Lostgarden.com has posted a great article entitled “How to bootstrap your indie art needs“. The article is rather inspiring, and gives some great points of advice:

• Build a game that fits your level of art skills – If you are a programmer and can only make squares, make a game that uses squares as graphics. It worked for Tetris and it can work for you.
• Use free graphics – There are thousands of game graphics out there on the web. Even if they aren’t the most attractive or original graphics, they can work for your game.
• Don’t hold your breath for an expert artist at no cost – No matter how much you ask or beg on forums for an artist to help you, this generally never works out.
• Pay for competent graphics – If you must have quality custom graphics, you are going to need to pay an artist real money to produce them. You can find some artists here: http://forums.indiegamer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20

I particularly like the first point. There’s an increasing number of new games that don’t have traditionally fantastic graphics, and yet they still look amazing: Everyday Shooter, Geometry Wars and Every Extend Extra Extreme come to mind.

We all know (at least I hope so) that games aren’t just about the graphics, but they certainly do help improve the game’s appeal, as well as the player’s enjoyment of the game. Its a very interesting time for indie development, and with the right vision, your game can look fantastic, even if you aren’t the next Picasso.

Full article can be found here.