Advice moving forward

Hello everyone,

For the past six months I have been working on a vertical slice of a game I have had in mind for a long, long time. It’s gotten to a point where I’m happy with the core mechanics, and mostly just tweaking gameplay parameters. The amount of hours spent on art probably accounts for less than 1% however, so it looks terrible. As a solo developer I am not sure how to move forward however. I would highly prefer to finish this game myself to keep the cost down, considering that the chances of my game becoming a commercial success are close to zero. On the other hand, while I am quite capable of modeling some low-poly assets in Blender, I am not capable of establishing a coherent art direction. That means that some outside help is inevitable if I want to get this game done.

As such, I am considering to hire an artist to establish the art direction and provide some concept art as input for me, but I am unsure if this is a wise move. I am very interested in hearing from others who have similar experience and how they have moved forward.

Thanks!