Firstoff, if this is the wrong place to post this sort of thing, just let me know. I have no idea where to ask for this sort of thing, and here seemed like a good idea.

But anyways, 2 months ago, my friend and I decided to try our hand at making a game. He's in charge of programming and balancing everything, and I'm in charge of the art and game design in general. However, although I draw stuff as a hobby, I'm completely new to graphic art, but I decided to give it a shot anyway. So I downloaded a free graphic art software (It's called Inkscape, if anyone's interested. It was the only non-crappy free thing I could find. I can't exactly afford the ones that cost hundreds of dollars.), and using the software's tutorials, starting trying to crank out some concept art. However, I hit a problem: no matter what I did and how I did it, looking unprofessional, pretty unstylish, and frankly MSPaint-like. So, how do I get the refinement I need for the stuff I do, to make it look more like a game and less like a clip-art sketch? I've tried screwing around with gradients and textures, which took a little bit of the blandness out of my work, but it still looked nowhere near what I wanted. It is really just a matter of being clever with gradients, textures, and patterns? Is there some aspect to graphic art that I'm missing out on? Or am I going about this thing in completely the wrong way, and should try something different?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated. And if there's a site or video that you'd think would help me out with this, feel free to just link that instead.

...so, let me get this straight. you agreed to single-handedly create all of the visual resources for an entire game, even though you've never made a single piece of digital art before? even though you had zero experience with graphics software and knew absolutely nothing about it? and now after only a few weeks of practice, you're already joining random communities to ask why your work still looks "unprofessional"?


were you honestly expecting this to be easy? like everything else, digital art takes practice. a lot of it. instead of "screwing around" with basic tools and hoping your art will magically look better, learn what they're used for and how to use them properly. instead of joining random forums and hoping someone can help you improve without even seeing your work, look for resources, guides and tutorials that can teach you specific things that you want to learn.


I'm not trying to discourage you, but this is like someone saying "I want to build a house!" and then going shopping for their first power drill so they can learn how to use one. you're being unrealistic and expecting WAY too much, and no one here can help you until your goals become more focused and specific.

Quote from Exilement

...so, let me get this straight. you agreed to single-handedly create all of the visual resources for an entire game,

I read your comment before I read the OP (drunk, disoriented) and thought for a moment he'd volunteered to be the graphics guy on some major project or something. If it's just him and his friend making their first game then it's not a terrible way to get started. He'll have some motivation to keep trying at stuff.



I'm no graphicist, but I assume it'll be like animation in that the best way to get better will be to make something, post it somewhere for comments and criticism, and then try to improve it from there. We have an art section on this forum (somewhere, apparently) but you might be able to find somewhere dedicated to using the same software as you, or at least an art forum which is active.

Ours might be active actually, I have honestly no idea. Edit: Found it. It's had about a dozen posts today, so it's more active than the Pivot section but you might want to spread your work around a few other places too to get some more expert opinions.

Wanting to make a game for no reason, to begin with is too ambitious if you're starting out. I don't know how proficient your friend is, but needless to say if this is a 2-man job with only 1 guy doing to coding then it's most likely something epic-level like a platformer or an rpg or adventure game or something (or god forbid another slender clone). You might wanna set your sights a little low as well and learn the basics of efficient Game Design. Make a GDD and just plan out your scheduling carefully.

Honestly, if you really wanted to make a game then graphics doesn't even matter. If you draw like crap, you can still use those assets as placeholders and produce a working Alpha in order to goad actual graphic artists to help you guys out OR replace them in the future when you've drawn a little better. So I don't see the problem with never having to have professional looking graphics. Alot of beginner games from major projects have mediocre graphics.

Like Exile, don't get me wrong. Go at your own pace and experiment if you wish but without proper organization you are going to lose steam soon. When you're done playing around in the kiddie pool, get serious and start learning to make simple games, draw better, and use refine your shit better.

Quote from Exilement

...so, let me get this straight. you agreed to single-handedly create all of the visual resources for an entire game, even though you've never made a single piece of digital art before? even though you had zero experience with graphics software and knew absolutely nothing about it? and now after only a few weeks of practice, you're already joining random communities to ask why your work still looks "unprofessional"?


were you honestly expecting this to be easy? like everything else, digital art takes practice. a lot of it. instead of "screwing around" with basic tools and hoping your art will magically look better, learn what they're used for and how to use them properly. instead of joining random forums and hoping someone can help you improve without even seeing your work, look for resources, guides and tutorials that can teach you specific things that you want to learn.


I'm not trying to discourage you, but this is like someone saying "I want to build a house!" and then going shopping for their first power drill so they can learn how to use one. you're being unrealistic and expecting WAY too much, and no one here can help you until your goals become more focused and specific.

Well, first-off, where did I say it was easy? This isn't the first place I looked. I extensively worked my way through a good share of tutorials, mastered every damned function of the software that was of any use to me, spent hours playing with the advanced tools (I'm not just using the basic ones) and learning how they all worked, scoured through a good deal of other art and whatnot to try and have something to compare to. I'm not thinking this is a thing where I sorta pick up a damn complicated piece of software (because believe me it is damn complicated) and suddenly become masterful with it. So no, I'm not completely new. I'm not just trying this shit for the first time. I've been studying this sort of thing pretty heavily for a little while at this point, and although I'm still self-taught, I'm not a total newbie. I'm just saying that with all the advanced, codey stuff that I have spent the last few weeks working through, the stuff I do is still missing something. Although I agree with that last bit. I was seriously vague, and ur right, there's a lot of factors in this. So come tomorrow, I'll put some meat in the original post, and try to fix my mistake.

Quote from Exxmorphing

Could it be possible that you post some of the material you have now, and the theme of your game?

I read this a while ago, and it kinda clicked that both of these should've been there, so thanks for pointing that out. Anyway, as for the material, I was gonna post some, but then a fatal bug in the coding nuked all my best work (it's a seriously powerful piece of software, but it's free for a reason...thing's unstable as shit), and I'm trying to salvage it if possible. If not possible, I'll try and draw something up, but since I'm dreading re-drawing my stuff I'll try to do the former. As for the theme...it's a tower defense game, nothing too complicated. It's also kinda based on upgrades. Although there's only 5 or so turrets, there's 6 upgrade paths for each turret which all do different things, so my designs should be open to a lot of different aesthetic improvement while looking pretty good from the start. I'm starting drawing the turrets, and then once I'm more experienced I'll move onto the enemies, and then the environment, and then the UI. But until then, I'm just gonna figure out how to get the turrets done right. Expect some stuff coming soon.

I'll write more replies later, but I gtg.

Quote from quicklite

Well, first-off, where did I say it was easy? This isn't the first place I looked. I extensively worked my way through a good share of tutorials, mastered every damned function of the software that was of any use to me, spent hours playing with the advanced tools (I'm not just using the basic ones) and learning how they all worked, scoured through a good deal of other art and whatnot to try and have something to compare to.

Well then that's great. I still don't know why you'd think a community who knows nothing about you could help you improve your art without even seeing it. Once you post some examples maybe we can figure out what you're doing wrong.

Quote from Exilement

Well then that's great. I still don't know why you'd think a community who knows nothing about you could help you improve your art without even seeing it. Once you post some examples maybe we can figure out what you're doing wrong.

Yep, that I agree with. I have no idea why I thought that I could do this without posting any actual material...but on the plus side, I've almost managed to salvage a nice example of something from the broken jumble of code that is half my work, so I'll post that up sooner than later.

Sounds to me like you lack the ability to draw.
If I knew how to use photoshop like Tamplier does then I would be this forums Moses.

I think you should stick with things as placeholders until you get more experience making digital art. It's a lot harder to make digital art than it is to draw with a pencil. As for your coloring issue, you only really want to use a bunch of linears and radials if you're trying to make vector images. And the only time you would want to make Vector images is if you want the game to be able to fit to different sizes. Like if you're making it for mobile or for mobile and PC. If you're trying to make a simple game playable only on the computer with fixed dimensions, then you're better off making low detailed images, especially for character sprites since if you try to over detail everything that will be moving you're going to run into a major lag issue.

My advice to you and your friend would be to keep it simple since you're just starting out. Don't make a game that is complex. Make something simple and addicting that you can add more into off of a basic engine. A few good app games would include candy crush, jetpack joyride, and angry birds. They're all rather simple but there's enough components to make it addicting and challenging.

Quote from Arch-Angel

Sounds to me like you lack the ability to draw.
If I knew how to use photoshop like Tamplier does then I would be this forums Moses.

I think you should stick with things as placeholders until you get more experience making digital art. It's a lot harder to make digital art than it is to draw with a pencil. As for your coloring issue, you only really want to use a bunch of linears and radials if you're trying to make vector images. And the only time you would want to make Vector images is if you want the game to be able to fit to different sizes. Like if you're making it for mobile or for mobile and PC. If you're trying to make a simple game playable only on the computer with fixed dimensions, then you're better off making low detailed images, especially for character sprites since if you try to over detail everything that will be moving you're going to run into a major lag issue.

My advice to you and your friend would be to keep it simple since you're just starting out. Don't make a game that is complex. Make something simple and addicting that you can add more into off of a basic engine. A few good app games would include candy crush, jetpack joyride, and angry birds. They're all rather simple but there's enough components to make it addicting and challenging.

Yep, I agree. That's why me and my friend not only started off with a simple genre (unless tower defense is a lot more complicated than I have realized :|), and why I'm starting off designing the simplest part of it (turrets don't require the amount of detail that, well, everything else in the game will). Also, it's just a flash game, so it's not like I'm designing something on Unity or something with no experience. And I'm not trying anything seriously arty at the moment. I mean, you can achieve good amounts of detail with the right software (I'm not using Photoshop), and unless you are doing something along the lines (and size) of Starwish, I figured that you could pull off a game without having to break out the pencils and whatnot (as I'm okay at drawing, but not good enough. I figured that I'd learn this first and then that later. That might have been a bad decision). Although if you really need to draw stuff to make things look decent, I'll have to look into that as well.


Also, on the topic of work, I managed to pull something out of the aether of dead stuff in my computer. It's a little odd and broken in parts, but it gets the point across:



That's a basic, un-upgraded shotgun turret. I tried to keep it relatively simple and monochromal to allow different colors and more advanced aesthetic refinement as the thing is upgraded. ...Yeah, it isn't great, but it's something. And believe me, although it may not seem like it from the replies, I know what you guys were on about, and I probably shoulda come here with a bit more bulk, content, and well, knowledge on what actually should be done. So, is there anything to be done from here? Or should just ditch this and try actually drawing/learning something else?

Why not draw everything in flash if its a flash game?

Quote from quicklite

The lighting is pretty terrible, that's your biggest problem right now. Those gradients aren't blending together at all (especially the radial gradients, those look terrible on shapes with perfectly straight lines/corners) and I can't imagine what that thing would look like from a different perspective. It looks completely flat.

Try starting with simpler shapes until you understand how to make them look 3-dimensional, if that's the style you're going for.

Quote from Exilement

The lighting is pretty terrible, that's your biggest problem right now. Those gradients aren't blending together at all (especially the radial gradients, those look terrible on shapes with perfectly straight lines/corners) and I can't imagine what that thing would look like from a different perspective. It looks completely flat.

Try starting with simpler shapes until you understand how to make them look 3-dimensional, if that's the style you're going for.

Crap, I never even thought about lighting...thanks for pointing that out, I'll look into it. Would there be a feature/technique for that that I should look up, or should I just use the gradient editor to create a form of lighting? As for the gradients, I put them there partially for visual flare, and partially to break the monotony and blandness of simple shading. Although I see what you mean about them not blending in, and on further inspection a few of them are kinda eyesores. Though what's the best way to have nice looking, non clip-art like shading without going overkill with the gradients and whatnot? I could always try to go for a cartoonish theme, which would let off some of the realism-related problems, but I don't feel like that would fit.

As for perspective, although I was originally planning on this being a flat-out 2D game, a little bit of perspective on things couldn't hurt. But in what way? Should I try to draw more cube-like structures, with at least some sort of percieved height given through artwork or something?

Quote from quicklite

Crap, I never even thought about lighting...thanks for pointing that out, I'll look into it. Would there be a feature/technique for that that I should look up, or should I just use the gradient editor to create a form of lighting? As for the gradients, I put them there partially for visual flare, and partially to break the monotony and blandness of simple shading. Although I see what you mean about them not blending in, and on further inspection a few of them are kinda eyesores. Though what's the best way to have nice looking, non clip-art like shading without going overkill with the gradients and whatnot? I could always try to go for a cartoonish theme, which would let off some of the realism-related problems, but I don't feel like that would fit.

As for perspective, although I was originally planning on this being a flat-out 2D game, a little bit of perspective on things couldn't hurt. But in what way? Should I try to draw more cube-like structures, with at least some sort of percieved height given through artwork or something?

If you're drawing the aerial view of a three dimensional object, it shouldn't look like 2D, but rather like the aerial view of a three dimensional object
that's the point he was trying to get accross.
and hold the phone
from what I'm reading, you expect me to believe that that picture was your attempt at realism?
are you serious?
All I can tell you to do is practice man, maybe, if your friend really wants a presentable game, hand off the workload to someone more capable

I'd stick with simple shading for now, honestly. You said you're trying to keep things simple, but at the same time you're adding a lot of things to try and make it look better and it seems like it's only making things worse.

The way you're using gradients can work, but I think the colors you're using are too far apart for how small those spaces are. Less is more, try to make it a subtle effect until you get the hang of it. I'd make the dividing lines between surfaces a lot thinner too, that's contributing to the clip-art style you're trying to avoid.

As far as everything else, it's really up to you. Whether you want to make "towers" that appear to have depth or not depends on what you want the game to look like. Desktop Tower Defense uses a flat 2D style and it looks great. The only thing I'd suggest doing is focusing on the most essential aspects of each tower first. Try to give each one a distinctive look, it doesn't require anything fancy or noticeable. Maybe emphasize right angles on one class of towers and use a lot of curved edges on another. You could even do this on paper as a rough outline, if you're more comfortable with that. Once you give each tower its own "personality" of sorts, start with the most basic aspects of the structure and go from there.


Feel free to post more of your work, I'll see if I notice anything else.

Quote from Drone

If you're drawing the aerial view of a three dimensional object, it shouldn't look like 2D, but rather like the aerial view of a three dimensional object
that's the point he was trying to get accross.
and hold the phone
from what I'm reading, you expect me to believe that that picture was your attempt at realism?
are you serious?
All I can tell you to do is practice man, maybe, if your friend really wants a presentable game, hand off the workload to someone more capable

I'm sorry, I mis-spoke there. No, I'm not going for total realism. Not yet, anyhow. I'm still a total amateur, and trying to go realistic wouldn't look much better than that, which as we've already discussed isn't great. What I was saying is that I don't want to go into a 100%, Desktop TD, cartoon-like style for this game, as I don't think that that theme, though being a perfectly valid theme, would suit the game particularly well.


Anyway, the main thing I've learnt from this is that I've got a hack of a lot further to go before I start getting the sort of professionality I'm gonna need for more complex, nicer looking things. Thanks for all the feedback. I'll try to look into perspectives and whatnot and see if I can't pull that off from a top-down perspective, and if not I can always try to make the cartoon look fit. Thanks for all the feedback, even if most of it was understandably negative. It seriously helped me out.