[caprad]

Finding someone else makes it much harder to start working. Stealing assets is the tried and true method of getting something to show off, and get going quite quickly.

There are enough issues with writing your own games, you have just made it that much harder.

Of course there are also lots of free assets out there for use, but designers are more hesitant than developers to give stuff out for free.

[MJR]

Seriously? Go look at the games, we're talking about a single image of a character in most cases. And showing something off doesn't have to be putting it up on Microsoft.com for the world to download. The kid is 15, my point is find the friend you have that is taking art class and get them to sketch something for you. I bet money that if this kid is into games, one of his gamer friends can sketch a game character for him pro-bono. We're not talking about developers and designers - these are high school kids making one-off test-the-water apps.