roots · Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 10:56 pm Post subject:

I think that looks pretty good. :) Definitely better than I could do. What is that thing on his back though? At first I thought it was a sword strapped onto his back, but now I can't really tell. There's a large number of colors on the ends there.

I think that his legs and arms could be made longer though. If you stand up you'll notice that when your arms hang down, your hands will go down past your waist. But that's really the only major thing I see there. I like the detail you did on his chest/abs. :)

If you're too busy to help out right now that's fine. But even if you could contribute an hour a week, or less, there's still a good chance we'd bring you on-board. Many of our artists get busy and otherwise have erratic work schedules. Some of them don't contribute for months, but later come back when things settle down and work again, and we're totally cool with that. No one on our team works on this full-time and everyone either goes to school, has a job, has a family, or some combination of that so we're totally an understandable team.

Anyway, I think you've got great potential there and I'd place my bets that you'll become even better with practice. ;)
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Hero of Allacrost, a 2D RPG in development