Learning how to draw games
Have you found yourself awestruck by the artistic talent, creativity, and imagination in the graphics of the video games that you play? Have you drawn pictures inspired by your favorite games or TV shows for years, and always wondered about going professional? There may be a place for you in the field of drawing video game art!
Video games are one of the leading mediums for entertainment and storytelling of the 21st century, and they require inspired, attractive graphics. Creating those graphics is a labor-intensive process that requires lots of talented artists, and the result of that process is one of the most important features that players evaluate when playing a game and deciding whether to recommend it to other people. Are you interested in taking your artistic passions to the next level and learning how to draw for games? Do you want your drawings to become the graphics of works of entertainment and culture that are enjoyed by millions of people around the world? Read on to learn how to get started!
You don’t have to be an amazing artist at first. As with most things, learning to draw for games requires patience and determination. Even pen/pencil and paper are enough to start with as you develop your skills. As your craftsmanship improves, you can consider investing in drawing digital art tools like a drawing tablet, which will allow you to make your art digitally malleable and more easily control things like texture and lighting. It’s important to know how to draw with pixels, but as you get more advanced, you’ll want to get acquainted with vector drawing, as well.
As you develop technical proficiency and create your own style, it is important to not try too hard to be cool or special. Thinking too hard about impressing your viewer with how you make game graphics will likely leave your work stale and generic. It’s important to both think outside the box with your illustrations as well as to give careful consideration to the characters you create based on who you want them to be and what role they play in the game. If you don’t know what inspires your character, how they see the world, and what they’ve been through, then how can you do a good job constructing their appearance?
Just like real people express their identities through the way they dress, the personal effects they carry, and the look on their faces, so should your characters. Is your character young, ambitious, and passionate? This should be reflected in their eyes, their clean features, and their bright clothing. Is your character older, seasoned, and tempered by age? Then perhaps more mature garb, textured facial features, and some scars are more appropriate. What role do they play in the game? A signature character probably needs a very distinctive appearance, unless you specifically want to make players think that they are unassuming. Big muscles might be out of place on a character who doesn’t depend on their physical strength. A female character who spends her time fighting and relying on her agility probably doesn’t need provocative armor or clothes. Expending the thought and effort to draw characters, rather than just figures, will set your drawings apart from others. A good picture really is worth a thousand words of character development, and can help turn a good game character into a cultural icon.
It takes a lot of talented artists to create good video game graphics. Gaming companies need people with not only solid technical drawing skills, but inspired vision and an appreciation for their role in crafting characters that will make memories. It’s not easy, but if you’ve got the talent, the dedication, passion, and inspiration, there may be a place for you on the graphics teams that will draw characters that will be remembered for generations to come!
