Looking for an artist for our 2D Game Project

[Chutzpar]

You can't expect the people you're hiring to be as excited about your project as you are. People need a good reason to work for free. "You'll get exposure", "I'll give you a good reference" or "It's a portfolio piece!" are not good reasons. I'll get exposure and a potential portfolio piece out of basically anything I produce in my spare time; and 'getting a good reference' isn't really going to convince many people to devote time to a project that you yourself have implied to be a lengthy one.

When you need your shower fixed, do you ask your plumber to work for free because he'll get valuable experience in fixing your shower?

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Also, you're right that we all need money to live. Which is precisely why expecting someone to do time-consuming work in the long term for absolutely nothing in return is unreasonable. You're not a big name company offering networking opportunities in an internship; you're not a charity doing something life-changing that someone might want to help out with for free; you're just a leech looking to exploit artists that you hope are too ignorant about the worth of their own work to expect to be paid for a job.

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Maybe you should read this:
http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/...hp?t=23924
and stop expecting people to give you shit for free.