If I’m not an artist, how do I get icons for a Hosted Games project I’m working on? How can I get a banner for my game 100% free? Could someone guide me? Thanks!
It’s not too difficult to make a banner even if you’re not artistic. You can just open Paint or even Word on your laptop and type out your story’s name in an interesting font and play around with colours. If you want to get a bit more adventurous there’s Gimp (free) or Photoshop (not at all free.) But you have to have the most basic principles of graphic design down for these two, or at least be willing to experiment for a while. Look at the Infamous banner for example. It’s extremely effective, but it’s just text.
Another option may be Etsy, you can buy image packs for cheap if you have a dollar or two to spare, and it gives you the right to use that image commercially (make sure it says so before you purchase.) I bought an image pack with dozens of appropriate images for less than a dollar, though I do keep wondering if it may be AI 
. (That’s not the art on my own story banner btw. That is far less amazing, my own rough doodling.)
You can of course commission an artist too. It depends on your budget.
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Unless you’re friends with an artist, you’re most likely going to have to pay. Unless you whip something up yourself to use in the mean time. Look at game art that you like and message the author for the artist’s info. If they’ve done work for hosted games authors or WIPs before they may understand you can’t afford to pay a lot and ask for a lower payment. But they want to be paid fairly for their time.
If that’s not feasible it’s easy to find free fonts and images online. You may not be able to create your dream banner, but it’s better than nothing and can serve as a placeholder until you can afford to hire an artist.
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As someone who has been labelled an artist in some periods of my life, I’m not going to do it for free even if I’m friends with you. Granted, there are more benevolant artists out there. But I do art for money, and only that. It’s hard work. I haven’t even done proper art for my own story. Someone needs to pay me first 
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Bear in mind, generally, you get what you pay for. You can throw something together for free with images that are in the public domain, but unless you have a lot of experience with the tools you’re using, it’ll probably look amateurish. If you want something with a little more polish, you’ll probably have to commission an artist. If you don’t have much of a budget, look into artists who are just starting out, or look at the lower-end services of an artist you like (maybe you can’t afford a detailed drawing in full color, so you settle for a simple but pleasing sketch). If you have any artists among your friends and family, they might be willing to cut you a deal, at least (but don’t be pushy or entitled about it, and for the love of all that is holy, do not ever demand someone work for free). But if you want something that looks good and don’t have the skills to do it yourself, you almost certainly will have to spend at least a little money.
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The easiest was is going to pages like unsplash, sort for free images and go from there for the time being. Just credit the artist/photographer.
Yeah, I for one don’t mind doing low-effort things I have time for for free. Or something that inspires me so much I can’t not do it. It’s not high on my priority list though.
Just remember not all of the required art assets can have text in them.
That’s not true. If you want something fancy and personalised yes. If you don’t mind using stock images (make sure they are not AI generated as per COG rules) and are willing to learn how to do some basic cropping/text placement it’s fine.
Be aware, there is an increasing number of mislabled images saying they’re not AI when they are. It is worth running any image you plan to use through a good AI checker like this one Hive Moderation . If it looks iffy then pick another image.
Edit: By the way, there are a lot of both paid and free editing programs that are capable of making images to COG’s specifications. Photopea is a free photoshop alternative for example. It’s got a lot of photoshop’s tools, it’s obviously not quite as good as PS but it’s also free so no one can complain and IMO is easier to learn to use than GIMP. https://www.photopea.com/
Edit 2: I’m going to be the outlier here and say DON’T spend a lot of money on artwork for your first game unless it has a huge following in it’s WIP stage or you have the spare cash, as it might not ever make enough money to justify what you spent on it. Although good artwork helps, there are a lot of games in the HG catelogue that have very basic artwork that have done just fine. If you’re going to hire an artist, start with something basic that isn’t really expensive or make your own. Seriously, basic editing of stock images might feel scary when you don’t know the programs, but isn’t that hard after a while, it just takes a bit of practice and it’s a good skill to learn.
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