Feeling a bit more confidence in producing (though I'm just starting out) a project. One thing I'm looking for which feels a bit beyond my spriting ability is ... I call them talking portraits? Can't quite place a solid example of them, here is some screenshots of some games that might give an idea.
Solar Winds - Small boxes with a characters portrait, simply enough ... but with mouth and eye animations that go along with dialogue.
Z - Your robot units in the top right corner had similiar.
Battle Isles 2 - The dialogues you get coming up here and there, the portrait box is bigger, but it had (I think at least) very simple mouth and eye movements to an otherwise still portrait.
The following are some more high-end examples - probably not the kind of art I'd be able to afford, but if the above examples don't click these might.
Tie Fighter
Dune
Dune II
In a way I'd quite like a 'modular' portrait, where you start with a base face and it can have different hair/clothes/eye colour randomized ontop of it. A bit like Pioneer or Elite I think? The above examples are an art style I'd quite like to emulate for my project. The portraits have minimum expression and animation ... I imagine you could almost layer the mouth and eyes on top of the face and have it play through a series of frames to animate the talking.
What are my chances of finding some one who would do this kind of art? Is there a good place to find artists of the more retro(?) style of the above?