suicid3Panda

Sweet! Thanks for everyone's feedback.

The backgrounds are not free. Just copyright-free, meaning that I pay the artist, and I am licensed to use his work commercially. It's almost like commissioning him for custom art, just that other people can use the same work. It's like buying an asset pack from the Unity store or something. It's a pretty common thing. Being this is the first time I would ever attempt to make money, I don't have the largest budget, or pool of resources (connections to artists.) I would like to hire an artist to make original art, but I can't find a quality artist who would work with a nobody like me for an affordable price. Also, yes, the backgrounds I found do match my game. I'm not making any concessions on that front. I looked at it the way a director would scout film locations for a movie, and made sure to find what would fit.

Hi! I'm in the process of making a visual novel, but being one person, I'm obviously in need of some help. I already landed some character and CG artists, but now I'm concerned about the background art. My question, what is the common consensus about using such art? Is it seen as a cop out? Is this something that is already done commonly, and I just haven't realized it? I've found a person who makes various high quality backgrounds and sells them to anyone for use in VNs. He's foreign, so his work isn't already being used in a ton of other games, and its appearance in my VN would be relatively unique. I know how people get flack for using royalty free music in games, but I haven't heard about any stigmas around using royalty free art.