Game art for programmers with non-existent budgets

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

Hi

I have reached a point with my project where it’s hard to visualize the future of my game without having actual game art assets. I, as an aspiring game developer with limited artistic ability, am trying to find any tips I can to start producing actual assets. I have no budget and don’t know any artists, so I have been relying on google searches and tutorials to learn techniques for game art.

Here are some links I have read through:
http://2dgameartforprogrammers.blogspot.com/
http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2013/06/11/Creating-art-for-your-game-when-you-are-a-programmer.aspx

If anybody has any articles or non-sarcastic tips, they would be greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

CopyableCougar4

#2

Art is really easy, the hard part is making it look ‘good’, and that comes with experience. Sure, looking up some techniques every now and again teaches you some strategies on how to make specific art, just don’t spend too much time trying to copy other people’s art styles. Just get drawing as fast as you can!

The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint, the greats were great because the paint allot - Macklemore (A really cheesy quote, but it makes sense)

EDIT: Never ever ever use solid colors, http://www.colourlovers.com/ has some SUPER good colors that work together in pretty much anything

#3

Really it depends on what art style you’re going for. The skills required are generally the same, although first you need to decide the direction you want to focus your art. For example, I am great at cartoony stuff and pixel art. But don’t ask me to make a texture for a “realistic” looking 3D game, I’d fall flat on my face. Where as on the flip side I know people who are amazing at that stuff but have no ability at all to do what I do.

So first things first, settle with a theme you want to learn, then work from there. I suggest starting with cartoony stuff, simply because by doing cartoony artwork you don’t have to worry about being perfect/realistic and you don’t have the restraints of pixel art. Also helps that small inaccuracies are easily forgiven, and usually just assumed to be “artistic style”.

But there is absolutely no one-answer. Art is art, everyone has their own way. I know the way I draw my art is very different than the norm… but it works for me.

#4

Instead of making your own art, you could use the many free assets available around the internet. Sites such as www.opengameart.org offer lots of assets which you can use even in commercial games by doing as little as adding the authors’ name in your credits. There’s things like this 16x16 fantasy tileset and Kenny’s incredible public domain assets.

A google search for public domain pixel art pops up a lot of great results. Good pixel art is reeeally hard to make. Luckily, this world has some nice people who give away their work for free. :smiley:

#5

You can use SiVi to make some interesting textures. Either use the app settings to write code to recreate the textures procedurally or export them as pngs and import them as assets. Once in, you could, say, fiddle with their alpha channel and overlay them on other graphics, perhaps. The ColorBar that is used can be something simple like a progression from on solid color to another. Clouds, of course, but also certain waxy crayon-like texturing is also easy to do.
http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/wip-reel/33731/msg/317526/view.html#msg317526

#6

I generally find the paintbrush and the alpha level my friend , overlaying a different shade is extremely useful and is a simply way to make things look a bit damaged or old.