I've been working on a project on-and-off for a while and I've just been using the free art that I can get on the internet to serve as placeholders during development (because I'm not much of an artist and I'm not sure of the aesthetic that the game should have). Most of the game-mechanics could fit a wide-array of settings and art-styles.
My questions are these:
1) As an artist, how much of a game's style and/or setting would you want to be established (and, I suppose, how established) before you started on the artistic design (visual, mostly, but I suppose this could also extend to music and sound-design)?
2) How early in development of the game (it's small enough that it's not really using an engine, so what would normally be considered engine-development would also fall under game-development), in terms of mechanics and scope, should the artistic design be started? I could imagine that while mechanics might influence the art, art might also inspire changes or addition/elimination of mechanics (maybe this isn't the case, though).
Since it's a 2D sprite-based game, I know at least the limitations inherent to that art-style, but I haven't really done anything beyond implementing simple sprites and animations, and I'm not sure what features would extend what I have in a meaningful way that an artist would really be able to appreciate and take advantage of.
I hope I was clear-ish, and thanks in advance for any feedback!