Making Games Without Graphics Design Skill

[yigitozdemir]

Hello everyone,

I love to make games, but unfortunately i don't know how to make graphics for my games. This is the main reason of incomplete games.

Is there anyone knows how to solve this? I am not looking for making "the best" graphics, but i just want to achieve moderate quality.

Do you think can i learn some basic concept of computer graphics? Or must i outsource graphics design completely?

[scheffgames]

http://www.2dgameartguru.com/

Aimed at complete noobs.

[mattstyles]

ascii all the way  

[RubbleGames]

I've used http://opengameart.org/ for most of my art assets. Most of it is free to use provided you credit the artist.

[DarkwallLKE]

I also like http://opengameart.org/. I use it a lot.

http://kenney.nl/assets is very good as well. (I discovered Kenney on Open Game Art)

Both are free and open source, just check the licenses to make sure you comply. 

If you willing to pay a bit, there are also some great assets on https://www.gamedevmarket.net/ I haven't personally used them, but I've been eyeing some for a while and will probably end up buying at some point. They are very affordable. 

Last but not least, if you want to take a stab at it yourself, make sure you get https://www.gimp.org/. It's basically a free equivalent to photoshop.

Good luck!

Cheers,

DarkwallLKE

 

 

[caymanbruce]

It depends on the type of game you are making, Flappy bird has crappy graphics design, Agario has no graphics design at all. A lot of other games require minimal graphics design.

[Kitanga Nday (NDAY Games)]

I agree with @craymanbruce, it does depend on the game and your preferences.

By the way yigitozdemir, I'm where you are: I create the nuts and bots of the game, but can't find what I want the art (or paint if you still going with the previous phrase) to be.

This is why in my current project I decided to go minimalist using a black/darkGrey background color with geometric shapes as the player/enemy/powerups/etc. (it's an endless runner with the spawner already created, just cleaning up the code, then going straight into the art)

Getting back to your question @yigitozdemir. Whether to do your own art or outsource.

I feel like you should try learning how to create your own art. This is what I've decided to do myself, and I plan on using the games I make as practice. Intensifying the art related workload as time goes by. It will also mean that I could sell graphics assets for games later on and (hopefully) sell myself as a contractible graphics artist. So more revenue sources. So yea, there's something to think about.

But then again like I said it's up to you. What I mean by this is that do you want better graphics or better gameplay? And are you willing to put in the work for the better graphics? It's really difficult to balance gameplay and graphics, you usually have to pick which one you want to spend more of your time on. This is of course true when you work alone and try to release a game each month (to pay the bills and all). But if you choose to outsource, then that's a whole different story right there. You could work on the gameplay (you being a programmer and all) and give someone else the art workload. Of course, you'll have to pay the price (literally).

Please read through the above mentioned tutorials first. Then try and copy a style(s) from one of the asset stores or from a site you find/know. I found it really helpful.

For example, I started with this image (this is for a prototype I plan on releasing far into the future) of a football pitch:

See I couldn't find a picture of a football pitch in the perspective I wanted and with no license attached so I created the following (created using GIMP 2):

It's no Leonardo Da Vinci work of art, but it's something, no? I studied other images of a football fields in this perspective and experimented a lot with different filter effects. Very simple, yes? You can do the same by just practicing and studying others work. you'll most probably beat this example above.

But whatever thing you choose to do, get GIMP! or PiskelApp (Executable)

Checkout the asset sites mentioned above/below my comment and try and copy the styles of some of the artists there.

Also read up about pixel art. An amazingly simple style to adopt, but a pain to master.

Pixel Art Tutorials:

http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299

http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-pixel-art-tutorials/

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/pixel-art-tutorials/

http://makegames.tumblr.com/post/42648699708/pixel-art-tutorial

http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=706

Game that uses pixel art:

Hyperlight drifter (ok looking at the files used to make the game's art, it's a whole lot more complex than just pixel art)

 

[TheBoneJarmer]

As much as graphics are provided online, I really really recommend learn how to draw your own ones. I profit a lot from doing it myself because I am never short on anything. The greatest con of free assets is that it is hard to find assets that mix good together and mix with your idea. I also recommend pixel art. I have been in your position and decided to learn how to draw my own graphics. And I started with pixel art too. It is not hard and incredibly fun once you get the hang from it.

[lazkeer]

You don't really need to be good at doing art, what you need is to creatively use your limits to create something amazing!

There are tons and tons of people that are not good at making art for their games but they used their creativity to overcome their lack of drawing skills.

For example, Thomas was Alone are just squares,

Geometry Dash more squares,

And NotGTAV the graphics are not that good but is a good concept where the art just fits even if it is not that good!

 

[borngamer]

I'm not sure what type of art you want to create but if you are basing it on real life things I always suggest taking many photos to help you along. Not only do you get a good visual of what you are trying to replicate, you can sometimes cheat if your picture is taken at the correct angle and trace over the lines in your art program.