Art! Art! Art! The horror

[asafii]

Ok I recently found out about the amateur adventure gaming world and  i have been really interested and played a few games and i really enjoyed them but what i would enjoy more is to actually make my own game.

So yesterday i sat down and started , i can do the music , the actual AGS programming and probably a bit of scripting if i read through the tuts because i have a bit of a background in java and other programming but then i get to the  :'( ART :'( and this is where i fall flat on my face . I am probably the most artistically challenged person on the planet and cant even draw a person properly , I have an idea for a game and have the basic storyline and what the screens must look like but when i get to actually drawing the stuff I JUST CANT.

That is why i want to ask you out there if anyone knows of any excellent tutorials for people who are hopelessly bad at art. If anyone can help me please message me because i am really motivated to get the project off the ground .

Thank you for reading my sob story
Regards
Asaf

[jannar85]

Check the tutorials thread in the critics lounge

[asafii]

I have ive looked at many tutorials but many of them require you to have at least an ounce of artistic skills and ive used a few and tried to use them to make backgrounds but that failed horribly im embarassed to even post the background hehehe

[jaz]

Don´t give up, check out the tuts, buy a sketchpad, look at your favourite games/illustrations/comics and try to emulate the styles.  If you know how the screens should look like, look at how the others have drawn the objects you want to have on your picture. If you have at least a tiny bit of a talent and a lot of patience, you will consequently come up with your own style and you will get better every picture.

It´s probably going to be a long run, so don´t let this discourage you. And remember, tutorials will help you a little to make your pictures look less crappy while to practise wil help a lot...

Regards
jaz

EDIT: I´ve just read your post. Don´t be shy and post it. You will see that the people wont tear your work into pieces but will try to give you a hand...

[asafii]

Thanks for the kind words of encouragement.

I think the main problem isnt that i dont have the ideas of how the artowkr must look for e.g i know exactly how a room must look and can visualize it and as soon as i put it on paper it looks disgusting and is an absolute mess , I even got myself photoshop 7 thinking maybe it would help me because it is advanced etc. but it didnt help at all.

I first read a tutorial i think by Kafka where he did all his characters and backgrounds in pencil then scanned them in , I tried that but my pencil dfrawing was so bad that i couldnt use it . Then i tried to purely construct on computer from scratch that was also a major disaster . I think my main problem is perspective and perception of how the things must look from a certain angle.

For those of you out there who are accomplised adventure game artists what do you suggest should i first do it in pencil then scan it in or should i do it staright onto PC . I have thousadns of ideas for games but this is probably the only problem that lies in my way. I want to release at least a 10 room game by mid February but i dont want the artwork just to be rushed for the sake of getting it done i want it to look nice.

Also i get intimated by playing other artists games because i start comparing artwork and see how i will never be able to match that qaulity of artwork. I have looked at kafkas tutorials and they help but they only help from once i have an image on paper then what to do and that i can do the coloring outlining etc. the only problem is getting the outlines actually down in paper.

Thanks for all your help so far
Asaf

[jaz]

asafii,

unfortunatelly, there is no instant magic cure for your troubles. As I told you, it´s gonna take some time. Dont´t get frustrated when you see the other people´s work but try to learn from it.  It´s the greatest source of inspiration. I always check professional artwork. When I see something that interests me, I try to get some information on artist and his portfolio. For example yesterday I saw a review of "Triplets of Belleville" animated movie. I went to the cinema the very evening.  Not only it was a great movie but the artwork was amazing
So today I´m trying to get some screens from the movie and I want to learn more about other works of Sylvain Chomet, Evgeni Tomov and Thierry Million.
It´s also good to study works of great painters, that will teach you a lot about colors and composition that you will find useful even when creating a cartoony backgrounds.

And come on, post a BG in Critics lounge so that we could tell you what is good and what needs to be improved.

Laters

[Ginny]

asafii,
Wow, reading your piost was like looking in a mirror. I am in the exact same problem (well apart for the music thing, I can't do that either, not yet). I can almost always see what it is I want to draw, but when it comes to actually drawing, coloring, and shading I have no abillity to express my vision. One problem with me is that I'm not very patient, both with making one single image and with the whole practise matter. And I know how it feels for me when I'm told to practice, and I tell myself to practise, but I can't practise something that I don't even have anything basic on. So, luckily, I found an interesting website a while ago (generally more directed at kids in the way things are presented, but it seems to have everything, so I stareted reading through it from the very begining. Here it is: http://www.sanford-artedventures.com/

Hope it's of some use, to you and tome

[Alynn]

thats the thing, drawing takes lots of patience... one thing that helped me in making rooms and things for my game (and I do have SOME artistic talent, not so much in drawing, but I'm good with colors, blending, and painting) is getting myself a drawing program that supports layers, I had a single layer I used for my Vanishing point and outlines, this gave me an idea of what it would look like (whatever it happened to be) and where it would be positioned.

My suggestion, start with a normal square type room (300, 200 room with a vanishing point of (150,100) Draw lines on your VP layer from the corners to the VP, then make a horizontal line where you want your back wall. vertical lines as the sides (where the VP lines intersect with the horizontal line) then connect those, now you have an idea of how big the room is. Then if you like the way it looks (depth and what not) go from there. Start with square type objects, TV's tables, Boxes, then go for more advanced shapes like cylinders.

Put each thing you make on its own layer, then you can delete things you make a mistake on the layer you are working on, and not affect the other things you did that look correct.

Also, dont be overcritical of any and all mistakes, unless you are an uber talented artist it will NEVER look like you envision it. Especially in pixel art, since you are really limited by the fact that if you need a color to take up an area smaller than a pixel you really cant do it.

Shading is your friend, making a 2d picture look 3 dimentional is always going to be a challange, shading is your best friend in that matter, if your walls are color 128,128,128 near the corners have it darken out with 120, 112, and 104 (on all 3 colors) This will take practice to get correct, but the final product is better... shading helps give the illusion of depth and 3 dimentions...

Lastly Practice practice practice, I made about 50 pics with graphics gale (my current drawing tool of choice, because I havent installed photoshop even though I have it, mostly due to not wanting to teach myself how to use a new program) testing out all the tools, functions what. Once I really learned the program it made things much easier to do later. And helped me figure out a few "tricks" to get the effects I want.

Once you get 1VP drawing down, move up to 2  VP drawing, which follows the same type of prep, but once you have 1VP drawing down 2 becomes super easy...

Sorry if that doesnt help, but it worked for me... maybe it will work for you.

[After]

I've put a new topic on drawing systems in the critics lounge.

When you haven't got the feel for something, it can be good to just follow exact instructions until it becomes second nature.

It's not necessary to follow some strict rule about what is 'correct', but it is important to be able to figure out why something isn't working and improve it.

[Bitmap Dude]

You just need to practice I know that is not what you want to hear, but is the truth. My advice is to go to mobygames.com and look at the screenshots from indiana jones and the last crusade, and secret of monkey island. These games both have rather simple, but nice looking art styles. Try to draw a building, tree, character, etc. in the styles of these games. then, after you've ripped all of your hair out, try again!

[Joelman]

bitmap dude is right, practice a lot. make friends with CTRL+Z, keep trying every stroke until it looks right to you, or trace over photos in photoshop. tracing isnt really cheating, thats what art is, although usually you will just be tracing from what you see in your mind to your paper.
good luck!

[BerserkerTails]

Everyone here is making very valid points. When I started working with sprites a little over a year ago, I couldn't do ANYTHING! But now, I find myself to be a good sprite artist. I'm even hard at work doing all the graphics for my game, and alot of people like the art.

So it's not a dead end. IT IS POSSIBLE to become better and great at art, even if you can't draw a single thing right now. Look at everything you see like you were going to draw it. Think of how you could draw certain things. Soon you'll begin to develop your brain to get better and better at drawing things.

The pathway to great art is in your brain, it's just filled with high grass. You've got to traverse it a few times to stomp it down into a road  

[asafii]

Thanks to everyone who tried to help with words of encouragement . I have taken all you guys advice and i think what ill do is first develop my art skill do a few backgrounds a few characters not for the purpose of making a game but rather as practice to get my art skill moving along then maybe ill post it on the critics forum and you guys can tell me what you think , and what is missing etc.

Just a question is Adobe photoshop a good program for a beginner like me or are there better programs out there.

[Cerulean]

There's no shame in accepting your strengths and weaknesses as they are. If you're that good at everything else, you can make a very good game with really bad art, and it will still clearly be a very good game, even if it's just stickmen and rectangles with labels on them. Then you'll have something you can give to an artist and say, "Here, play this and see if you would like to illustrate it." If someone decides that it's a game worth hitching their star to, all you'll have to do then is reshape the existing game around the artist's pictures and you'll have a finished product.

[James Kay]

And who said art had to be beautiful? A lot of very simplistic design still can have a LOT of character and that is, afterall, what the people go for. What would you choose? A beautifully rendered but totally boring humanoid graphic or a stickman with a great personality? If your writing (and scripting) skills are up to scratch you'll manage to make a fun AGS adventure with the simplest art imaginable!

Photoshop is a very powerful tool and has so many features a beginner could easily get lost. However it is also the best so it is worth learning. With minimal research you'll be able to create decent graphics in it in no time. And you'll never master it. I've been using Photoshop for about 10 years now and I still learn new tricks I had never known before! So, yeah, there are easier programs, but not better ones.

Stick with it and good luck! Show us some of your work and I'm sure the artists on this board will be more than glad to help you out with hints, tips, advice or even reworks.

[jaz]

The best program to learn the basics would be pencil and paper
In my opinion it´s not good idea to start with computer graphics before you have some basics down.

jaz

[Gemmalah]

Hey man, I was absoutly no good at drawing when i started, i still can't get anything 3D to look good but i'm doing A level art because i am good at other things, like clay and paint and knitting!

So knit a background, no only kidding, but if you have a scanner how bout you make a collage background from things in magazines, never seen that done before!

or use photos?
and definately post in the critic lounge, they are really helpful.

[James Kay]

A claymation AGS game. That...would...be..FANTASTIC!

There was a claymation fighting game, I remember, though the name escapes me, and an adventure type game based on Edgar Allen Poe stories, narrated by William S. Burroughs.. The latter one was called something like Dark Eye or whatever.
Set up a camera and some lights and start doing some stop-motion capturing!!

[big brother]

You mean "Clay Fighter" and "Clay Fighter 2: Judgment Clay?"

Dark Eye was also claymation, as was the Neverhood, I think.

[Matt Brown]

the neverhood was the only adventure game done in clay

it took 5 tons of clay to make

Actually, a great adventure game, but failed on the market cause it was too expensive

check it out via the underdogs