Hello pixel artists!  I am programming a game called BoundWorlds that revolves largely around user-created content.  It's a Zelda-esque action adventure game where users can create stages and objects using uploaded artwork and has a ridiculous amount of pre-defined parameters as well as a full-on scripting engine.  Players can connect worlds together using gates and explorers can use these gates to travel from world to world.

There's an automatic credit system where uploaded media can have a designated creator who will then show up in the credits.  I'm hoping it'll become very popular on free-asset sites like this.

What I am looking for is a sprite artist to create both an open-source character template (which later artists can modify for use in the game) as well as a player sprite for the default avatar.

I already made one as a placeholder, but it has a number of issues, chief of which is that it is based on existing work and some of the frames are a bit too obvious.  Also it's just not that good, I'm a programmer not an artist.

There are a couple of things I'm looking for in this sprite template.  Not all of them have to be done right away, this is just an ideal situation:

32x32 pixel frames

Ideally 8 directional.  This is a lot of extra work, so starting with 4 directions is reasonable.

Left and right sprites should be viable for platforming sections, so the feet should line up against the ground (one of the issies with LPC sprites)

Animations:

Standing (1 frame)

Walking (2 frames plus the standing frame in the middle is fine)

Blocking/Defensive crouch (1-2 frames)

Punching/weapon thrust (2 frames, if there is overlap with blocking that's fine.  However it should be able to use either hand, that is right and left should not be sprite flips)

Dashing (Right now overlaps with punching, which is fine but dashing is a major part of the game's physics)

Jumping (2-3 frames, at least one falling frame)

Rolling/Spin Jump (4 frames.  Left and right rolling can just be rotated)

Hurt (1-2 frames)

Dead/lying down (1 frame)

Using item

Using magic

There's also a thing with the attack animation - the hitbox is a circle, and I'd like it if the hand could somehow line up with the point on the circle so that weapons can be attached to the "middle" and simply rotated, that way world builders could simply upload a 1-frame weapon sprite and the game would do the rest of the work.  Example - when attacking downward, the hand should line up with the bottom of the circle, when attacking right it should be 90 degrees from that, and so on.  I'm not really sure how to make a sprite that looks good like this, but maybe a better artist could have an idea.

I've already got a bunch of these done - see below - but at least some of it will probably have to be redone.

I'm willing to pay for it, message me for negotiating.

https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/boundworlds-the-patchwork-universe-pr...