Bannerlands is a strategy card game and roguelike deckbuilder. It is a sequel to a game I released in 2017 called Age of Rivals. I designed and developed most of the game using AI-generated art (Adobe Firefly), and released a free demo with partial content.

Before I go further, I’m exploring the possibility of replacing the AI art with real art from an artist (or multiple artists). The main goal is to avoid or reduce any negative feelings towards the game due to its use of AI-generated art, since that is a controversial approach (and also some players just don’t like the way it looks).

I’m looking for an artist (or multiple artists) who would be interested in recreating most of the art in the game, and can also help me come up with a new art style that would make the project doable on an indie-scale budget.  The main challenge is that there are 250 cards in the game so far, so the art style cannot be too complicated (like the current art) if we are going to redo it completely.  

If you’re interested in creating new illustrations for the cards, please suggest an art style (with an example or reference) that you can work with, and let me know how long each card illustration would take and how much it would cost.  

Art Needs

• Card illustrations: 250
• Character portraits: 9
• Battle backgrounds (landscape illustrations): 12
• Some miscellaneous UI and menu backgrounds

Style

• The current style (AI-generated) is sort of watercolor fantasy.  It is fairly detailed and likely too complex to redo by hand within reasonable time and cost.  
• I am open to suggestions for what a new simpler style could be.  Anything that fits the theme of the game (ancient, classical, medieval, historical, etc…) could work.  As long as it looks good, there are many possibilities:
  • Something similar to the original Age of Rivals, which had a simple stylized stained glass look.  
  • Simple flat color illustrations.
  • Rough sketches.
  • Something stylized, symbolic, iconographic, abstract, etc…
  • Flat or lightly textured shapes or silhouettes, like what you’d find on a banner
  • Something boardgame-like
  • Something simple but elegant, like calligraphy or ancient manuscript illustrations
  • Stylized ink and limited colors, like simpler graphic novels
• The only other requirement is that the illustration for the card should match the concept of the card.  But there is a lot of flexibility in how it matches.
• See this google drive folder for some examples of the current art:
• The cards mostly represent humans, animals, buildings, items, or concepts.  Here are some of them to give you an idea:
  • War Elephants
  • Spearmen
  • Archers
  • Cathedral
  • Moat
  • Catapults
  • Trade Route
  • Market
  • Poisoner
  • Thief
  • Great Council
  • Mural
  • Priestess
  • Fortress
  • Theology
  • Feudalism

Links

• Steam page for Bannerlands
• Steam page for my 2017 game Age of Rivals:
• Player feedback on the current art:
  • https://steamcommunity.com/app/3495400/discussions/0/601906763100386393/
  • https://steamcommunity.com/app/3495400/discussions/0/628941617404934145/
  • https://steamcommunity.com/app/3495400/discussions/0/628941617404983786/
  • https://steamcommunity.com/app/3495400/discussions/0/628941617404942268/
• Examples of the current art

Backup Plan

If you’re interested in simply cleaning up or painting over the existing AI art to make it look better and less obviously AI-generated, that is also a possibility.  Let me know how much this might cost and if you have experience working with a style like the current art style.