About the Game:
Gossamer Academy is an unannounced solo project of mine that is feature complete, and around 25% content complete at 24K words. I'm about 6 months of full time development into the project and I hope to ship this Fall (2017). This is a commercial project.
Gossamer Academy tells the story of a teenager who attends a school for the magically gifted.... on accident. It's a story of fate, friendship, and coming of age beneath the shadow of a family you didn't choose.
GA has an over-arching narrative for players to explore that is the main focus of the game. There are companions you'll meet a long the way with whom you can build friendships with and explore themes of young love, but these relationships are optional and players who choose to avoid romance should still find satisfaction in their own personal hero's journey.
The game features a character creator with the ability to customize their student with selectable gender, skin color, hair style options and so on. The game also features character customization in the sense that the player has an inventory and there will be a number of clothing and magical items the player will find or purchase throughout the course of game to find their own look and bump stats that are important to the player.
Since the player can choose their student's gender the game has GxG, GxB, and BxB possibilities but Gossamer isn't an erotic game, and won't feature adult rated scenes or art.
Style / Tone
The "real" world of the game is set in a small town within the US in an alternate 1985. The core of the game takes place within Gossamer Academy which is a Harry Potter inspired school for Witches hidden deep within a fantasy forest.
The story and characters are often lighthearted, but the visuals and goings on of the world can be dark and sinister.
What I'm Looking For:
I'm looking for an artist who has a flat colored style like the references pieces I have shared in this folder: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByAUY ... U9zaGU5dlU
I'm looking for an anime inspired art style that is playful that can match the game's drama/comedy tone.
The artist should to be comfortable drawing characters of color. I'm trying to build a game that is as inclusive as possible.
It would be a huge plus if the artist is comfortable working in layers as the protagonist's sprite will consist of a body layer as the base with hair, expression, clothing, and other items layered on top of it to allow for customization.
Here's a more detailed breakdown of the work:
- Protagonist
- 3 Base Body Sprites ( in underwear / unclothed ) for Protagonist in default pose
- 3 Alternate poses for base body ( 1 male 1 female 1 neutral )
- 9 Outfits ( 3 per gender )
- ~12 Hairstyles ( 5 female 5 male 2 neutral )
- ~30 Expressions ( 10 per gender )
- Other customization options possible based on progress ( eyes, mouth )
- Other Characters
- 6 Character Sprites in default pose
- 6 Character Sprites in alternate pose
- 6 Sprites in Alternate outfit for default pose ( same character, just different clothing )
- 6 Sprites in Alternate outfit for alternate pose ( same character, different clothing in alternate pose )
- ~8 Expressions per Character sprite
- 2 Character Sprites in the "real" world
- ~5 Silhouetted Character Sprites( for generic adult characters, crowds, ect )
My approach will be to select an artist and commission some initial character explorations to evaluate our working relationship and style fit. After we lock in on character designs we both love I'll draft the full contract for the rest of the work! If you're an interested artist I'd appreciate it if you could link me samples and a rough estimate of cost.
A little about me:
I'm a game dev that's spent the last 7 years in AAA and decided it was time to build some dreams of my own! I'm a gameplay programmer by trade but I'm most comfortable when wearing a lot of hats, which I'm definitely doing in this solo project.
That's all I've got! Thank you for reading!
