Where is all 2D art for sale?

I was looking for some time for a site with 2D art on it like turbosquid or something similar for 3D and there doesn’t seem to be a place I can buy 2D sprites from at all. Am I correct or I just haven’t found it? Why aren’t there many 2D sprites that can be used commercially?

It honestly is not difficult to create 2D sprites yourself - it just takes time and practice!

This may be a good place to start your journey from.

You forgot talent.

Not to mention having a good understanding color theory, artistic composition, creativity, etc…

I was afraid that would be my option so I already started looking up tutorials on how to sprite…

found this site…

http://www.natomic.com/hosted/marks/mpat/

I think I could sprite a little I can draw I’m just not too artistic…

I’m a programmer for pete’s sake! People are impressed when I successfully draw spaghetti.

Self-deprecating humor aside, artistic skill is something that can be learned. Sure, without a more formal education in art it’ll be a trial-and-error affair, but honestly that’s probably a pretty fair way to learn.

I would recommend speeding up things by taking a look at some sprites from yesteryear - I highly recommend anything SNES era or before. Decompose pixel art into line art, then coloration. After all, you don’t just sit down to a piece of paper and just paint a highly-detailed anime fighter unleashing a hadouken on unsuspecting mooks while a cute girl looks on, do you?

Another tip - try to use as few colors as possible. Take a good look at the sprites for the first Final Fantasy. Despite being 8-bit, they’re highly descriptive, despite using four colors, including the transparent background, and the black outline.

Don’t try to go for an awesome uber-sprite immediately. Start by learning the basics - thus, why I suggested researching classic sprites. After that, you start your quest to find your pixeling style. Only after that does it begin to become viable for you to create your own sprites for actual projects.

To behonest I’m the same boat, I can draw characters like yugioh and boots but other than that no go… I cant even really shade… but I wanna make a serious game and 2D sprites seems the easiest way to go…

Actually it is difficult if you’re not an artist :wink:

That has not much to do with talent. It’s just hard learning. Talent will let you reach your goals faster tho.

Rofl

Do what I did when I was first starting out. Do a search for sprite sheets / sprite rips, then open them in Photoshop, GIMP, MS Paint (whatever), and recolor them. Make some additions, modifications, etc.

I once turned Gambit (from X-Men) into a holy soldier with a wide-brimmed hat and dual pistols this way. :slight_smile:

Talent is just another word for a lot of hard work.

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Yet as a musician I had friends who would come to our band practice, step in as lead singer for a song and sound great with no more experience than a few karaoke performances, and others who have regular singing lessons and would sound passable at best.

Yet as a programming teacher I had a dedicated students who would strive for days to receive an average grade on an assignment, and another student who would do the same assignment over the night before and receive top marks. Neither having programmed before.


As for the OP. There are plenty of sites for clipart, UI’s, backgrounds, etc. However there seems to be a dearth of sites selling sprites. I’d suggest trawling free sites, also you could try having a look through some of the Torque 2D kits, I’m not sure how easy/hard they are to use outside of Torque.

I’ve noticed this so right now I’ll stick to developing a few platformer clones like the one im working on now.

If you are trying to find pixel art of good quality without creating it, you will have to pay for it. I’m paying $4-500 per character/animation for a low res, high framerate, with round 60 or so animation sets set for someone I just found. Just do some google searches for pixel art, or game art. I went to deviantart.com and typed in video game int he search box, and checked out each artist I found then sent them a message. Someone got back to me

I was in the same boat as the OP. I can draw a bit, but trying to learn game development on top of making the art was a little too much for me. IndieGameStock is a new website that sells only 2D art assets for video games. Maybe they have some stuff you can use.
Good luck!

The trouble is with 2d games they tend to be quite unique in the visual department, and the environments are more confined, so maybe you’ll notice if you see some familiar object that’s been used by other games? Especially if you’re making a game with character, like a platformer or a shootemup, they are highly defined by their personalities.

Options:

1)DIY
2)Outsource

You can check Super Game Asset we a have various sets of sprites and icons fro sale, all made for 2D games and RPG game, mostly isometric sprites if thats what you need.

www.supergameasset.com

Pixel Prospector my friend… pixel prospector… Tons of links to resources from audio to graphics, tons of tutorials from art to coding to business.

Here’s one that specifically for you
http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-royalty-free-graphics/

Although most of these are mis-matched and may not contain everything you need… I do believe you are better off learning to draw your own pixelated/2d art. Or you could always try to hire an artist.

I would think that now Unity has good 2D support the amount of sprites in the asset store will increase.

For sure. Also there’s now a standard format for doing that, so it’s easier to make something that’s compatible with more peoples’ tools.

too busy to google it?

http://hasgraphics.com/free-sprites/