Is it possible to draw animations and scan them into Photoshop and use them on a sprite sheet? Idk how to draw on a computer with a mouse.
Sure, it’s possible. But if your sprites will reside on a transparent background, you’ll need to use Photoshop to clip off the outer empty content from the scan which, depending on the art, can be tricky to trace/mask and remove. Whereas, if you use a digital painting app (like Procreate), the “canvas” is already considered transparent and you can import the artwork directly into Photoshop with the layers + alpha intact, thus no need to trace/remove anything.
Brent
Hand drawn stuff can be quite awesome, however, if you’re an artist, I’d highly recommend getting a tablet and learning how to draw that way.
It would simply speed up the art asset pipeline.
You’d also be able to layer and apply filters and a billion other things.
My brother (he passed two years ago) was an artist. He hand-drew many of the characters we used on client web sites. We scanned his hand-drawn pics and colored them on the PC. It would work the same way for sprites. Having done them both ways, I can tell you I like the look of hand-drawn cartoony characters far better than those drawn using software, but a lot of that has to do with the artist. My bro could knock out a series of sprites in an hour by hand, but using his tablet took him six hours to do the same thing. He needed the tactile feedback that real paper and pencil/pen gave him.
Very good point Steve. I was an artist long before I was a programmer, and there’s something special about the tactile feedback of real, classic media that no tablet or stylus can match (even the smell of oil paint is really nice… that might sound weird but I like it). I definitely like “painting” on my iPad, but for some things, digital just can’t suffice, period.
Brent
I love the look of hand-drawn, on-paper stuff. But digital has one HUGE benefit over paper (or cels) and Brent, as an artist you’ll probably agree… that benefit is: tweening.
On procreate, couldn’t I draw my animation on each layer? Since it let’s you see any layer you could just trace it and redraw w/e part of the drawing you need for every layer until its done. Is that the way you would do it? I’m still very confused about sprites so I’m not sure if I’m supposed to use a program and idk how each drawing from the iPad would matchup on the sprite so it looks like a smooth animation.
Sure, you could (and should) definitely use layers. Note that you can also duplicate layers (swipe to the right on the layer in the Layers pull-down, and click “Duplicate”). Then, you can make just the adjustments you need. And of course, if you want to draw just a certain character part on a layer, like an arm, you can do that and then manipulate the arm across many animation layers… rotate it, resize it, whatever.
Brent
Sure, it’s possible. But if your sprites will reside on a transparent background, you’ll need to use Photoshop to clip off the outer empty content from the scan which, depending on the art, can be tricky to trace/mask and remove. Whereas, if you use a digital painting app (like Procreate), the “canvas” is already considered transparent and you can import the artwork directly into Photoshop with the layers + alpha intact, thus no need to trace/remove anything.
Brent
Hand drawn stuff can be quite awesome, however, if you’re an artist, I’d highly recommend getting a tablet and learning how to draw that way.
It would simply speed up the art asset pipeline.
You’d also be able to layer and apply filters and a billion other things.
My brother (he passed two years ago) was an artist. He hand-drew many of the characters we used on client web sites. We scanned his hand-drawn pics and colored them on the PC. It would work the same way for sprites. Having done them both ways, I can tell you I like the look of hand-drawn cartoony characters far better than those drawn using software, but a lot of that has to do with the artist. My bro could knock out a series of sprites in an hour by hand, but using his tablet took him six hours to do the same thing. He needed the tactile feedback that real paper and pencil/pen gave him.
Very good point Steve. I was an artist long before I was a programmer, and there’s something special about the tactile feedback of real, classic media that no tablet or stylus can match (even the smell of oil paint is really nice… that might sound weird but I like it). I definitely like “painting” on my iPad, but for some things, digital just can’t suffice, period.
Brent
I love the look of hand-drawn, on-paper stuff. But digital has one HUGE benefit over paper (or cels) and Brent, as an artist you’ll probably agree… that benefit is: tweening.
On procreate, couldn’t I draw my animation on each layer? Since it let’s you see any layer you could just trace it and redraw w/e part of the drawing you need for every layer until its done. Is that the way you would do it? I’m still very confused about sprites so I’m not sure if I’m supposed to use a program and idk how each drawing from the iPad would matchup on the sprite so it looks like a smooth animation.
Sure, you could (and should) definitely use layers. Note that you can also duplicate layers (swipe to the right on the layer in the Layers pull-down, and click “Duplicate”). Then, you can make just the adjustments you need. And of course, if you want to draw just a certain character part on a layer, like an arm, you can do that and then manipulate the arm across many animation layers… rotate it, resize it, whatever.
Brent