This is a problem most game writers are familiar with I think..
most people here are coders, no artists. but a game needs graphics too..

I think it would be nice to have a forum where coders and artists can meet .. both knowing that it will be a freeware/fun project, so no payment is involved.

there must be some artists on the web who are willing to draw but can't find a coder/team.. at least I hope so grinn

any ideas from others ?

It is sad how common the "If you want to get something done, do it yourself" phenomene is around gamemaking forums. I remember in the old days trying to get people do some tiles. I went trought... well tens of people and most of those who wanted to help were too lame and those who got the skill too bored to do anything. Finally i decided that i do it myself then. Its a heck of a lot work.. but atleast you get what you want.

Exitialis: It's sad but it's right. Right now I'm bored too much that I don't even want to code

A while back, I played OpenTTDX, which is an open source clone of Transport Tycoon Deluxe - and it requires the graphics from the original game (in other words, you have to own the game or grab it from the Underdogs).
Then a couple of weeks ago I felt like playing Caesar II again. It runs great under DOSBox, but that's still slightly annoying. Beside which, there were some things I could think of that I'd have loved to see in that game...

... so I sat down and had a look at the formats of the original datafiles. Graphics and palette are easy to load (I even wrote a programme that loads them into a DATAFILE structure), province map is easy as well. Sound effects (and music, in the Windows version of the game) are just raw data that can be send directly to the soundcard using an Allegro AUDIOSTREAM. The DOS version uses XMI for music, which I'm having a bit more of a hard time decoding (I can't get the MIDI note-off events synched properly).
I haven't had time to work on Octavius (as I called this project) for the past few weeks, but I had a lot of fun working on it, and at least part of that fun came from already having a full set of media to work from. It will be hard to distribute this when it's done, because Caesar II is neither free for download (as Caesar I) nor easy to buy at this point (as Caesar III), but that's really a secundary concern for me at this point.

Morale of story: do a remake or feature-enhanced version of a game you like with the original graphics and effects - people who want to play your game will need to own the original, but that may not always be a big deal and you can get something that works and looks well. When it's all done, who knows? Maybe someone will want to contribute free replacement graphics!

My avatar I drew originally for someone here that needed a squirrel (yes, it's a squirrel). To this very day I haven't figured out why he never used it. I even came up with the name for the action heroine: Squirly Pine. Maybe I should have spent another 30 s on it.

Hi, I am fortunate to be both a coder and reasonably good with pencil and GIMP. I have offered do help people in the past but usually got burned when the project died and my graphics went for nothing.

Any way I know this armature art gallery called Elfwood that may be of use to you.
http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/elfwood.pike

The artists there run the gambit of skill and professionalism. You may be able to find someone there who will draw for nothing more than a kind work and a name in the credits.

I also agree with Ampersand it is best to have a working prototype of your game to show how serious you are, before asking someone else to give your their time and effort.

Hmm, how about if we all shared our graphics? We could setup a website where any Allegro user could upload graphics (and maybe other media) of many types into organized groups. such groups would be things like textures, RPG characters, monsters, weapons, etc. Then, subgroups could be spawned off of those: textures->grass, rock, concrete, walls, misc. You get the idea. Well, the point is that it would allow us to view and download whichever graphics of many GB we wish to download and use for our games. All graphics should be completely free to use (no mention in the credits required, even, though I'm sure most would still do it out of respect). The site would be strictly moderated, and any copyrighted material, porn, or otherwise offensive images would be removed ASAP.

I have probably a GB or so of graphics I would share with you all, but it is quite a hassle to send that much information around with a cable connection. In fact, that is the only thing (other than the fact that I don't know how to make a website that is able to accept uploaded images) that is preventing this from doing it myself.

So, what do you think? Is this idea worth something?

The main problem with this idea would be difference in graphic styles. I know this when I was looking for some graphics on the net. You can easily find some useful graphics in style you want for your game, but theese will definately be only some pieces - for example some monsters, so you want other monsters and characters to look same (in the meaning of style) but you would not find them, because the author drawn just theese and he's not willing to make anything else etc. And it would look very weird when some characters would look like anime characters, the others would be prerendered and some pixelated.

But even then every artist has his own style and that means that you're gonna probably have different styles of characters in your game and I don't think it's good. For example some of them will look photorealistic and others cartoonish.

Ah, the everlasting question: WTH is the art?

Fortunately, I'm a fairly good 3D artist, so I could even render my objects and use them as sprites, but I'm not that good, or at least I don't think I am.

As for friends... I find them highly unreliable. You're better off doing something yourself. You may not do it better, but you'll have it faster and for sure.

I prefer to make my own graphics, but unfortunately, I'm horrible with a pencil/tablet and I'm not a very good pixel artist.

Best suggestion I've heard so far, implement your stuff with stick figures or vectors, or even bitmaps with vectors on them (BAD QUALITY) -- Get the freaking code done, show it to people -- people will volunteer... the only game I've done where other people did the graphics was when I took exactly this approach -- the cool thing about it, is that vectors don't look that bad... not until an artist volunteered and set my look straight!