[PAID] Looking for a Pixel Artist / Animator – Tiny GTA 1 Inspired Top-Down Character Sprites
Hi everyone!
I'm currently developing my own top-down open-world game in Godot, heavily inspired by the original Grand Theft Auto (1997) and GTA 2.
I grew up playing these games, and I've always loved their tiny pixel characters, animations, and the feeling of a living, unpredictable city.
Over the past few months, I've been building my own game and custom level editor, featuring traffic, pedestrians, police chases, NPC interactions, vehicles, and much more.
Recently, I've been working on a new character animation system.
To understand how these tiny animations work, I studied the original GTA 1 sprites frame by frame and recreated some of them for testing. However, since I would eventually like to release my game commercially, I'm looking for a pixel artist who can create original character animations with a similar visual style, rather than copies of GTA's original artwork.
What I'm looking for
I need a very small, top-down human character sprite sheet with the following requirements:
- Visual style: Classic 1990s pixel art, inspired by GTA 1.
- Perspective: Almost directly from above.
- Resolution: Very small characters, approximately the same size as those in my reference sprite sheet.
- Color palette: Ideally around 10–12 distinct colors, with clearly separated areas for clothing, skin, and hair.
- No anti-aliasing: Clean, sharp pixels without gradients or unnecessary shading.
- Transparent background.
- Consistent character positioning: The character should remain properly aligned throughout the animations.
- Original artwork: The animations and character design must be independently created and suitable for commercial use.
Required animations
I'm looking for the following animation sets:
- Walking: A relaxed walking cycle, preferably around 8 frames.
- Running / Sprinting: Approximately 7 frames.
- Walking while aiming a weapon: The character holds an extended arm with a pistol or similar small firearm.
- Punching: A short melee attack animation.
- Death / unconscious poses: A few different static poses.
The exact number of frames can be discussed. Smooth and readable movement is more important to me than having lots of frames.
Important: Color customization
My game has a custom sprite recoloring system.
For example, I want to turn one basic character into dozens of different pedestrians simply by changing the colors of their shirts, pants, hair, and skin.
Because of this, a small, consistent color palette is extremely important.
I don't need dozens of different character designs. I'm primarily looking for one high-quality base character whose animations can be reused with different colors.
Reference material
I can provide my current sprite sheet to demonstrate the exact scale, layout, perspective, and animation requirements.
Please note that these references are intended to communicate the technical requirements and visual direction. The final character and animation artwork should be original.
Budget and commercial rights
This is a paid commission.
I'm an independent hobby developer working on a personal passion project, so my budget is limited, but I'm happy to discuss reasonable pricing.
I would prefer to start with a small paid test commission, such as a single walking animation, before commissioning the complete sprite sheet.
I would also need commercial usage rights, including permission to modify and recolor the sprites and include them in a commercially released game.
If you're interested, please share examples of your previous pixel-art character animations, preferably very small top-down sprites.
Thanks for reading! I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Hi Swiffycat, I found the technical grid attached to your reply and used it to check the scale. Here is the preliminary motion study I offered, so you can judge the tiny human walk directly.