The hardest part about making a game (for me)

The hardest part about making a retro style pixel art game by far is finding pixel artists.

I am not a pixel artist myself, so even though I have 20+ years of graphic art experience, it doesn't mean I can make really awesome pixel characters. And animation... forget about it. But it is insanely difficult to find pixel artists to work on a game.

From my experience, which is now about four years, anytime you are looking for a pixel artist, it is not unlike what it was like when contacting models when I was a photographer - you have to message one hundred to hear back from ten. Of those ten, one might actually be able to do what you need. And for every ten that you get to the next steps of conversation, 1/10 will work out. It's just a really shitty numbers game that takes a lot of time to even get somebody working on something. Then you gotta stay on top of that work to make sure it happens.

I spent over $7000usd to make The Mayor of Sanctuary, and almost all of that was spent on pixel artists.

If I were one of these wild artists who can pump out insane concept images on the regular, I'd be killing it in this game shit. But I am someone with very high level tastes & curation and the ability to actually build stuff out, but my ability to put these pixels in the exact right place to make charming characters just isn't my strong suit.

My hope would be to eventually team up with a really talented artist with the exact right style to make my dream Sanctuary game, kinda like what happened with Pixpil making Eastward. You got one of the best pixel artists in the world to make a perfect retro style rpg. That's my dream. Still searching.

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While I am on the topic - I dunno if there is one particular artist in this world who is my dream collaboration on a game, but there are definitely a couple who always inspire me and would definitely be on my dream team:

If I could only chose one, this guy has the coolest environment work and cutscene images ever
https://x.com/yes_i_do_pixels

Some of my favorite pixel art environments, although it doesn't necessarily fit anything I want to do myself
https://x.com/desecratedlight

Insane japanese style scenery. They would be great for adding detail to scenes
https://x.com/MossyPixe

Super duper cozy and great colors and a general soft vibe to it
https://www.instagram.com/comfyfinn/

Pixpil's artist, who did everything in Eastward. Although, I would direct him to do things different than Eastward, as my dream game surprisingly isn't an Eastward clone. I primarily like their character design more than the environments.
https://x.com/kk14668756

Some of my favorite character work (he's working on Mina the Hollower), great for Game Boy style stuff
https://x.com/Bandygrass