On being "Hand-drawn": Complaints and Suggestions

[Grundislav]

Allow me to be a Grumpy Gamerâ,,¢ and rant for a bit.

Many people throw around the term "hand-drawn" to describe the backgrounds in their games.Ã,  What this usually means is that they have drawn the background on paper, then scanned it in and painted it on the computer.Ã,  Or perhaps they have done all the drawing and coloring on paper.Ã,  In any case, I think we all agree that it implies that some scanning has been done, right? Right.

Now, there are a couple of things that bug me.Ã,  First of all, "hand-drawn" doesn't strike me as a valid term, because everything is hand-drawn.Ã,  Unless you're a pretty darned talented artist that draws using your feet, chances are you used your hands to draw your stuff, even if you did it with a mouse or a tablet in PSP or Paint or whatever.

Second of all, (and maybe this is just me being nitpicky) it bugs me that "hand-drawn" is listed as a feature in games that have scanned backgrounds.Ã,  Something about saying it just makes it seem like the game is going to have amazing high-quality backgrounds, when 9 times out of 10, it's just crummy graphics that have been drawn on paper first.Ã,  Just because a scanner is involved doesn't automatically mean quality. There are plenty of AGS games with scanned backgrounds that are great, but they aren't the majority.

Am I saying you shouldn't scan in your backgrounds? Not at all, in fact I'd love to see more of it. I would be fascinated to see a game that used scanned in oil paintings like MI2 or watercolors or stuff like that.Ã,  But please, if you're going to go through the effort of scanning in a background, I'm going to hold you to a higher standard artistically than if you did it in Paint.Ã,  By no means am I saying that backgrounds done on the computer are inferior, but drawing on paper gives you certain freedoms that the computer doesn't, so make sure you do a good drawing first.

So my suggestions are either or both of the following:

1) If you want to brag about your game having "hand-drawn" backgrounds, please use another term such as "scanned backgrounds" or something similar.Ã,  Feel free to suggest a better term.

2) If all you did was draw a crappy background on paper with no sense of perspective and curly clouds and then scanned it in, please don't advertise your "hand-drawn" backgrounds along with your game.

That is all.

[James Kay]

You shouldn't get so upset about semantics, really.Ã,  :

For me hand-drawn suggest some or complete involvement of natural media rather than digital ones. Pencil, ink, paints, that kind of thing. I wouldn't count a basic sketch which is then traced and altered significantly on a computer as "hand drawn".
The feel of a handdrawn image and a computer generated one is fairly different so I see nothing wrong with advertising a game as having hand drawn backgrounds. It gives the prospective player an advance impression of what to expect when it comes to graphics.

[rtf]

I hear what you are saying.

1) If you want to brag about your game having "hand-drawn" backgrounds, please use another term such as "scanned backgrounds" or something similar.  Feel free to suggest a better term.

I think that if the original image outline was drawn using a real pen or a tablet pen, then it can be safely considered to be "Hand Drawn."
But, if the image was drawn using the line tool in Paint, it wouldn't consider it to be "Hand Drawn", just based on how a lot of people think about scanned images and hand drawings (even though techhnically you are using your hands to draw it).


This beauty...

...was "Hand-drawn" by myself (you can see why I signed up for Freehand Draw this school year  ).
If I were to use this in a game, I probably wouldn't seriously advertize it as one of the specs in my game.  I'd probably add it as a side note.

Has anyone ever played an AGAST game called AfterShocked! ?
I'd consider that game to be truly hand drawn. 

[Kinoko]

I really think "hand drawn" is exactly that. You used natural mediums (not digital) to draw a background/sprite/whatever. If all you did was colour/touch it up on the computer, I still consider that hand drawn and I think no matter what the quality, people should be able to call it hand-drawn. I don't find it deceiving at all, because you can't go on anyone's opinion really, you have to look at it yourself and decide. Someone might say, "My game has AMAZING graphics" and you might look at them and say "Nope, those are some shitty graphics right there" but it is an opinion. I think the fact that when you hear "Hand-drawn", you expect a certain standard.. is just you (or whoever else does the same). Technically, if it's hand-drawn, it's hand-drawn and people should be able to say so.

Not to knock down your argument completely, I understand what you're saying, but I think trying to draw the line on quality is useless because everyone will always have a different opinion.

I wouldn't call my own backgrounds for Cique (which were in some cases, outlined on paper then scanned in and completely digitally) as hand drawn but if someone else wants to say so, whatever. The proof is in the pudding, as they say ^_^ Let people say what they want about their games, because it means nothing until you've seen them yourself. People are always gonna talk up their games and graphics...

[Eggie]

I like the term hand drawn. Drawing with a mouse (even though you do use your hands) feels sort of...indirect.
With a pencil it's like your hand is one with the drawing. Uuuummmmmmm...

[GarageGothic]

Yeah, I think indirect is a good way of thinking of it. The analog, I suppose, would be the word handmade. Is an item handmade, if a designer traces it (by hand, with a mouse) in a CAD-program and then has a machine output it? Not really.

[AgentLoaf]

I think they mean "hand-drawn" in the sense of same method used for traditional CEL animation and the such like and not, as it were, in the sense of pixel-art, CGI or Photoshopping.

[Mr_Frisby]

Traditionally Drawn? (boring)

Non-computerized? (boring)

Physical Medium? (nothing to do with the paranormal)

Neo-Ludditian Art? (w00t I'll be up for a pulitzer for this one!)

[chapter11studios]

I really think "hand drawn" is exactly that. You used natural mediums (not digital) to draw a background/sprite/whatever. If all you did was colour/touch it up on the computer, I still consider that hand drawn and I think no matter what the quality, people should be able to call it hand-drawn.

Agreed completely. However, hand-drawn is only one particular style anyway, and it doesn't necessarily indicate "quality." Grundislav is right that a hand-drawn screen is only as good as the hand that drew it...

For example, I consider the screens in my upcoming game to be hand-drawn. I like the look that that creates and the organic nature of drawing, scanning, coloring, etc. I think it looks much different than a completely computer-generated screen, and personally I happen to prefer the texture of that kind of screen. But if the drawings you start with are bad, you're kind of defeating the purpose of using "hand-drawn" as a selling point.

Just my two pence.

[Grundislav]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head, Josh.  I think what started my rant was seeing certain games that used "hand-drawn graphics" as a selling point when the quality of the backgrounds weren't very good.

[Alun]

I don't know if anyone else here is much into webcomics (with the exception of Yahtzee [EDIT: and of course Aaron Farber (forgot he was here)]), but you know, the term "hand-drawn" is often used in webcomics too the same way that Grundislav refers to its being used for AGS backgrounds.  And I have to say that I find it silly for some of the same reasons Grundislav points out.  Why is drawing with a graphics tablet any more "indirect" than drawing with a pen?  Either way you're still using a tool to realize your image in a visible format; I don't see the fact that one of those tools is sending data directly to the computer and the other is putting it on paper as being an important distinction.  Those are both "hand drawn".  Now, it's true that there are some webcomics (and some AGS backgrounds) that are done with shortcuts like the Photoshop/Illustrator/whatever "rectangle tool" and built-in pattern brushes and clip-art and such, and okay... there I can see an argument made that they're not "hand drawn".  But as long as you're laying down the lines themselves with movements of your hand, as far as I'm concerned it's "hand drawn" whether you're doing it with a pen, a paintbrush, a graphics tablet, or a mouse.   About the only ways to draw something directly with your hands would be to use your hands to dig grooves in wet clay or a similar medium, or to prick your finger and draw lines with the blood, and I have yet to see either a webcomic or an AGS background drawn in either of those methods (and I don't think I'd particularly want to see one).

Maybe I'm biased because my own webcomic is done in Adobe Illustrator with a graphics tablet, but still I think it compares favorably with a lot of pen-and-paper ones...

Anyway, you want a suggestion for a replacement term?  How about instead of saying "hand-drawn", specify the medium it's drawn in?  Say "pencilled backgrounds", or "inked backgrounds", or "colored-pencil backgrounds" (the backgrounds in Quest for Colours look to me to be done with colored pencils, though I could be wrong), or "pastel backgrounds", or "watercolor backgrounds", or whatever you actually used to create them.  That way you're not only avoding the nebulous and misleading term "hand-drawn", but you're also stating more specifically how the backgrounds are done, and giving a better idea of what potential players can expect.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I agree in that it doesn't mean quality. And I believe it's only such a big deal nowadays because it WAS a big deal... WHEN IT FIRST CAME OUT. When the ability to scan things in came out, such games had, more often than not, graphics that waaay surpassed their predecessors. Not anymore - but the "hand-drawn" label still atracts people.

A more "up-to-date" example would be saying that "This game has pre-rendered 3D graphics from Half-Life (or DOOM) MODS!!!", which I've seen quite frequently in some places, and in two games right here in the AGS comunity. But what we actually SEE when we play is a bunch of still images which suffer greatly from AGS's lowered resolution and the fact that they're not 3D - when they were MADE for 3D games. It's up to the programmer to make the best of that. For example, I didn't really enjoy Astoria - Hidden Threat, because it tries too hard to be what it can't be, but as far as I remember, I LOVED the two DOOM games already made - because they're parodies, the creators allowed themselves a different style - which is just as well, since usually such graphic-ripping from 3D games ends in misery - , making quite humorous titles.

...have I made any sense at all? Or a point, even? I just got writing, and I don't dare to look back, in case I blasphemed somewhere...

[Eggie]

Why is drawing with a graphics tablet any more "indirect" than drawing with a pen? 

Well. Your hand is in a different place to where the image is appearing, but I was mainly talking about drawing with a mouse feeling indirect. Tablets are spiffy.

[edmundito]

Writing "hand drawn" as a feature is like writing "Color Television!" on a television set box... Um... color is not really a feature anymore.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

There is a pretty discernible technique difference between hand-drawn art and pixel-drawn art.  Pixel-drawn art relies much more on precision to look good than hand-drawn, which is more free-form and forgiving (in terms of how you draw lines,etc).  I think the pen and paper method for backgrounds draws attention because it was employed with such great affect in early games like Legend of Kyrandia, monkey island and the later sierra titles.  They really did draw people into the game and were a major selling point in the day.

[Alun]

There is a pretty discernible technique difference between hand-drawn art and pixel-drawn art.

Agreed, and if those were the only two categories I wouldn't have a problem with it.  But often in webcomics and apparently in AGS backgrounds as well, "hand-drawn" is contrasted with anything done on the computer--even if it's done with, for example, a pressure-sensitive drawing tablet and is indistinguishable from a pen and paper drawing.  Not everything that's done on the computer is drawn pixel by pixel.

I'm still in favor, as I said earlier, of specifying the exact medium.  Instead of "hand-drawn", say "pen-and-ink", or "watercolor", or "oil", or whatever the artwork was drawn in.  That avoids the elitist connotations of the "hand-drawn" term, and gives more specific and useful information.