How can I create good/professional looking graphics for a game/app??
If you haven’t got any natural artistic ability or eye for presentation, this will be difficult. I use basic tools such as publisher for buttons, icons etc., but if I need an icon image or characters I generally buy them.
There are good graphics available at reasonable prices at vectorstock and graphicriver (search for ‘game assets’ on here).
I do not have any natural gifts for drawing or making assets but I would like to learn. Where to start?
Hi @Coder101
I’m currently attending my local community college taking art classes. My CC offers a simulation and game design track which has an art and design focus. The class I took during the summer session when I started was really focused on using Photoshop to create game assets. It of course only covers basics. I’m currently taking a drawing class where we are building up skills from an artists perspective (lot of pencil and paper drawings) but we can also use a drawing tablet programs like Photoshop for some work. This week for instance, we are doing figure studies (how to draw humans in different poses) and outside of the required pencil-paper lab work, the project for the week is being all done digitally.
But one of the things they try to stress in this class is that any one can draw. The idea that you don’t have a talent for it, it’s just because you’ve built up a mental block as a kid to drawing.
You don’t have to take game specific classes. You don’t even have to go to college either. Many towns and cities have a parks & rec department that offers adult education classes, some for free that cover art topics. If your local community college doesn’t have a Game Design track, they certainly have adult continuing education classes that have general art and design classes. And beyond that there are also tons of paid tutorial sites online like Lynda.com and there is even more free tutorials on line. It’s just a matter of you finding an art tool you want to use. Take some form of learning (tutorials, classes) on drawing, design, color theory and such and just do it and do it again.
I’m an old school programmer who’s been coding for over 30 years… I hadn’t touched art since high school. But I’m feeling more and more comfortable each class.
As far as tools go, Photoshop is considered the must-have tool. Luckily Adobe offers a $10/month plan for it. I think in the end, it is a must have tool, though there is an open source project called “The GIMP” that can do most of what you need Photoshop for. But for pure drawing, I’m using a product called Sketchbook Pro from Autodesk, which is quite in-expensive and has some great drawing tools. I find myself having to use both.
Photoshop and Sketchbook Pro are both raster art tools, that is they work with pixels. There are vector art tools like Adobe’s Illustrator and the open source Inkscape that you can use to make lines and shapes that can be scaled up and down. Corona needs raster/pixel images so vector formats have to be converted to pixels before you can use them, but many artists prefer to draw in vector programs and generate raster images for use in apps.
Rob
Thank you for answer. I will look them up.
You can create your own graphics in Microsoft Word. Here are the steps to make a graphics:
- The first thing, you need to do is, Check the gridlines box under the “View” tab at the top of the screen. It will help you to make sure that the patterns that you have made are straight.
- Suppose, you want to make a square shape. Select the rectangle to begin the pattern.
- Go to “drawing tools”, pick the color to fill the shape.
- Stretch that shape, and make multiple rectangles or circles of your own choice on it.
- Continue the process, until you have the pattern that you want.
- You can give any kind of shape to your drawing. Suppose you give round shape, you can also set your picture as background. To write your blog name or some another word on it, select the portion of your drawing, where you want to write.
- Click the drawing tool tab and select the no fill option for that portion.
- Go to insert tab and use Word Art to add your Blog Name or anything that you would like.
- Save it as a picture using PowerPoint. Finally, you can use it like any other .jpg picture file.
You can try out Affinity Designer which is a vector design app. It is very cheap relative to other softwares and ease of use is also great.
+1 for Affinity Designer. I was looking at vector alternatives to Illustrator and came across it and another package called Graphic. Graphic is by Autodesk who also makes SketchBook Pro one of the best raster drawing tools I’ve come across. So I bought Graphic thinking it would be similar to SketchBook Pro (and it was cheaper), but I really don’t like it. I then downloaded the trial of Affinity Designer, used it and loved it. But I’ve already paid for Graphic. I wish I had done a try-before-you-by on Affinity Designer first. I’ll probably break down and by Affinity Designer because it isn’t that expensive.
Rob
I tried Photoshop and then After Effects. Both didn’t create 3d looking items or worlds. So this lead me to blender. Hard to use, Hard to learn. Very powerful!
Without it everything looks amateurish. Start with the free stuff and work out from there.
Download Inkscape and google for “Inkscape tutorials”.
If you haven’t got any natural artistic ability or eye for presentation, this will be difficult. I use basic tools such as publisher for buttons, icons etc., but if I need an icon image or characters I generally buy them.
There are good graphics available at reasonable prices at vectorstock and graphicriver (search for ‘game assets’ on here).
I do not have any natural gifts for drawing or making assets but I would like to learn. Where to start?
Hi @Coder101
I’m currently attending my local community college taking art classes. My CC offers a simulation and game design track which has an art and design focus. The class I took during the summer session when I started was really focused on using Photoshop to create game assets. It of course only covers basics. I’m currently taking a drawing class where we are building up skills from an artists perspective (lot of pencil and paper drawings) but we can also use a drawing tablet programs like Photoshop for some work. This week for instance, we are doing figure studies (how to draw humans in different poses) and outside of the required pencil-paper lab work, the project for the week is being all done digitally.
But one of the things they try to stress in this class is that any one can draw. The idea that you don’t have a talent for it, it’s just because you’ve built up a mental block as a kid to drawing.
You don’t have to take game specific classes. You don’t even have to go to college either. Many towns and cities have a parks & rec department that offers adult education classes, some for free that cover art topics. If your local community college doesn’t have a Game Design track, they certainly have adult continuing education classes that have general art and design classes. And beyond that there are also tons of paid tutorial sites online like Lynda.com and there is even more free tutorials on line. It’s just a matter of you finding an art tool you want to use. Take some form of learning (tutorials, classes) on drawing, design, color theory and such and just do it and do it again.
I’m an old school programmer who’s been coding for over 30 years… I hadn’t touched art since high school. But I’m feeling more and more comfortable each class.
As far as tools go, Photoshop is considered the must-have tool. Luckily Adobe offers a $10/month plan for it. I think in the end, it is a must have tool, though there is an open source project called “The GIMP” that can do most of what you need Photoshop for. But for pure drawing, I’m using a product called Sketchbook Pro from Autodesk, which is quite in-expensive and has some great drawing tools. I find myself having to use both.
Photoshop and Sketchbook Pro are both raster art tools, that is they work with pixels. There are vector art tools like Adobe’s Illustrator and the open source Inkscape that you can use to make lines and shapes that can be scaled up and down. Corona needs raster/pixel images so vector formats have to be converted to pixels before you can use them, but many artists prefer to draw in vector programs and generate raster images for use in apps.
Rob
Thank you for answer. I will look them up.
You can create your own graphics in Microsoft Word. Here are the steps to make a graphics:
- The first thing, you need to do is, Check the gridlines box under the “View” tab at the top of the screen. It will help you to make sure that the patterns that you have made are straight.
- Suppose, you want to make a square shape. Select the rectangle to begin the pattern.
- Go to “drawing tools”, pick the color to fill the shape.
- Stretch that shape, and make multiple rectangles or circles of your own choice on it.
- Continue the process, until you have the pattern that you want.
- You can give any kind of shape to your drawing. Suppose you give round shape, you can also set your picture as background. To write your blog name or some another word on it, select the portion of your drawing, where you want to write.
- Click the drawing tool tab and select the no fill option for that portion.
- Go to insert tab and use Word Art to add your Blog Name or anything that you would like.
- Save it as a picture using PowerPoint. Finally, you can use it like any other .jpg picture file.
You can try out Affinity Designer which is a vector design app. It is very cheap relative to other softwares and ease of use is also great.
+1 for Affinity Designer. I was looking at vector alternatives to Illustrator and came across it and another package called Graphic. Graphic is by Autodesk who also makes SketchBook Pro one of the best raster drawing tools I’ve come across. So I bought Graphic thinking it would be similar to SketchBook Pro (and it was cheaper), but I really don’t like it. I then downloaded the trial of Affinity Designer, used it and loved it. But I’ve already paid for Graphic. I wish I had done a try-before-you-by on Affinity Designer first. I’ll probably break down and by Affinity Designer because it isn’t that expensive.
Rob
I tried Photoshop and then After Effects. Both didn’t create 3d looking items or worlds. So this lead me to blender. Hard to use, Hard to learn. Very powerful!
Without it everything looks amateurish. Start with the free stuff and work out from there.