Ya know, I decided a while back that I wanted to make a really cool game that would be fun to play and I could show it off to my friends. I sat down and wrote a decent 2D Engine which supports just about everything including a 2.5D style game or just a tile based side-scroller without changing the engine much at all. I wrote and optimized several collision detection routines, added primitive drawing with 2D transformations, .wav sounds, midi files, and all sorts of cool stuff. Hell, it even has a pretty nice level tile-based editor which optimizes everything for you and a small scripting language for creating and loading sprites from file. I was so proud of myself I decided to start writing the graphics and doing the part where the game starts to look cool. I now have a round ball that can jump, roll right, and roll left. I tried to make a little crab creature but after one frame of animation I realized that the ball looked better. I SUCK AT CREATING GRAPHICS! Can someone point me to some tutorials that will give me at least a start so I can create SOMETHING?? I have adobe photoshop, and I actually know how to use it ( mostly ) but I just can''t make anything that looks good. If I don''t learn how to create my own art I will have to continue stealing tiles from JPEG images of the original Mario from nintendo.

www.polykarbon.net -- great site for character drawing.
www.conceptart.org -- duh

Unless you trying to create a commercial project, just stick with your crappy graphics for testing. Once you have your tech down, then you might could hoodwink an artist type to help you.

At they would have something to work from.

I was stuck in the same boat for a long time. I was able to code all sorts of tiling engines and whatnot, but they all looked like ass because my talents in art have long, long been neglected. While I am getting better all the time, I still have troubles.

The largest breakthrough for me was when I started using Blender to model my characters in 3D, then rendering them to Targas for further processing. Heck, I use it for everything now, including modelling buildings, walls, river-banks.. you name it. With just a little bit of work, I can create models that look a thousand times better than any blotchy, smeary artwork I could do by hand.

Also, whenever possible, I try to use real-world textures extracted from photographs I take with my digital camera. Nothing beats the detail, texture and realism of, say, a rock than a 3D modelled rock with an actual stone texture wrapped around it. Stack a bunch of them on top of each other: voila, a stone wall. What used to take me literally hours if not days I can now do in minutes.

Where I can't use Blender (for ground tiles, etc) I still use real-world textures, which I open with The Gimp (Photoshop will work just as well, I reckon) and do a little processing: scale and crop, edit to make seamlessly tileable, add details, enhance or modify colors, etc... Just experiment with some things, since you're familiar with Photoshop. Duplicating a layer, then applying the Offset filter to the top layer, and erasing the seam with the erase airbrush tool to reveal the un-offset layer beneath is a good quick, easy way to make it tileable. If you have access to a digital camera, your front lawn (hoping you have one ) can provide endless miles of seamlessly tiling grass texture.

I hope this helps.

Josh
vertexnormal AT email DOT com
Check out my game, Golem, here: www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vertexnormal

[edited by - VertexNormal on July 18, 2003 9:19:40 PM]

Thanks, I''ll definitely check that stuff out.

Learn how to DRAW. It''s the basic foundation for creating any kind of imagery for games or anything else.

Try to attend a basic drawing course. Observational drawing helps a lot, before you can start drawing stuff out from nowhere. It can be kinda easier for someone who is akin ot programming, since drawing properly can me summarized as a set of rules and a library of shapes you build in your brain. The more of those you accummulate, the more combinations you can do, the the better you can draw.

Well, drawing helps a lot no matter what kind of art you doing. However pixel art is a whole different art in itself. I know several professional-level pixel artists that can''t even touch a piece of paper. So before you go and take a ton of classes on drawing you might want to just try to find some tutorials on pixel art first. You basically just need to understand the basics. Go to http://pixelation.swoo.net. It is an excellent site and a LOT of experienced pixel artists post there regularly. Trust me, spend a few months there, and you''ll be a pro in no time. There is also links to several tutorials that you can find there.

Divinus Entertainment
Land of Relics Art Director
http://divinus.net

drawing helps with everything, if you haven´t already i suggest going through the betty edwards book "drawing on the right side of the brain".