I refuse to believe that you have to be "talented" to get into game art of have been born with a gift. Sure some people will catch on to it quicker than others but you could say the same thing about programming.

At the moment, I'm slowly trying to learn Photoshop and 3ds Max skills. I'd say some of the art that I produce is quite good but these are very basic things like HUD art etc. I'd like to start getting into character art.

At the moment I'm a complete newbie and I'm pretty much useless at making a character, I would barely know where to begin. I'm not looking to make amazing looking 3D art in fact at the moment I'm more interested in making 2D characters. I'm quite interested in modelling characters and having them rendered to a 2D sheet.

Basically, I'm looking for solid resources where I can build my skills, as in preferably books or something. I've looked at some of the articles that are posted here and while they are good I'm looking for something a bit more practical. If anyone has any suggestions that perhaps you have used yourself that would be great :) Thanks

I guess I am someone you would have called gifted for art. For about 15years it was all I ever did in school :) ... I'm a programmer now. I havent done any drawing in a while, but I believe to be able to get back into it pretty quickly. In my opinion it has little to do with skilled hands or a gift, it's practice and knowledge. It's about understanding how something looks good. The skilled hands and the gift are something you have worked for.

If you want to create realistic humans, you need to know anatomy, otherwise they just have to look wrong. If you can't see what looks bad, you are not going to improve.

With 3D art I think its even more important to understand what you are trying to achieve. If you don't know what the object should look like, or what looks good, it won't. You cant make any mistakes like with pencil art or a painting where you can really mess up. Trial and error can get you a long way. If you have a vision of the result you will be there a lot quicker.

I think anyone can do it, don't give up. It's probably not books you need, it's practice.

What marcgfx said is pretty much dead on. Keep a sketchbook handy and draw every day. Spend time people watching and sketch what you see - I've been known to pull out a sketchbook during a layover at the airport and start drawing the people around me. Go to a zoo and draw animals (since game characters aren't always human). For digital painting, I absolutely recommend getting a tablet if you don't have one already - it's SO MUCH easier than trying to work with just a mouse. In Photoshop, layers are your friend. That way, if you mess something up, it doesn't affect the entire image, just that layer. Hmmm... as for 3D, characters are a hard place to start. Blocky objects with lots of straight lines are much easier to model than organic shapes, so I'd probably start with something more basic until you get a handle on Max. Just keep working at it, you WILL get better with practice. :)

Pretty much echoing what these guys just said... practice whenever you can, and eventually it just starts clicking. One thing to add - look at as much stuff by other people as you can as well, get a feel for what you like and don't like, and try to emulate elements of the work of artists you admire. Eventually you'll develop a style of your own as you incorporate techniques from all over the place.

So yeah - practice like crazy, but check out other people's stuff, and it doesn't hurt to ape them a little until you work out what works for you! :)

I have to second what Jacksonism said.
I think it is very important to use professional-grade work as reference, always. You reach what you aim for. Somewhat of a perfectionism, I presume.

The more you use high-quality material for reference, the more you will comprehend what has a good quality and what doesn't - the more you'll be able to apply it. You will know in what your work is lacking that is keeping it from being of production quality.

What everyone has said here is pretty much how i feel as well. To some degree an eye for detail can be a natural gift for some people. I have been drawing for a very long time and have also been modeling for quite a while now too. I spend alot of time studying things when im not drawing or modeling. When I walk down the sidewalk and i see some hottie jogging by me i study her... for animation purposes... heh.... The point is for mechanical, organic, etc. models how things are put together is a very important thing. For animals and humans, even joggers, even fantasy made up stuff, i would recommend watching animal planet, getting anatomy books (like the eyewitness kind), even going out into nature and looking at the animals in your back yard. Things like pigeons, squirrels, etc. (we have lizards anuls?, blue tailed skinks, and gekos, gopher tortoise, snakes.) can give you insight on how different things move. Just dont stare at the joggers too long if your at your house, she might be your neighbor and have a really big husband.

Then you could do a quick sketch of his musculature before he clobbers you lol :p

Funny... I was just about to create a post about getting into art until I saw this one. I specialize in programming, and now I want to get into 3D modeling. I can do some 3D modeling in the past, but I've understood how to design my own textures from scratch. I know how UV coordinates work, but how the modeler comes on with the texture design is really something that interests me.

Could anyone point me to some decent PhotoShop tutorials to develop textures? I'm haven't used PhotoShop much yet, and I'm sure there's a lot of stuff involved here, but I'm ready to put in the time.

If anyone has some good books on design textures from scratch in PhotoShop, this would really help me out too. I'm would like to start developing some place holder art while I develop my games.