Ritual's Robert Atkins updated his .plan with more on Ritual's attempts to hire a 2D artist to work on Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.2, though the Adrian Carmack part may be a tall order (Adrian, no relation to John, is one of id's co-owners, and 2D artist supreme). Here's word on their job hunt, and related art test (unfortunately electronic, not on a matchbook):

Heavy Metal 2d job update: We are currently *still* looking for a 2d artist the likes of the pixel-master Adrian Carmack. =)

There have been a great number of talented artists who have sent art in response to the first time that we posted this position. For the most part, we have been very impressed with their work and have even done a bit of interviewing, but the one thing missing in most portfolios is a health set of high quality game tiles and skins.

This is nothing new; game companies have this problem every time they try to find someone to create tiles and skins.

In the past, the way we have handled this problem is by giving certain interested candidates an "art-test." No reason to freak out, it's super simple! We give you example tiles to look at for quality. Then your objective is to create your own tile set to submit for review.

To be perfectly honest, I really never look forward to go through this process. However, looking back, I should have prepared the "art-test" the first time I announced the job opening. Every 2d artist ever hired at Ritual has completed the "art-test" before we even looked at any of his or her other art.

If you have never created game tiles, this is the perfect exercise to see if you got what it takes. Plus for those artist that are just coming out of school or those trying to make a career changes, 'with no real tileskin experience', this the type of specific "game" art samples that companies like Ritual are looking for. So, even if you don't get hired at Ritual, after completing the test, you now have a great new portfolio sample to submit the next time you apply at your favorite game company.

Go here http://www.ritual.com/files/arttest.zip and download the zipped file, unzip it, read the doc and check out the art samples. Next, get to creating a sample tile set that even mom would be proud of, then send it to roba@ritual.com.

After you take a look at the files and doc, and still have questions just mail. I get back to you ASAP.