"in the long run"
The price will even in on the price you have to pay a skilled modeller
to make a model with the properties described.

If an experienced Modeller can make such a Model + Animations within
4 hours, and the Modeller is payed 18$ per hour on average,
the price will have a low boundary of 72$ to 90$ for exclusive! work
(and less if the model is in a package to sell to many people)

If you are not as quick, and need many more hours, you will still not able to charge
more..

Hmm... Well, this goes to everyone who posted and will post here - maybe if you are a modeler, you could write in an estimated amount of time it would take YOU to create and animate such a model, and how much would YOU ask for such a job? That would be really helpful, because right now I have read many different opinions! That way I could at least find the average numbers.

Check out modelling supply sites like Turbosquid etc to get an across the board estimate then compare to what you want your models to look like and then determine how much YOU want to pay then offer that for the work requested.

I'm modeler and I'll said the price will depend on what you are expecting. For m modeling is not the harder part, texturing and animating will cost a lot. I you aren't familliar with modeling ( take a long time to know) you could at least learn animation, It's not difficult and basicly the only thing you'll need to do is making move believable. Ventilator tutorial is a good place to start. You'll learn a lot about rigging and ik solver on blender. But then modeling if you aren't familliar with drawing could be more difficult ( for shape and anatomy) and I pretty sure you want to have at least good looking characters.
Anyway my advice is you drop the animation part to save up some money and learn yourself animation this way you won't be stuck if a idea comea up.

unfortunately i have to disagree here. animating and rigging is very very very very time consuming and partwise anoying no matter what tool you use. especially using links and attachements for sequences require good preparation and planing (example would be the simple bullet in the gun that can be exchanged).

the easiest and most comfortable part of this job you have are the attachable extra parts and armors. they are usually single models that you combine ingame in realtime. same goeas for different heads, clothing and other shapes. the price for this is basicly just set by the ammount you need.

Best might work an example (though like everything time and price and basicly anything depends on the artist working on it):

Simple adventure Character

This guy was split in:
+12h modeling
+10h unwrap and texturing
+8h rigg
+12h animations (this can be shared so it wont count as the other parts)

all together it takes arround 30-50h depending on complexity and ammount of detail, model and style.

use 30h as the lower end, add 6.50 (i think the minimum wage in the us right now?!) you will end up with minimum 200usd.

contract artists charge everything between 20-120usd/h, though you shouldnt expect to find a lot for 20bucks.
also rework and adjustment not included,nor taxes, nor all the time spent offside the work (management, communication, planing aso).

the model you request would take roughly 40-50hours (depends a lot on the additional ammount of gear and anims). use 30bucks and hour....

if you find someone who is willing to create this on a professinal level for less then 800bucks, get him!

i forgot, additional 20% vat taxes if you are not a registered company!

hope that helps a little bit.


the bottom line: good work costs money, if you are very lucky it might get very cheap.... but dont expect it.

cheers

Thanks, all of you! At least now I have a clear vision of how much it would cost and how long it will take.

12 hours modeling ? it's seems a way to much for a low model character. which modeler are you using ? this kind of character can be done in less than eight hours ( it will depend of you skill) but 12 hours I don't understand. The skin is nice and 10 hours seems more than realistic.

even if animation it's not easy ( i never said that) its easier to learn than organic modeling. 200 buck is cheap but seems fair.

the actual modeling i could see it taking about 2-5 hours and for texturing, texturing took 10 hours?.... like 5 maybe 6, rigging 1-2 hours and i think the animation one is the only one that looks about accurate.

texturing in low poly model is a really important thing since you haven't the poly you have to represent every part of the shape with light and the rest. But now it will depend on your photoshop skill and your expectation. Texturing takes time if you want to do it properly.

everything can be made faster if you are willing to accept errors, disortions, glitches and low quality.

the rigg for the fingers, the shoulders, the crotch and so on has to be done well or it will look horrible. this takes time or the accaptance of errors and disortions while animating.

motion flow and limited polycount require time or the end results are wrong shapes, hard or impossible animations and texture issues. not even talking about shading or lightning.

i seriously doubt many people are able to finish a character model from scratch to full animated and without massive flaws in very short time.
full professionals worked 2-8 weeks per character for doom3 enemies...for some reason.

i cant talk about figures and numbers i assume or think of or wish they would like to be, but about the hours i need for single steps or models based on examples.

personaly i think that one work day for a full animated, finished character is wishful thinking, but i am more then willing to be proved wrong here.

cheers