Non-video game artist, looking to get into creating video game art.

News & General Discussion
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I have a friend that is an illustrator and artist that is interested in creating their work for video games.

I’m trying to point them in the right direction of what additional skill-sets to learn and important things to think about when creating video game art as opposed to traditional art.

They are looking for 2D style and not 3D at the moment, and are already decently proficient in Illustrator and Photoshop.

So far I mentioned things like:

  • learn how to animate in Photoshop and After Effects, so they can create animated sprites.

  • look into Spine also, for rigging and animation

  • utilizing layers to create each individual body part on so they can be moved around later

  • be mindful of possible “clothing changes” for the characters, and draw them accordingly to easily accommodate different outfits.

  • keep continuity of style among the different art assets, so everything drawn has the same look and goes together coherently

  • create with the knowledge the background of each asset will end up becoming transparent, so it must be able to look good as a cutout.

  • if not using vectors, keep the original image size large.

Anyone else have pointers or something I can point them to?
Other things to think about when creating the art with the end goal of them being animated vs stationary, background, foreground, etc… Or differences in creating art for a mobile game vs desktop platform?

Thanks!

2

watch this

my friend is using unity tool which supersedes need for spine. Organic animation is much more time consuming to complete, we initially plan to use this, in 2d platformer see signature but stops after brief tests.

Also after speaking with friend she said is useful to use pen tablet for 2d art - she uses something called kritta.

is also worth watching

to see what other skill may be needed in video game

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Great, thanks for the videos. I sent those over to them to take a look at.

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There’s nothing like getting experience on actual projects. While your friend learns animation skills, they can also attach themselves to a project that primarily uses still art, such as a visual novel. It’ll be a crash course in all the related skills new videogame artists don’t normally consider, such as communicating specifications with a team, delivering art in specific formats, working with version control, and handling changes as the game iterates. And they’ll have a portfolio piece to show for it at the end.

5

Does your friend have an online profile somewhere?

If he’s interested in creating art for visual novels, he might post over at the Lemmasoft forums (and you might point us towards any of his art online in case we’re interested).

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