Important Details

• Project: Unannounced 2D action-metroidvania (Godot 4.x, PC + console)
• Type: Independent contractor — scoped to a single initial project, with ongoing work likely
• Rate: 30–60/hr — matched to my other contract art roles, negotiable on experience
• Commitment: Part-time, flexible scheduling, milestone-driven
• Location: Fully remote, US East Time Zone Preferred
• Start: Immediate

About the Project

I'm a solo developer building a commercial 2D metroidvania in Godot. Movement, combat, and room-to-room traversal are built and playable, a contracted character artist is delivering animation frames, and a composer is on the music. Environment art exists and has an established look — what I need is someone who can extend it.

This posting is for one defined project to start. If it goes well, there's a steady pipeline of rooms and biomes behind it. I'd rather find one artist I can keep working with than rotate through freelancers, but I'm not asking you to commit to that on day one and I'm not asking for exclusivity.

The project is pre-reveal, so specifics stay behind an NDA until the trailer. I can share build footage and existing environment art with serious candidates.

What You'll Do

• Style-match existing environment art. This is the core requirement. I have art with an established palette, line treatment, and level of rendering. Your work needs to sit next to it without reading as a different hand. Bring your own craft to composition and detail — but the visual language is already set.
• Build assets that are ready for parallax. Backgrounds are composed of multiple depth layers scrolling at different rates. That means:
  • Layers delivered separated, not flattened — each depth plane as its own file with clean alpha
  • Horizontally seamless tiling where a layer is meant to repeat, with no visible seam and no obvious repeated landmark
  • No baked-in cross-layer lighting or shadow that breaks when layers slide against each other
  • Enough overscan/bleed at edges that a layer never reveals its boundary at the camera's extremes
• Authored sharp at full resolution. Depth-of-field blur on distant layers is applied in-engine with a shader — do not pre-blur anything. If you want a layer to read soft, tell me and I'll tune the shader.
• Deliver modular, composable pieces. Rooms are hand-composed from sprites rather than tilemapped, so I need reusable chunks — platform segments, wall and ceiling pieces, props, set dressing, trim — that I can arrange into new rooms without asking you for a bespoke painting every time. Think kit, not mural.
• Work within a console memory budget. The floor target is Nintendo Switch. That shapes source resolution, atlas packing, and how many unique textures a single room can afford. I'll give you the budget per scene; I need you to design inside it rather than hand me something beautiful I have to destroy in compression.

Requirements

• Portfolio showing 2D game environment art, ideally for side-scrolling or platforming games — I want to see backgrounds in context, not just standalone illustration
• Demonstrated ability to match an existing art style. If you have before/after or "matched this studio's look" examples, lead with them.
• Working understanding of parallax construction and layered background composition
• Strong fundamentals in composition, value structure, and color — backgrounds have to stay readable behind a moving character and combat VFX without competing for attention
• Clean file hygiene: layered source files, consistent naming, organized delivery
• Reliable async communication; able to work from written briefs and self-manage against a milestone
• Willing to sign an NDA and a work-for-hire agreement
• No generative AI, at any stage of the process. This is non-negotiable and it's in the contract.

Nice to Have

• Godot experience, especially Parallax2D / ParallaxBackground setup and importing your own assets
• Familiarity with metroidvania and action-platformer environment conventions (Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Ori, Gestalt as reference vocabulary)
• Comfort with atlas/texture budgeting for console targets
• Interest in lighting and atmosphere passes — fog planes, light shafts, ambient particle sheets
• Ability to iterate on layout as level design changes (rooms do change shape)

Terms

• Independent contractor (1099 for US-based); scope defined in a written SOW per project, you invoice on completion, I pay [Net 15]
• Revisions beyond the SOW estimate are billed hourly — I'd rather pay for iteration than pressure you into free work
• Work-for-hire — delivered assets and IP assign to the project on payment
• NDA required before receiving builds or unreleased art; you can show the work in your portfolio and on social, but can't name the game until announcement
• Credited in-game as Environment Artist

How to Apply

Send an email with the subject line "Environment Artist — [Your Name]" and include:

1. Portfolio link — call out the 2–3 pieces most relevant to layered, side-scrolling game backgrounds
2. Your rate and availability
3. Tools and delivery format you work in, and how you typically hand off layered assets
4. One example of work where you had to match someone else's established style, and what you did to get there

The first project is paid at your normal rate and functions as the trial for both of us. If it works, we keep going. If it doesn't, you're paid in full and we part on good terms.

I read every application and reply to every one, including the ones I pass on.