I am working on a 2D Platformer for the mobile space and I am wondering if anybody has any suggestions on where I can find good game art. I am not looking for pixel art I would rather have a more professional look. I am looking for charatcers, backgrounds and UI elements. I have a budget of around $500 for the art. Also if you have any suggestions on good artists that would fit the style I am looking for that would be great as well. Any other suggestions other than the unity asset store would be nice as well.
I have bad news, that’s not enough for one quality illustration:
good art takes time (1 inked character, no color, no bg is around 1h)
it takes skills that has taken long to perfect
you need more than one image, so you need reliability
you will need revision, which mean redoing art
It’s expensive and you need a professional
You can go to deviant art find hobbyist with low price (around 10 time less that freelancer), but reliability and scale will suffer generally, and that’s without any revision, the more work you gave them the less reliable it will be over time, they aren’t pro after all. And even with that, 500$ will only give you on average 10 good colored images/revision before running out of money (only assuming character in standard poses).
Lots of 2D stuff if you want vectors that you can edit yourself. You can find enough art to get you started there.
Just check the licensing as it costs extra for commercial use.
A few of the artists on graphicriver will do freelance work for you.