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Great, do you have any personal connection to Indonesian history and legends?

Hi all! I'm making Merantau, a top-down game where you steer a living island through an endless sea, collecting resources and growing the island hex by hex. There's a working technical demo here so you can see the game in motion: https://merantau3.tom-fab.workers.dev/

I'm looking for a human artist to give this world its look, and I'd love to pay for the right fit.

Where I stand on AI: I deliberately want this game's art made by a person, not generated. I do use AI on the code side of production, but not for art. The whole point is to work with someone who brings a distinct hand and breathes life into historic and mythological Indonesia. (Full disclosure: while prototyping I put together a style prompt that gave me rough placeholder images. I did not put them in the game, as I don't want to prime on a specific style). If you're interested, play the prototype with flat shapes, and form your own idea about what kind of art would fit. The current look of the sea and foam (posterized) is kind of what I'm going for.

The format (some of you may already make almost exactly this):

• True straight-down top-down hex tiles — pure plan view, not isometric or 3/4. You see roofs, canopies, and tops, never facades.
• Delivered as layered svg's or png's 
• Assets I need: hex terrain/building tiles, small structures seen from above, floating resource pickups that read clearly on a blue sea, a couple of drifting "obstacle island" clusters, and a few matching UI icons.

The look:

• Stylized, slightly low-poly, hand-crafted feel — organic, rounded, painterly (not pixel art, though I'm open to talking if your pixel work fits).
• Strict limited palette (I'll give you the exact hex swatches).
• World is medieval Hindu-Buddhist Indonesia — the Majapahit / Srivijaya era: Borobudur, Prambanan, the red-brick ruins of Trowulan, Balinese temples. Volcanic stone, red brick, tiered meru roofs, stupas, candi bentar gates, palm thatch, rice terraces. Real feel for this culture is a big plus, but strong reference work is welcome too — I have plenty to share.

How I like to start: with a single paid test tile (e.g. a temple-top hex in the palette) so we can both check the fit before committing to the full batch.

If this sounds like your thing, reply here or DM me with your portfolio, your rate (per-asset or hourly), and rough availability. Cheers!