How to Learn Game Art!

This video is mainly focused on HD 2D game art, but will be applicable to pixel art as well. It'll be less applicable to 3D, but what can you do..

[@Nonsensical2D]

There are as usual many simplifications, and you can quibble for quite a while on if "craftmanship" "style" and "meaning" are the best labels or even the best ways to classify art, but hopefully you understand why I make the distinction and why I think solely looking at art as another word for "craftmanship" can truly be detrimental to your progress. I have mainly tried to avoid things I've covered in the past, but some things will inevitably be repeated in order to cover the video topic appropriately.

[@Aaron-oe8xw]

I recently started pixel art, former traditional artist. Met someone else who had been doing pixel art for around 2 weeks and i showed him some of the landscapes i had been drawing and his response was "how do you get these to look so good?" And ym response was "drawing dozens and dozens of rocks, looking at pictures of rocks, looking at other peoples pictures of rocks".... Their response "oh man i wish i had talent like that" 😢😢😢😢

[@dreamyfauna]

Once I got serious about learning art, I realized how long it actually takes to learn. There are so many building blocks that tie into each other, it's difficult to learn one thing at a time because decent art need a good understanding of multiple fundamentals but we can't learn everything at once. It's helped me understand that this applies to becoming an expert at all kinds of things in life such as music, game development, exercising, writing, cooking, so many other skills. We have so much to work on but it's exciting and never boring.

[@innes2892]

It took me a long time, with much wasted effort, to come to the realisation that the Fun is in the fundamentals 😮

[@skully3242]

That was just a nothing Burger of words you just threw together.

[@MTLGSE]

Where would you recommend learning the multiple fundamentals of art ? Trying to get into pixal art

[@IdeaGrazer]

@@MTLGSE I am learning to do pixel art as well. I am realizing that the fundamentals of art in general are still important. You need to understand colour theory, composition and practice in drawing all impact what you create in pixel art. I think because you have so little to work with, every detail matters more.

[@jordentacoztm]

Using reference also allows you to actually know what something looks like, and next time you need to draw it you will know what it looks like a bit better. It builds your visual library.

[@moonrivers71]

You make more sense out of the actual thought process than anyone I have ever heard/seen. Excellent. Thank you so much. You are a very good teacher. You quiet my mind and make it extremely easy to focus on your content. You give examples of many different aspects. Please continue. It’s so helpful. Highly appreciated. :)

[@johnsnow5305]

This is actually very useful information. I took an art class in college but I've forgotten a lot of the fundamentals and this video helps a lot. I remember now that I had terrible craftsmanship in my art class, but my creations still looked alright because of the other things like style, color and meaning.

[@IdeaGrazer]

Something people don't talk about as much but I learned studying composition is that you want to look at a whole image as areas of light and dark. This is as important as the details that make up the image. It is the foundation of an image. Colour is secondary to the light dark values. You should be able to remove colour and still enjoy the overall look of the image.

[@sosasees]

"game art" is really visual design. design is all about communication, so clarity is much more important than everything else. some games need more complex visuals for the right mood. but games that don't, i can make them look as simple as modern system UI on my phone or desktop.

[@Fabian-gv6zx]

I love the way you are committed to the game design. You are doing and incredible job 💪🏻 . Keep going and don't give up man 👊🏻♥️

[@lemonberries]

This channel is incredible! Really enjoying the deep dive/analyses into the artwork and how to learn to think like an artist

[@khavi4979]

Your videos have been such a fantastic reference/instructional point. You seriously do amazing work with these, you deserve so many more subs and views for the work you put in.

[@afriendlyfox]

As a person who's doing both art and programming, if you just google solutions instead of sitting down and taking the time to learn the fundamentals of the language, you won't understand how and why something's working, and therefore won't be able to learn from it. I found the same to be true of art for me - after I took the time and learned the basics of perspective, value, composition and color, art advice from experienced people suddenly started making sense. So I'd suggest learning all and every of the fundamentals on the basic level first, and only then start trying to decompose the work of others and learn from it.

[@Mohit_N.R]

Your Videos helps me to Remind myself to keep my Game art style in check. Thanks !!

[@chinkram]

I definitely need to work more on my shapes, thanks for the video!! I would definitely made sticky notes and read them every time i can

[@GratissTVofficial]

Your guides are amazing. Thank you

[@vcdgamer]

3:54 For a long time I would just start with the line art, or rely on a 3d model all the time to get my game art done. But ever since I saw this snippet of video 4 months ago and focused on getting the silhouette of the character done first, drawing my game art as well as animating it has been a lot easier and more efficient.😁 14:30 There's this law I decided to apply to my game assets in my game. The living characters don't have any form of shading whatsoever, except in cutscenes, but I add some form of lighting to the backgrounds, since they don't have an animation, it saves a lot of time this way. 🙂

[@Nonsensical2D]

ye, it defintely makes sense to skip shadows for animated sprites, I generally want to skip shadows for background as well, but some assets kind of require it :)

[@vcdgamer]

@@Nonsensical2D Same. even the same scenario gets applied for some of my sprites. Like some of the monsters in my game, I had to give them orange highlights at certain parts of their body to make them a lot easier to read. I guess the lesson here was to try to keep things simple and only make it complex when it's absolutely required.😅

[@thetra00]

high level advice from a high quality video - thanks for your awesomeness

[@pixelsloth]

This was very well explained and helped me a lot! Thanks!

[@teamspeak9374]

you make me believe I could actually draw something cool even though for the 28 years of my life the most I've been able to draw is a badly proportioned stick figure. I'll give it a try! thanks

[@newleafgames]

Very well thought out and presented.

[@Shadowthevampire]

"The extremes" are called saturated colors if anyone is wondering.

[@studentwolf1538]

i took notes and wrote ur channel name too. Thank you for the eye opening tips!

[@spartanh1438]

i finally understand some base ideas about gmae art, thank to your video

[@blackjew6827]

I thing I learn some time ago, Start as simple as you can and only make it as complex as needed and not more.

[@fletchergunderson5283]

I love the point on silhouette and houses but I actually loved that first little house haha

[@kools67]

it was an excellent point - and he was right about the game looking better with the background silhouette!...if you can get this part right then adding details is much easier

[@milojp3]

you opened my eyes on so many thing.... this video is sooo underrated. Thank you very much for sharing this ! And you quoted drawbox.. okkk i have to suscribe he he good ref

[@archiluis]

Amazing video! Thank you so much!

[@humanetiger]

There is some thoughtful information here! Thank for sharing - you have a new subscriber 🙂

[@user-vc4be5oq5q]

Great overview and thought to consider!

[@olmrgreen1904]

Thank you for this very valuable insight

[@juliette_dev_again]

This is so helpful thank you ☺️

[@ric8248]

this was an absolute masterclass

[@iwanttolearnblender3899]

thank you for the informative video .. am trying to learn 3d art but am learning a lot from ur 2d advice

[@aml-creation]

That’s a great video with a lot of info 👍

[@kurocle]

Thank You. I learned a lot from your explanation.

[@gamenrage5998]

I want to do games with some depth and 3D look to it but it could still be done in both 2D and i could care less about realistic look to it as long as it looks real enough like the work you do but just want to make a game for a story i have created. Thanks for your post on how each style fit into your learning curve.

[@guuuhmello]

you are great friens, good video!

[@hanyodossta]

My favorite quote: "When you're learning art, you're not becoming good at art. You're becoming good at one thing at a time." This was really frustrating to learn at first, and can be even more discouraging when you realize that the skills you practice in one area can fade when you move onto learning skills in a different area. It makes me want to specialize somehow, but I need to do all of the art/animation/music for our games by myself -- I have to be a generalist who gets progressively less crap at a bunch of different skills.

[@Nininininininininin]

Thank you very much.

[@aboodispam]

appreciate your channel!

[@GunGryphon]

An artist mentor of mine once told me an artists style is how they solve problems given their own constraints. The same can be applied here, how does the game artist solve problems given their own time and abilities.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Ye I kind of view it similar. I cover it much more in depth in my video on it and you can see a frame of it in this video, you have limitations such as "time and abilities" and then you have some desires such as "cute, calming" and then given those limitations and desires you create constraints, and that will be your style. But even if an artists style comes about because of how you solve a problem, if you are making a game you kind of have to acknowledge that the consumer will either like or dislike your style, so you have to play around with it in order to attract your audience. You can let it 'happen' on its own, but I personally don't think that is the best approach.

[@Dardasha_Studios]

Editing skills improved. Keep it up.

[@cityonthemoon36]

thank you so much for this video very informative

[@moonzeldev]

This is a amazing video. It takes information that *should* be common knowledge, but obviously isnt, and brings it to the forefront. I will reference this video when making my game art, thank you 😊

[@texcolorado9550]

thanks !

[@GregX999]

I actually think the rocks at 1:14 are a good result - in that particular style. :)

[@swumbo.]

amazing video my man, smile more often!

[@hunchopoto2813]

Very useful video ❤

[@gamenrage5998]

Dam i wish i could of found your site a long time ago i have been struggling with many of these concepts and design and what i wanted to do with my work thanks

[@kylespevak6781]

4:26 You just blew my mind. I typically would draw with simple shapes, and end up with bland designs.

[@navedkhan1384]

Your content is amazing, just wanted to share one feedback to speak slowly and take pauses when required. This will help people like me to understand better.

[@greguar86]

good video!

[@d00mnoodle24]

It seems that most people who watch these actually do game art themselves as well. So cool how it's become accessible. I wish i could pick it up but no matter how many videos i watch i'll never be able to do it. Because i'd want to make something that looks like Ori but that's not realistically achievable. Ori's art is done by multiple people who are really good at art. I'd just be one single beginner. I wouldn't want to do line art either because people always shame it as a hk clone. So I'll just keep watching videos and daydream about actually doing gamedev lol

[@Nonsensical2D]

As far as I know a lot of Ori is 3D as well. There are many great examples of games that don't use line art (rayman, dust an elysian tale, guacamelee, Hoa), but I think a great inspiration if you like Ori and want to do it in 2d, then checking out Itorah could be a good way to go. I definitely think it is possible to not use lineart even if you do it alone. It is definitely a fun hobby and as you said, quite easy to get into :)

[@d00mnoodle24]

@@Nonsensical2D i've seen itorah, it looks great indeed, but not the style i'd ideally want for myself. What i like about ori most is the painted feeling it often has. A similar game to it in that sense is seasons after fall. I'm no expert in any way but i think doing your art in this 'brush stroke' sorta way looks really difficult, could be wrong though. Like i said i know nothing about art :p

[@kools67]

@@d00mnoodle24 just have a play...make a simple flappy bird style game to get started...I'd recommend GODOT game engine but if that is too hard then try Construct or Scratch (i think is that) what i am saying is don't be scared by not making something that looks as good - have a go...build up your confidence with coding and moving simple blocks around also, look at art, go to galleries, look at the great art online - Dali, Picasso, Van Gogh...and the Jean Michel Basquiat - yes, see his work and tell me you can't do this!! make the first step : )

[@Malak-rb6vu]

Well, gotta be good as always ❤

[@Aesthetic.__.Senpai]

Great video man, just started learning game art a few months ago and stumbled on your channel, currently learning art in Inkscape and Photoshop with a mouse only. So should I transition to hand-drawn art and do you have any advice on aspects I should focus on more for starting as a non-artist guy who knows nothing about art?

[@Nonsensical2D]

I think if you are a non-artist, focus on really simple shapes and a simple palette with few colours (like 2). I can't say whether you should go for hand-drawn, that largely depends on whether you prefer the style or not. The important thing i would say is just to limit the things you try to draw or accomplish, practice one thing at a time, so start with practicing getting your game to look decent with basically only shapes and colours, and when it does, then maybe try do depict a bush or a robot, because if you try to do it all at once, it'll be really hard to develop, because you can't evaluate what you are doing wrong (since everything you do will sort of blend together in a jumbled mess).

[@Aesthetic.__.Senpai]

@@Nonsensical2D Thanks for the answer, hoping to learn more from your videos

[@maxboyaditya3857]

Nice

[@hbzanchet]

Loved the video! I saw you use procreate, which set of brushes do you use for the line art? I’ve been trying to find something in this same style but most of the ones I could find are too organic or to straight.

[@Nonsensical2D]

I mostly use the 'syrup' brush, but I sometimes use 'Inka' too, both are part of the standard brush set and completely unmodified.

[@hbzanchet]

@@Nonsensical2D awesome! Thank you

[@muqian-kirin]

cool!

[@itswizydog]

Me at 3am decided to start a new hobby

[@luzcol]

Thanks for the video, I've started to use procreate to draw my assets but I've been struggling to make them the right size, do you have any tips for this? Thanks again :)

[@Nonsensical2D]

I have a quite extensive video on this topic called "what size should your assets be?". At it's simplest you have to guess/measure how big the asset is going to look on screen and then draw to match that size. So if an asset is going to cover a quarter of the screen, then you would draw at at least 960x540 (assuming 1080p). But it is a somewhat complicated topic to cover in a comment, I recommend that you check the video, cause I do cover quite a bit of important aspects

[@luzcol]

@@Nonsensical2D thanks i will check it out!

[@kingoietro99]

Ive been banging my head all day at some assets i made and this cleared some thoughts.. i just wish to make something that is clear and simple but trying to stick to the idea and keeping a coherence is really hard. Also asset resolution and placement doesnt help much. How's your process from having an idea for a scene to implement it in engine?

[@Nonsensical2D]

I cover it in some videos, but I often sketch out a silhouette of my scene in procreate, I have some initial ideaf or a setting, and then create assets based on what type of asset both matches the setting and matches the silhouette. I draw the least amount of necessary assets possible, so I generally start with like 5-6 base assets, with basically just the lineart and a quick colour. That way I can see if the idea works. And then i progressively just update all assets step by step and replace them in the engine. For my "ghost song" video I think I made around 7-9 updates in the engine, where I replaced all the pngs with updated versions, then went back to drawing all of them, then replaced again, until it looked good. But basically I think getting coherence is a lot about not finishing one asset at a time, but instead updating all of them at the same time and finishing them at the same time, I cover quite a bit of it in quite a few videos like "how to place your assets" and "creating a scene from scratch by remaking my old game art"

[@kingoietro99]

@@Nonsensical2D Thanks a lot. Just bought procreate because it seems is the most value app for drawing on the ipad pro. I will try to start from silhouette and then deciding on what to draw, until now ive just mind-numbed trying to draw what i was feeling in the moment without realizing if you want a great result you need a good pre-process, just like with everything else about game-dev

[@exoruto1123]

Pls recommend apps for me! Not only am I a beginner I don't know how to draw at all! Give me some advice

[@FarsKnight]

13:53 Any art books you would recommend for absolute beginners like myself? I'm interested in drawing nature such as trees, flowers, leaves, plants, mushrooms etc etc...

[@kools67]

i'd recommend going to a life drawing class - there must be some near you. just get into the habit of having a play and making yourself draw the man or woman in front of you - don't worry if it looks good or not at this early stage. after a while your eye will get better at proportions, placing things in the right place learning to draw people will help you to learn how to draw flowers and trees and mushrooms - whatever you will also meet new people and they will help you too have fun and take your time

[@planktonfun1]

short answer is practice, but not all people like that answer

[@afriendlyfox]

Tbh "just practice" is useless advice, because it doesn't say what and how to practice. To people starting out, this just makes it seem like they're banging their head against the wall. In reality, they need a really long answer explaining what all the fundamentals are and at least first steps they can take to try to understand each of them.

[@eludingSirens]

Marco bucci is the best. Loish is good too.

[@Nonsensical2D]

I've been planning on buying her books, but haven't gotten around to it yet :)

[@bybdodev]

What is the name of the book that you showed ?

[@Nonsensical2D]

I think it is Digital painting techniques volume 2 by 3D total. if you are referring to the one with small thumbnail sketches. I generally think there are better books by 3Dtotal (they make a lot of nice books, you can look at reviews on amazon if you are curious, but they can sometimes cost a bit).

[@satisho1096]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@zeldinus]

Algo comment.

[@celsladroma8048]

i wise im good at speaking... just like you so that i know how to upload videos...

[@HungLe-ml1eq]

Can anyone tell me what is this book ? 0:56

[@Nonsensical2D]

Bold Visions (the digital painting bible) by Gary Tonge

[@HungLe-ml1eq]

@@Nonsensical2D Thank you!

[@elfwriterbluemoon2244]

🎁🧠⭐🎁

[@DJ.jekK.]

Your games name?

[@Nonsensical2D]

Still in the process of making :) but a lot of the scenes I use on the channel are made specifically to explain a concept or stylistic choice and are not actually playable.

[@greenheart5334]

People told me my game looks like if many games were put together. I suk.

[@idle.observer]

08:15 what is the name of the game?

[@Nonsensical2D]

Adventure Pals

[@idle.observer]

Great content btw, I already saved it. Also following Draw a box for a while @@Nonsensical2D

[@kylespevak6781]

It's funny that people like "realism" so much, because i find it easier and bland. Style is much more interesting and difficult. I can draw real things, maybe slightly simplified, but i CANNOT make a cohesive art style

[@nemo9396]

3:10 I actually like your game but your walk animation I can't look at, sorry for the brutal honesty. Essentially it looks fine but the backswing of the leg looks off because it extends too much. You need to refer to walk cycles and copy them for it to look good.

[@Nonsensical2D]

Ye, for sure, I really should. I see it as well :)

[@3emad.065]

Things AI artist will never understand: 0:48

[@Gatitasecsii]

This is so conflicting to me... I'm crumbling apart coming to terms with how people just don't care about the quality of art...

[@CaEkJu]

hey quick tip when you show your face look more intresting, people dont often think your intresting if you dont look intresting

[@aplanebagel]

thanks !