I would love to create all of my own art, and that's my eventual goal. I have to be realistic though, if I want my RPG up and running with any semblance of variety, I'm going to have to add in assets from other sources. I already use animation assets, because that's an avenue where producing all of the work by myself would just be overwhelming. Right now I'm looking to expand on the models tho.
I have my eye on two main sources for model assets: Quaternius and MalberS Animations. Both are fairly prolific and have their own take on low-poly art styles that I would have to make modifications to adapt to my own particular take.
Using any pre-made assets with my art style comes with the challenge of adapting the sources to be consistent with my own art.
(image of art by Quaternius)
Quaternius
I deeply appreciate the way Quaternius gets their art out there. A $1 a month via their Patreon is basically a blanket license and that's damn amazing for what I get. They seem to have pursued a few different variations of low poly styles, some of which would suit me quite well, some would need modifications and others that don't match (my characters are proportioned much differently).
As an aside, I also appreciate Quaternius' sense of humour:
MalberS Animations
MalberS makes animals & dragons with animations, all exceptionally well made. They have a decent variety of animals, some packages of which I already have purchased. The style is more detailed than mine, so I'll have to edit them. We'll see how well I do with that.
(image of art by Malbers Animations)
I still probably need another source for humanoid characters, but I haven't found any single source that's as consistent or cost-effective as these two. That's probably okay because my plan is to use these assets for now and slowly replace them with my own models as I can. In some cases I might keep some for quite awhile, it depends on how productive I am in other areas of my game's development.
Regardless of how I'm using these assets to accelerate my production, it's nice to highlight these professionals that do such good (and useful!) work. Please visit their pages, the art is enjoyable just for its own sake. If you are making a game yourself, I would recommend these.
--> Note: The images attached to this article represents art from Quaternius and Malbers Animations
