I've been wondering, as a lone game developer, or to say a part of team which has only got programmers and people who like to play games... How do I manage the void created by lack of artists (sprites/tiles/animations) in such a situation???
What do you do in that case? and suppose I am a student, with no money to hire artists, is there a place where I can get these resources legally & free ?
Recently I needed some free-as-in-speech sound samples, and found freesounds.org where all sound samples are under a CC license. Not quite sure where I would go for images/textures though.
Have you tried to attract a game playing artist to join your effort?
Lot's of people play games (even artists). The idea of collaborating on a game may be enough incentive, particulary if they get credit in the game, and samples for a portfolio.
For images there is also several sites like freespace pointed out for instance http://commons.wikimedia.org/ another great resource for getting artwork/images for your projects is to reach out to art schools or other locations that you know artists frequent and permit them to sign or get credit for any creation you use.
For a hobbiest, the simplest answer is that you shouldn't worry about your game's art. You can get by fine with only programmer's art.
After you've created a working gameplay prototype, only then should you look for artists.
For an independent developer, you would need cash to hire artists. There's no getting around this. Just think of it this way: you get what you pay for.
Fun trivia: the most popular programmer's art is Kirby. The developers were using a pink fluffy sprite as placeholder's art until the the creator, Masahiro Sakurai, decided that the art fits the game and should stay.