Prices for Tilesets?

[Celianna]

In light of this post, if anyone is interested in ballpark prices, and why tilesets are so expensive, I've actually written a blog post about it now.


Maybe people will finally understand ... tilesets are pricey!

 

[Dream3r]

@Celianna wow you wrote an entire detailed post about this. Cool.  People are always shocked when they find out the true cost of good work.  I see post like you were mentioning offering $500, go up on sites like Deviantart all the time.  I feel bad for both the artist that are desperate enough to try it and the person posting the job who I know is not going to get what they were looking for.

If there isn't already there should be a business related thread where we take valuable info like you just created and put it all in one place.  That way people who are just now trying to go commercial can try and understand what it really takes to do so and deliver a good quality product.  (I believe Donn Malanilla had a good post about how to run a Kickstarter like he did with his $90,000 You are NOT the Hero title...would be another good one to either pin to the top of Commercial discussion or to include in a best-tips sectioned I mentioned)

 

[Necromus]

People are often shocked by the costs, but seems to me, that they're looking at it the wrong way.

You pay for art that is of commercial grade quality, done by people making a living out of doing that art, so ofc its gonna be really expenisive.

Question should be, what are you going to do with it?

If you're not running a (successful) Kickstarter campain, already have massive funds or atleast already some sort of reputation, you hardly would sell enough games, to even cover to expenses for a full custom game.

There are so mayn good free ressources around, just spice them up with a bit of custom art, then it might actually be profitable.

 

[Dream3r]

I've yet to see if it will work but my current goal is to make a fully custom game but only do the basic art needed to test the mechanics and show (through screenshots not gameplay) what the game would look like.  All the animation, shadows, and other pretty it up work will come later.

When it comes down to it you just make due with what you have.  Before I had the art for the image above I was just using the basic RPGM tiles

Edit: Notice how the ground for example is very flat and boxy, that would change with some more detailed ground textures to go over it but for now that's what it is.  As much as I want a better looking ground it isn't necessary to show off gameplay.

 

[Bex]

Ah i forgot to mention that...

If you would stick to the normal RTP artstyle, i believe edits of existing Tilesets like recolours or some Frankenspriting and stuff like that,

could be much cheaper than original own Artstyle Tilesets.

 

[bgillisp]

To add onto that...you can use the RTP and GIMP to do some recolors. I managed to in about an hour come up with about twelve new versions of the stalagmites in the Dungeon B tile set, just with the GIMP recolor button and some copy/pasting. Also, you can clump tiles together to get things that are RTP style, but still different (I believe there is a tutorial around for more on that).

 

[Bex]

Its called Frankenspriting Tutorial if i remember right, there are several on the Web.

For Worldtiles Frankenspriting is realy Cool. (Damn i wanted no Worldmap in my Game. I need another Game )