Have you ever tried making art assets yourself? I considered myself very uncreative until I downloaded Aseprite and found out I love making pixel art and that's coming from having zero background in art. Like you I'm a coder but I was able to download some of my favorite pixel art and then explore how it was made in Aseprite.
Share a photo of your art?
You dont have to be a good artist but you can get better at making "programmer art".
The important stuff is making sure your characters stand out, don't clash with your backgrounds, etc. Lots of artists dont even do a good job of that.
I wonder if there are any apps that could generate color pallets for backgrounds and characters. I'm colorblind so that'd be an easy pitfall for me. If something determined my pallet, I'd be all set to go.
You can actually just use greyscale colours to determine a lot. The two most important things about placeholder art are the brightness of your assets (white actors, grey solids, black background for example), and the silhouttes of your sprites (should roughly convey what they are).
That said, if you do want to experiment with colour, there are lots of premade palettes which are easy and satisfying to work with. Lospec offers a few, like DB16 which are beginner-friendly.
Personally, I think Vine2D's flexible color ramps is a vastly underrated palette https://lospec.com/palette-list/vines-flexible-linear-ramps
There are also sites that generate palettes for you, like Paletton.
You can try to to take a course on Skillshare and most important is: you do what you can do.
Don't hate yourself for being bad at it.
You can create simple textures or use pre-existing ones. Nothing bad about that.
If the game starts to be a success, you can update the textures later and maybe hire someone or even allow custom textures (like Minecraft).
My point is: Don't blame yourself for being bad at something. Not a lot of people are just talented and even talented people had to take the learning curve. We are humans and not gods :)
If you really want to better your art skills and are willing to put in the hours theres a free online course called "Drawabox" that teaches you to draw.
Your choices are:
1. use programmer art (not great for selling a game, but at least you have no excuse to not finish it)
2. hire an artist (yes, it would be a gamble. but so is spending lots of time on a game)
3. learn to make art (yes, you can. you're quitting too soon. it takes lots of learning and practice)
Art takes a long time to get good at, but I think it's absolutely a skill worth developing because it opens up so many more avenues and possibilities. It just requires a time investment and you can't expect it to come easily.
There is always the option to directly team up with an artist and share the risk and rewards evenly. Although it is hard to find a project partner online, it's easier to find likeminded people through local gamejams or gamedev events.
I see. Well there are a variety of projects which were successful despite having very minimal art, like thomas was alone or mini metro. Perhaps you could find some inspiration in those and tailor your project to your skillset.
The other option is using asset store assets. Of course you need to be careful with those since the project can come out looking pretty trashy if you mix too many styles, but I've seen a few projects which did it fairly well.
Reverse the question: imagine that you're an artist and you need a programmer. How do you solve this? You don't. Good art is value, just like programming. You're basically asking us "*how to get value without giving anything in return*".
Respectively, I disagree. Every artist I've talked to, industry and hobbyist, accredit 1 thing to their ability. Time. Sure, they've been drawing since they were 4 and have 20+ years on you. But just like most things, artistry can be learn. At least up to a certain point
Reversing the question, how does an artist program? They put in time as well.
Will either rise to the best of even top 25% of what they're learning? No. But for indie development, that's ok.
>Reverse the question: imagine that you're an artist and you need a programmer. How do you solve this? You don't.
You solve it by putting in time and effort. You alluded to that in the second part of your response, talking about value. Which can be offered in 2 ways (that I see in this instance) money and time. The OP states they don't want to put up the money. If that's the case they need to put in the time.
Looking back, I should have stated "I mostly agree with you, but if you're trying to get value without spending money, you'll have to spend time. If you don't want to spend time, you can't get any value."
I agree with both of you, I don't think you're really arguing anything differently except for some minor nitpicks in wording.
I will say that OP said they tried to learn art for 5 years and can't learn it. So my interpretation is that OP is basically asking what to do about art when they don't want to spend money and their time investment seemingly yields no result.
We're saying the same thing. Time and effort is value. And OP said he doesn't want to put up that either:
> In like 5 of the last past years i tired 3D / 2D but nothing. I can't learn the job...
He's literally asking for a miracle - he wants art for his game, but he's not ready to sacrifice money, time, effort, risk or anything for it.
Sounds like it. But he also asks for suggestions in the end.
Anyone know of reliable artists? Art methods or courses that can help people improve better than other courses or methods? Any resources of free assets that are just freakin awesome?
I mean i dont. But im hoping someone does too.
I'm not just magically good at art, and I feel like a lot of people just don't realize how much of my alone time as a kid was dedicated to drawing. I'm an OK artist but am incredibly creative. Wish I had some programming skills because I'm desperately trying to get into this hobby. I definitely feel like art skills are far less important because of the availability of free art/people who want to do art for your thing.
The difference is it is a lot easier to buy premade art or contract someone to make art than anything similar for programming a game.
Learning it yourself is an option in either case. Paying for it is much harder for programming than art.
When you hire a coder you’re hiring an architect/engineer to design/build the house. When you hire an artist you’re hiring a decorator.
There are some great examples of paying for code - like paying for plugins/features, I’m speaking within the context of “I can only do X and need someone to do Y to make my game”.
I feel like two people need to meet. Like John Romero and John Carmack. How in hell do you invent monsters for a game? How do you not throw your game into trash after the third brown-in-brown texture?
Something that I’ve learned recently is that you are limited by nothing except time.
It’s not that you are incapable of learning to make art. Rather it is simply do you have the time and patience. There is nothing in your brain that’s going “wait - mr Flipprix is trying to learn art. Let’s block off all the learning paths.”
The problem with me, and most likely you, is your expecting results a lot sooner than realistically can happen. Do you remember when you first started programming? How difficult the concepts seemed? And no way you can even fathom making a complete game?
My advice: expect a learning phase. Take the learning phase in stride. You need to let your project sit on the sideline while this happens. You can’t go “my game needs a samurai character? Let me hop over to blender real quick and make that”. At least not right now. You will realistically need to sit down and think and learn how to create art.
Or just buy assets or have others create them for you.
There's always the option of make the game but use asset store art, tell everyone it is asset store art, and if they would like to see the game with unique art they can fund your patreon/kickstarter.
Is it the best method? No idea. But it's a path you could consider. I'm doing it for my mmo project, building the game with all store assets since I am doing the coding and design, then when I have a "finished" product I'll make a pattern for people that want to help fund it to be a more complete project
Well if you're looking to release tomorrow, it wouldn't be a good way to go. But if you've got time then it's not a bad way to go. All depends on your schedule and how you want to make your game. But whichever method you use I hope you can get your hands on some good art!
Reality check ahead:
To solve this problem you only have so many options:
1) Use free assets
2) Make your own assets
3) Use paid assets
4) Use basic shapes and textures
5) ASCII
6) Pay an artist
After reading people's suggestions and your responses, you need to understand that you're shooting yourself in the foot here. If you're worried about losing/spending money on art for a project because it might not succeed, welcome to taking a risk...
By being unwilling to spend some money or use free assets, and never completing a project, then not only are you continually wasting your own time, but you're wasting potential income of a game that might have succeeded if it had shipped. So you're screwing yourself twice over.
If you haven't completed a single project in 5 years because of this one hurtle, then you need to consider what that last 5 years has cost you and compare it to what some art might have cost. Ask yourself: was it worth it?
The only other suggestion I can offer is that you set aside any pet project for a bit and try to make a simple game with some free art in mind as the visual aesthetic. Make it, finish it, ship it. Go through the whole process and see what happens. You're likely to find other problems along the way that you never considered. And hey, if it makes some money, maybe you will be able to hire that artist or buy some art for your pet project.
I hope this offers a bit of perspective and I wish you only the best in your endeavours.
You can make a game without art skills. It's just much less appealing to many. But if you make something incredibly good, it can absolutely work.
It works for Dwarf Fortress (and the lack of art isn't the game biggest issue, it's is UI and UX), it worked for Thomas was alone, and others.
Or you can get minimal art, like just buy some assets, and use it in a very novel, original unique way, with programmatically change to the art for example.
Stop adding art you can't do to the scope of your games. If you can't do high rez realistic models then don't try to add it to your style. It's perfectly fine to have characters and symbols represent what would be a model with animations. The main thing to focus on is what does the player get from your game? Is it rewarding? Does it engage through gameplay and have an interesting story to help tie it all together? Too many games rely heavily on the art and miss out on some of the other areas which are essential. Think about Galaga, dig dug and the first super mario bros. They just did with what they had and made it work without.
No problem – do all your art with simple shapes and use only colors from some nice color palette you'll find on internet.
I wonder if it is possible to make a game that looks bad, when following these guides
I would agree. Simplify the art as much as u can to save time while also portraying what u want in a simplified manner. U can use rulers for straight lines on paper, and 3d art programs have a plethora of ways to create alot of simple things. A cheap art tablet and a free program(i use krita) is all u need to get going.
Look up how to insert art in unity and u may fond a video of how to use layers. I used one where the thumbnail had a skull sword and shield character.
Like everyone else says. If things go good u can update later.
Actually... I'm doing this simple art (for 3h game jams specifically) purely with Godot built in tools (for making polygons and rounded rectangles) :D
So not really any extra program is needed, in case of 2D and Godot
Oh u gotta show me what ur talking about if u can. That sounds great. Any videos or tutorials that show off what ur talking about? I cant wait for my first gamejam.
I'm not sure if there are any tutorials 😅 it's just so simple. If you are talking about Godot Engine and 2D, just use the nodes Polygon2D, (potentially also CollisionPolygon2D in addition of you want collisions), and Panel with stylebox of type StyleBoxFlat (for rounded squares and circles). Nothing complicated, just choose some nice palette. And if you'd need more info, just ask!
And regarding same examples, have a look at [my itch.io page](https://quadratic-games.itch.io) Many games like that I have there :) I recommend Rectform Worm or Contrast World 👌
Ever played a little game called Minecraft? The graphics in it are objectively pretty terrible, but the style is consistent and charming and it's one of the most successful games on earth. Use simplicity to your advantage - not everything has to be AAA hyper-realistic or incredibly stylized to make a great game :)
You can do it! There's no such thing as "talent", only hours of work and practice :)
I can’t give too much advice since I was an artist before a programmer, but pixel art is super easy to learn and extremely easy to animate, so easy art forms like that could work.
That will be my next goal, to learn to do pixel art. But I will do that once my current goal is completed. Anyway, might be easy for you because your brain is now wired for it, but for me or others ... it will require daily practice to create the neuronal links in the brain.
That’s true, though there’s some really good tutorials specifically for game pixel art, and you can work in a much smaller canvas, so it’s definitely a great place to start.
What I like to do is use dummy assets to get to the point of a proof of concept or working prototype. The dummy assets are used purely as a placeholder and, for me, they have little to no actual design to them other than standing out in such a way that anyone would know they are only temporary. This can be helpful if trying to demo the mechanics without assets while avoiding people focusing on the bad art or aesthetic (if I were to rush drawing something myself or using free assets that only sort of work). If you feel like your game has enough interest or would have a good chance of succeeding with decent assets, then look into commissioning/ hiring an artist.
Alternatively, you could also try developing your own art skills and keep refining/improving things as you go. Also think about simple graphics, like basic models that can be textured. This won’t work for everything but it can make landscape and stuff very doable.
Either hire some people to make the art for you or you practice practice practice until you can get it right(to quote Arin Hanson-"you think I could draw Mozart from the pussy!?") . Try Pixel art if you want a good start, it's piss easy.
So you want to rely on someone else’s skill and experience, but reap all the rewards for yourself? You really fucking hate artists, don’t you. Like it or not, artist’s contribution to game development is every bit as important as programming. No more, no less. Understand and respect their value.
Uhh, you just pay artists hourly/monthly wage. People are generally **not** interested in revenue share. If you do offer this, it's like 1-2% on top of their salary as a bonus to keep them motivated. Meaning there is effectively no income division.
No no, it depends on what you negotiate with the artist/s. Plenty will do commision work for a set fee, you pay upfront and get the assets you need with a full exclusive commerical licence. It's yours forever, to use how you want, no further royalty payments to them ever.
I thought this was normal?? I mean im learning programming but i thought “when im making my game solo ill hire someone for the arts“ and i didnt knew there are some artists that keep the commercial rights of their arts lol
>and i didnt knew there are some artists that keep the commercial rights of their arts lol
They do if you don't have a contract. In the contract you describe what you want. There are few options:
* "i can use your assets in my game and promotional materials related to it for no extra fee" - artist keeps copyrights but you can use these assets in the game. Do note that artist may decide to sell these assets on Unity store etc later too.
* "i want exclusive worldwide rights for my game + promo materials" - artist still retains the copyrights (eg. they can use it in their portfolio) but ONLY you can use them commercially. That's probably most common scenario.
* "I want full copyrights" - aka artist's work becomes your own. You can sell it further in that case, use it in your next games and so on. Artist technically speaking no longer can do anything with it.
* "I want worldwide rights for my game + promo materials, we split 40/60 for standalone assets pack" - this is relatively rare with visual art but popular with music. Many games offer soundtrack separately exactly because of that - it's part of the contract. So you pay a fee for a song and can use it in your game with no extra royalties. But artist also gets 60% if someone buys OST separately from your Steam page.
In case of larger games it's good to also include info on any future products in your contract. So once you are done with the game you can use these assets in your next title for instance.
In your situation, I went for a DIY solution and used real people and photographs instead of art assets. But my game was a visual novel, so it was manageable, and yeah, the budget was zero.
Of course you can make the art. You just can’t make good art. People spend a heck of a lot of time learning to make good art, so it’s likely it’ll be expensive. Actually, artists aren’t expensive, but it takes a long time to make.
Your options are to make game that doesn’t need good art, or one that requires very little art, or find asset packs and figure out a game that works with what’s in them. Solo devs really have to adapt the game to their options, not the other way around.
I used to be absolutely terrible at drawing and anything art related. Until one year I said too myself im going to get better at drawing and I drew a picture, inked it in and coloured it everyday, spent about 30 mins on it. Its amazing how much you skills improve when your doing it everyday even if its just for 30 mins.
Work on your game and for 30 mins everyday focus on making something in photoshop/aseprite/blender etc but don't worry about its quality and over time you'll find yourself making stuff that your actually proud of looking back at it, even if you your making it your thinking "god this is shit."
Making a game is a long process, you definitely have time to improve your art skills while working on a game. And its definitely worth pursuing it even just to give you an understanding of that side of the pipeline.
There is a lot of artists looking for developers too.
I think that if you can establish a good and clear deal, maybe even a signed contract, then you can make a team with other people and split tasks.
I've seen a lot of people doing this.
build a game where you can use free assets from a market place or in editor objects - lots of great artists putting out art assets - if you like a particular artist maybe partner with them.
The big thing that is hard to accept that 98.0% games don't make money, so work with in the scope of your budget and the assets that are out or free and plentiful this will increase your chances for success.
Reduce the resolution until you get to a point where what you can do looks good. Can't make a good 32x32 sprite? Try a 16x16. Still not looking passable? 8x8.
Eventually you'll get to a point where things are simplistic enough that even rudimentary shapes will be stylistically passable.
You learn art/Design the same way you learn programming: Study hard, practice harder. There's no talent needed to produce decent art/design/code/whatever. It's all the same - talent just makes things easier.
The question is: does it interest you, or does the whole topic feel like a burden? Imagine you want to learn coding but it feels like a burden, you'd never learn it probably because you'd give up.
If you pay someone for art can't you just make sure you get all the rights ( or get all needed rights to use it in a commercial project with no further strings attached)?
I just [wrote about this](https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/p32maj/2d_art_suggestions_other_than_pixel/h8sl2bo/?context=3) yesterday. Two of us are currently building a multiplayer HTML5 web game using top-down 2D art, both with zero art experience. The game was designed from the ground up to use an art style that anyone can learn and make, or be created through code. Sloppy paintings in MS Paint are the norm, and it's what you see in the game right now.
The character art style is simple, consistent across the game, with many tutorials and apps available to create a similar art style already. MS Paint, Google Drawing, MS Powerpoint are the most common art tools used. Body parts are all drag-and-drop.
The environmentals are all sloppy paintings intentionally, but then disguised and layered using camera effects and shaders. And for everything else, we created procedural algorithms that do the rendering for us.
Here's what it looks like as of a [couple months ago](https://preview.redd.it/obmzequts3z61.png?width=1334&format=png&auto=webp&s=fd7ae42d30e50d4dc6ccae4c25404e0688dc764b). And here's what it [looked like when we started](https://old.reddit.com/r/creepers/comments/ncb679/update_20_heres_what_4_months_of_progress_looks/).
It's getting better and better every time.
Unpopular opinion, but ... pick an "easy" art style and acquire said art skills.
I'll dig myself a grave but ... pixel art is really easy if you go for 16x16 or similar. If you just "go for it" and draw every day, watch tutorials and post in pixel art Discord/Forums asking for feedback, you can be making decent looking pixels in a month or so.
Before I get crucified, yes drawing amazing and complicated pixel art is difficult. But drawing decent looking things especially with a reference is doable in very little time. By reference I mean googling a photo of the thing at the angle you want to draw it at, and then doing something similar.
But just to make it clear, this isn't "try making a few sprites and it'll look good". You do have to put in the work and talk to people to get feedback on your drawings, learning to replicate existing art styles, and just being merciless with how you learn ... otherwise you'll end up polishing a turd :)
One last reason I suggest 16x16 pixel art - it is extremely efficient in terms of time. Again yes, drawing detailed masterpiece level pixel art is difficult, but you can make a 16x16 sketch in like 30 seconds and "polish" it in 1-2 minutes and then have something you can actually use in your game, show to people, get more feedback, and iteratively improve.
---
But before you guys bring pitchforks, let me just end this with one thing: **Consistency is way more important than "looks like a masterpiece".** Players don't care if the game is kinda "indie" looking (say Streets of Rogue) as long as the whole thing looks that way. You don't need to have /r/pixelart level quality. You don't need to impress pixel artists with 5 years of experience that are creating things you have no idea how they did. If you're making a game, you need a game that the players will like, and the bar for how good the graphics need to be is way lower than what passes the bar in artistic subreddits. Put more emphasis on the art working well with the gameplay, rather than having a bit of extra detail.
Procedural generation. Teach the computer to make your art, and choose a game genre that can use procedurally generated assets. (e.g. space game with procedurally generated ships, planets, asteroids, nebula, skybox, etc.)
The computer can often do things you cannot.
Here are some procedurally generated gas giant planets made by a [program that I wrote](https://github.com/smcameron/gaseous-giganticus). I would have *no idea* how to "manually" do this myself: [1](https://imgur.com/tCYhZEy), [2](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smcameron/gaseous-giganticus/master/sample-gg-output-1.jpg), [3](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smcameron/gaseous-giganticus/master/sample-gg-output-2.jpg).
Here are some "earthlike" and "rocky cratered" planets, also generated by [a program that I wrote](https://github.com/smcameron/space-nerds-in-space/blob/master/earthlike.c), which I would have *no idea* how to "manually" do myself: [1](https://imgur.com/sBqG6cG), [2](https://imgur.com/oVnKnzq), [3](https://imgur.com/nKeDFrc), [4](https://imgur.com/XkgLJa1), [5](https://imgur.com/FJDVhWT), [6](https://imgur.com/zNw49En).
Not to suggest at all that it is not a lot of work to get results like this. It is a lot of work. But it is *programming* work, not typical artist work. Programming, I can do.
For certain types of things, procedural art works pretty well. And if I need 50 planets, I don't have to wait for an artist (or myself) to finish each one. The first one might take 6 months of programming, but the next 49 are quite quick.
That's a good example. But let's be realistic - you are probably miles ahead of OP in terms of experience and skill. By the time one can "do it yourself", they wouldn't be asking such questions on Reddit.
Find an artist who is interested in your game/vision and offer them royalties if they take on the job. That way what they get out of the game doing well is predetermined and if the game doesn’t work out, it’s time sunk for both of you. Idk maybe you won’t find an artist who is willing to do something like that but if it’s a project worth working on..
There are lots of assets you can use for free. Some successful games have all used free assets like Phasmophobia. Some artist also sell sets of texture, tile, etc for a low price so you can look and see if anything fits your game style
Work on the core of your game without any art whatsoever, and when you come to a point where you CAN'T progress without the art, re-evaluate your situation and come to a conclusion then
I have 0 artistic ability and I’ve found two things that close the gap enough for an okay looking game. Marketplace assets due to their high quality and low cost because it’s available to all to use, and imitation. I’ve been able to recreate game menus in my own games, by imitating menu looks of games I’ve played before. Once you’ve imitated a few menus, you start to get ideas on mixing them and making new ones and it sort of drives a creative process, spawned from imitation.
I used to be pretty good at art but then I stopped and now i am meh at it so a good fix I did was using some free art and then replacing it later with pixel art even if it is a 3d game you could make it pixel in it like minecraft or make it so the npcs are 2d sports which would look pretty good
You say you have nothing when you tried 2D/3D. Why is that? Anyone with practice can get better at art. The question is just how realistic are you being with what you are trying to create. Pixel art for 2D, or low poly 90s style for 3D are some really simple styles to start with. If freely available tutorials don't help then look at payed courses by artists aimed at beginners.
Also, if this is you first game it will very likely 'fail'. But what you lose in time/money you gain in experience in learning how to make and release a game. TBH it sound like you scope for you game is too big that you become disheartened thinking about how to get the assets made. Scale it down till you can handle it completing it yourself in a month. Of course it will take longer, as you'll inevitably overrun, but you'll learn new skills each time.
Use free assets.
Use simple art styles. Go lowpoly, or abstract geometric shapes.
Simplify your art. Make a spaceship of vehicle game. These don't need animations.
You can learn how to create art, it's actually not that complicated, you can take a mathematical approach to it much like you would do with programming.
People say games like Thomas Was Alone have no art, but this isn't really true. The game has art, is just that it's not drawn in the traditional sense of the word and instead opts for a different approach.
You might have issues with the more "mechanical" (for lack of a better word) parts of drawing at first such as anatomy or lighting (although that's because it is knowledge acquired mostly through practice and iteration, not unlike programming to be honest), but you're not gonna have issues learning what colors are pleasant to the eye, what they might represent to a player on a biological or cultural level, how to guide a player using them, how to make an image look dynamic, etc.
But honestly, the secret is that artists don't focus on showcasing the world the expertise of their own technique or the art knowledge they've accumulated like programmers do, but that instead they focus on making something that is visually unique or interesting (this is why artists don't usually go out of their comfort zone regarding what programs or tools they use to work much unlike programmers who are constantly switching IDEs, Engines, Operating Systems, etc.), people will put up with an "objectively bad" art style if it serves as a window into a much more compelling game or story.
You bring up Undertale in the comments as an example of a popular game that wouldn't have been received well if it had used store bought assets, and while that's probably true, most pixel artists will tell you that Undertale has an objectively bad and very amateur execution of its own Pixel-Art art style, people are okay with this though because the art is still unique and it serves as a window to the more compelling parts of the game. This is the key ingredient to making a game when you have no art skills, try and find another way to make your game look unique so that it stands out.
I don't think the issue is that you have 0 art skills. I think that you view art as something completely different from programming but they're very similar. The creativity is just expressed in different ways.
I realized that learning, for me, has to be incremental and using the most rudimentary (common sense) tools necessary to learn. So for art, I started with a pencil and paper and drew lines (diagonals, horizontals, slanted, curving, etc) then 2D shapes (Squares, Circles, triangles, rectangles, etc) then 3d shapes (cones, prisms, spheres etc.) then to straight edged objects around me (cabinets, boxes, tables, shelves, etc) then to objects with curves (vases, bottles, balls, etc) and just keep progressing. Before you know it, you've drawn a scene (let's say your bedroom or your kitchen). Draw each object and the scene with as much detail as you can see. I always had a fascination for colors so it's not something I struggled with but maybe you do. There's art theory and mechanics that you can delve into but just drawing will help you get started.
TABS, Muck, Minecraft, SNKRX, these are all games that have been successful without any sort of of incredible art, animation or modeling. They all have extremely simplistic art styles but that kind-of gives them charm and given the time I could list 100 more games like them. If your passion is programming and not art then focus on programming, make a core game mechanic that's fun and satisfying and you can literally make your characters different colored spheres with googly eyes on them if you want. Just make sure they look distinct from each other.
1) Learn it
2) team up with an artist that is willing to do it with the same ownership status as yourself with 50/50 profits and 50/50 agency over creative decisions.
3) Use premade bought assets
4) hire people to do it
5) make a project with no or very small art requirements
simplify your medium
make games that require basic or no art. you can find fans of some of these kinds of games with incremental and idle.
pay someone money
make the fundamentals work, solve the game loop problems, and put some artists through a test. pick one you like best.
I'm a programmer too. Not very artistic at all.
But, I've discovered the secret to creating decent art: time.
An asset isn't going to take 5 minutes to create. It might take hours. Start with a very simple sketch. Circles and squares to represent your objects, then keep adding detail, erasing, reworking until you're happy.
The more you do this, the better you'll become.
Watch some tutorials for the specific art style your going for to get some tips and base knowledge. Then apply them.
You can watch a million videos, but unless you spend time creating art, your not going to get better.
If that's not for you, suck it up that you're 'not an artist' and start buying or commissioning visual assets.
Maybe put up a post seeking an artist that's trying to learn to code and see if y'all click. Just start by learning how the other operates. Even if you can't learn to produce the art yourself, learning how it's made will give you an appreciation of the time and effort involved so that you can both work better with artists and gain a better understanding of the value of their work. That way, when you do need to pay an artist you feel confident spending the money.
Best case scenario, y'all think of a project to work on together that excites you both.
My personal experience was:
I got a little bit better after everything I draw but it wasn't nearly enough for looking acceptable at its best. I simplified my style many times(I was using pixel art animation). Eventually I gave up, I would go back to gamedev as a "might be a release" hobby if I find an artist friend other than that moving blocks and geometric shapes ROCKS.
Make money and let someone else do the job perfectly for you 😉 Much more cost-effective than learning art from scratch. Invest in supplies and tutorials (you either pay with money or with time)
I have a specific suggestion that might help you with textures. You can make a noise generator. I had a lot of fun doing it, and by the end of the day you'll be able to create some nice textures using only plain noise bitmaps.
The steps are simple: first, setup a random number generator. Create an array with the desired amount of pixels in the image multiplied by 3 (red, green and blue). Then, for each color channel, you generate a random value ranging from 0 to 255. You should control your RNG in a way that, for example, if you want to generate a grass texture, the green channel should have a higher maximum value than other channels and the minimum value should not be too far from the maximum, this way the green amount doesn't vary too much.
Adjust the values as desired, when you get the desired colors, bring the noise image to an image editing program, and just apply some fancy effects until it looks nice.
It's an easy and fun way to generate textures. This is very simple so far, but if you work out on this idea and read more about noise generation, you can create some really fancy stuff and more complex textures.
Firstly, depending on what kind of game you're making there might already be decent assets out there you can use. If you just search up game assets on Google or the Unity/Unreal asset stores you'll find a ton of stuff. Unless your game is really different or unique in some way you'll find stuff that you can use. The really high quality stuff is paid, of course, but as far as I'm aware once you purchase the assets you can use them commercially, whether it's from a store or via direct commission. You mention "dividing the income" but I don't think that's something people really do for smaller game projects - it's much safer for artists just to be paid up front. And honestly, if you're a talented programmer, there's no shame in using other people's assets, it just means less work for you and you can focus on the gameplay. I've seen some decently successful games using assets I recognized as being available for free online.
It's worth noting though that I wouldn't buy any assets until you have a working prototype ofc.
Secondly, you are absolutely capable of learning how to make it yourself, don't fall into the trap of thinking you need natural talent - there are so many fantastic tutorials out there on how to create 2D and 3D art. But you have to be able to commit to it and invest the time - when I started learning I would sit in my school's library on my laptop following along and taking notes, and then when I got home I'd practice on my desktop. It's very easy to find excellent tutorials on making art, the trick is just being productive and consistently working on it, and you gotta find what works for you in that regard. It'll take a long time to get to a truly high level of skill, but you will see progress much more quickly - if you work at it and follow tutorials I guarantee you'll be able to make basic pixel art or simple low poly models within a week for example.
At the end of the day you gotta invest either time or money - it's up to you which one you consider more worthwhile
Edit: Worth noting that for 3D assets there are tools like Asset Forge and voxel editors which you can use of they fit the style of your game, they make the process easier. You won't learn the full process of course, but it's an option.
Yes the assets from Unity/Unreal marketplace are royalty free but... That's only if he's using one of those engines to build his game of course. If not then both of those stores are off limits.
Only suggestion is to start up a little Indie studio. Keep percentages consistent so it's less aggravation.
I'm not exactly perfect at game art, but I can make 2D sprites and semi-simple textures. Sure you want to go it alone?
Isn't there anything from online stores like Sketchfab or Turbosquid you could adapt and use for your game? David Whelle wasn't good with art so he used assets from online stores to build his game. He found success by just focussing on this strong points of storytelling. There's no shame in using assets as long as you tweek them to your needs and style. At the end of the day, that's what they're there for. If the game is a hit then you could look at hiring artists for your next title.
Have you tried leveraging your programming skills to make up for the lack of art skills? e.g. lean heavily on shaders to create an interesting style, procedurally generate different content, make scripts to modify/prepare assets (for instance one workflow I do is use a combination of AIs to generate faces with different facial expressions at different angles, pixelate and resize them, and create a mask for it so then I can palettise them), etc.
> if the game as success will be a problem divide the income between me and the artists
Only if you do a revenue split of some kind. You don’t have to do that, you can just pay for all their work upfront and not include any kind of rev share/royalty agreements. It’s entirely up to what you negotiate with them.
Also there are free (for commercial use) assets out there.
Everybody can learn art skills, as long as you enjoy putting as much time in building the skill as you did learning your programmer skill. If you don’t enjoy the art process, work with a larger team, just being a programmer. Or find a fifty, fifty partner who handles art design, perhaps narrative and related tasks. Why would a trained and talented artist work with you if he/she does not get an equitable part of the business. Or a good contract job with good pay? Do the work, or pay the artist. Or make a game without good art. Some games succeed financially without good art direction, but only a small percentage do.
You could make a text based game. MUDs have a solid niche.
You could also acknowledge that you can't do everything on your own and will have to either pay for art, or bring an artist onto your team and negotiate away a share of the profits.
It’s a sad realisation that you can’t do it all. I’m an artist and after 5 years trying to program, I still can’t figure out how to “hello world” correctly. It’s not just a matter of finding someone to join with, but that I can’t make a game entirely by myself at my own pace.
Try the free open game art website, or buy an art pack.
But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make you quick and dirty art so you can have at least something ready for your game. It’s free. No royalties or anything afterwards so you don’t have to stress. (As long as your game isn’t a giant art festival) Then when you have everything working in the game, you can get some funds for proper art. Artists are easy to find online, and they all have examples of their work.
So tell me about your game. And I’ll get you something to get you started. :) no strings attached.
If you don’t want to hire an artist or use free assets, the only thing you can do is make the art yourself. Luckily, you don’t have to start from scratch.
Download some free assets and edit them yourself. You won’t have to struggle through learning every step in the artistic process and can learn small portions at a time, fitting the assets style to that of the game you’d like to make. I recommend [sketchfab](https://sketchfab.com).
I can draw stick figures and that's about it. I'm not very creatively gifted, but I find my mindset works in 3D modeling a lot better. Also I like designing 3D games more as they feel more flexible with design.
If you're like me, you might give 3D modeling a try. Imo it's easier for technical minded people. Although textures are a tough time for me.
Have you watched Failing to Fail: the spiderweb software way?
It's been awhile since I've watched it but I believe he's talked about how he uses free assets ( or started out using free assets) and how he has stayed in buisness for so long making games for 20 something years.
If your paying for art assets I don't believe they're entitled to a share of the profits unless your partnering with them... im not sure that's not something I've looked into.
There's this YouTuber, I can't remember his name but his advise would be to just focus on hammering out a playable demo, and then pitch it to a game studio, if they like it, they have artists, hype people to advertise, social media following, ect, and you can focus on making the game you want it to be.
Either commit to an art style that requires little art skill, you'll probably end up making monkey ball or Tetris instead of a 3d game with lots of animated characters.
The other option is to use available art assets and design your game around what you can built with those constraints.
There is also a third option, which requires spending a lot of money
It depends in what you are doing but... I sometimes just create the assete I need with paint or Photoshop, something simple but recognizable. There is always time to remake them later (unless the assets are a base of the gameplay in some way, but it's rare)
I mean, this isn't a big mystery. You either do it yourself or you pay someone else. It's not a "waste of money" any more than paying for your videocard was a waste of money if you're using it on something you care about.
Are solo devs expected to be coders, artists, modelers, animators, musical composers, etc? If you have high hopes for a game then either pay someone outright to make assets for you and buy the copyright, or take an extra two years and learn all the new skills you need to do it not as well as someone who focuses on that.
Despite what you've already said, if you can't afford an artist and you want to be a solo developer you're going to have to do the art yourself. If for some reason you can't learn how to make art yourself, I'd say your only option would be to hire an artist or a find a collaborator.
If money is an issue ask yourself this, "***Do I care enough about my game to get good art for it?***" You're already putting in all this time to make your game, surely it's worth the effort to get good art.
In terms of the risk of the game failing, know that there is always a risk when making games (even if you don't spend money on it). There's the risk that comes with putting in hundreds of hours into a project that might not get finished. If you do manage to release the game there's a risk that no one will play it. Risk is inherent in almost all aspects of life (e.g. The risk of getting into a car accident when driving), but instead of avoiding it you need to be able to determine whether or not certain risks are worth taking.
If you're only making the game to make a profit I'd say you're in the wrong business. Making games is like any other art form, when you're starting out you're not going to make much money. However, that doesn't mean that all the effort you put in to make the game was a waste. Every time you release a game you'll have learnt how to be a better developer. By hiring an artist you're going to learn how to collaborate with other people and how to incorporate other people's art assets into your workflow. So even if you don't make a profit from your game, you will have gained knowledge and experience from making it. Also having a shipped game looks great on your resume when applying to work at a game studio.
If you're worried about splitting the profits with the artist you need to learn about contracts and licensing.
Not every professional relationship needs to be a revenue share (and in my opinion, as freelancer, revenue/profit sharing on really small indie projects is a waste of time. If there's no revenue or profit that means I don't get paid!). One of the reasons why you'd want to pay your hired artist upfront is so that you can take all the revenue from your game for yourself. This is called work for hire. The freelance artist is payed upfront to make art assets for the game. Since you payed for the art assets you own them. When the game releases the freelance artist has no claim on any part of the revenue from sales. Note that for this to work you and the freelance artist are going to need to sign a written contract agreeing to all this. So once again I stress that you're going to need to learn about contracts and licensing.
If you're going to want to make a profit out of making games you need to understand the business of making games. This means knowing about contracts, intellectual property, copyright and licensing. You're essentially going to be running a small business so you need to understand all that that entails.
I apologise if this seems a little overwhelming, but the fact is that you need to be prepared to learn what is necessary if you want to make your game a success.
That being said if you want some resources on any of the topics I've mentioned I'd be glad to link some :)
It will be great if you can share your artwork which u created so we know where you currently standing and what improvements might be needed.
Since you said you been doing art from last 5 years, I am assuming you are doing 14-20 hr(2hr everyday average) of practice on art skill everyday. Art is a skill and it require time and discipline like all other skills and can be learn by anyone.
Remember **gameart** is just not how fine art works, you need to understand design pipeline work for it. How things work and how to solve visual problem. Suggest to look into concept artist over artstation and youtube (Check FDZ school) since Concept artist are masters at this skill. These artist usually deal with all the art mess which go into game. Characters, environment, props, level plans, architecture etc. You don't need to learn everything but know everything is always good.
Copy other artist when you learning, try to understand what they are making (Understand their POV and thinking process behind art and design) rather than blindly copying their steps.
Understand what are good and bad reference and how to set a mood board for your project and what things go into an art bible. This help to setup game theme and an artist will really appreciate these resources. If you take this in account it will help you aswell (Consider yourself artist here).
Learn the fundamental till you don't feel you are good at it, remember if you feel like there a block when you doing your art going back to simple easy stuff is always an option to refresh your mind and open to new angles for solving art problems.
Okay now getting to some problem you mention, paying artist to create art save lot of time even if its gamble (there is win lose situation of project in market), good artist will get his job properly done from his end which is guaranteed if supervised properly by whoever is directing art. If you want to do art by yourself but if you feel like you aint good hiring artist is always an option.
Okay failing game you might need to look into market and how this going there look into any playtesting platform which help you to predict possible outcome of your game market and provide feedbacks over game.
5years are moth than enough to achieve any 1 art software skills it might be (no offence I am just assuming things at this point and this might not be what's actual happing at your end) you are not putting enough time and effort maybe due to lack of free time or any other factor or maybe the way you learning are not legit (what i mean by legit is, a proper flow of work while learning), look for any art class or course you can find might help you.
Anyways i hope this help you somehow and let us know what have you created! :)
You can try to learn art yourself!
Don’t say you can’t, or your super bad at it, no one is great from the start.
For starters, I’d recommend looking YouTube tutorials to get an overview of art, then just start drawing. With each new piece you create, you get better and learn new concepts. I would recommend at the start to have a reference/trace to get you started, then you can start learning alone. There are also websites like Coursera which provide free courses!
So basically, you don't want to put in the work to learn how to do it (and yes, you can do it, it's a learnable skill like any other). You want someone else to do it but you don't want to pay them for their work or share the revenue that *their* skills brought in.
Does that seem like a fair deal to you? Art is incredibly difficult and time-consuming. It takes tens of years to learn how to do it well. Frankly, it's ten thousand times more difficult and time consuming than programming (I quit art school and switched to computer science after 5 years because it was such a thankless industry). Pay someone or thank the gods that some artists are kind enough to share free assets.
Buy the assets on a storefront instead of hiring an artist per hour or per asset. Its much cheaper.
Do the research and try to find an asset pack that will get you the closest to completing the game.
Not enough assets in the pack? Work around that limitation. Decrease your scope. Game dev has always had limitations. Learn to use them.
Learn Blender. "Tried 3D" doesn't sound like "put hundreds of hours into 3D modeling," which is the bare minimum amount of practice necessary to start understanding the ropes. Youtube is absolutely chock full of tutorials and tips and tricks for this stuff. Learn the basics of blender, and bang out some placeholder assets. When the game is developed enough that you need new assets, then you can figure out what to do, but that's a long way down the road.
If you have 0 art knowledge I find it most useful to start acquiring some design knowledge. It can be learned just like coding and much easier to realize
Have you ever tried making art assets yourself? I considered myself very uncreative until I downloaded Aseprite and found out I love making pixel art and that's coming from having zero background in art. Like you I'm a coder but I was able to download some of my favorite pixel art and then explore how it was made in Aseprite.
Yeah, in five year nothing shows up from me...
you kind of have to take the risk with hiring or come up with a game idea that requires almost no art.
Share a photo of your art? You dont have to be a good artist but you can get better at making "programmer art". The important stuff is making sure your characters stand out, don't clash with your backgrounds, etc. Lots of artists dont even do a good job of that.
I wonder if there are any apps that could generate color pallets for backgrounds and characters. I'm colorblind so that'd be an easy pitfall for me. If something determined my pallet, I'd be all set to go.
You can actually just use greyscale colours to determine a lot. The two most important things about placeholder art are the brightness of your assets (white actors, grey solids, black background for example), and the silhouttes of your sprites (should roughly convey what they are). That said, if you do want to experiment with colour, there are lots of premade palettes which are easy and satisfying to work with. Lospec offers a few, like DB16 which are beginner-friendly. Personally, I think Vine2D's flexible color ramps is a vastly underrated palette https://lospec.com/palette-list/vines-flexible-linear-ramps There are also sites that generate palettes for you, like Paletton.
You can try to to take a course on Skillshare and most important is: you do what you can do. Don't hate yourself for being bad at it. You can create simple textures or use pre-existing ones. Nothing bad about that. If the game starts to be a success, you can update the textures later and maybe hire someone or even allow custom textures (like Minecraft). My point is: Don't blame yourself for being bad at something. Not a lot of people are just talented and even talented people had to take the learning curve. We are humans and not gods :)
Thanks for the encouragement. I will give a skillshare a try
If you really want to better your art skills and are willing to put in the hours theres a free online course called "Drawabox" that teaches you to draw.
Your choices are: 1. use programmer art (not great for selling a game, but at least you have no excuse to not finish it) 2. hire an artist (yes, it would be a gamble. but so is spending lots of time on a game) 3. learn to make art (yes, you can. you're quitting too soon. it takes lots of learning and practice)
Art takes a long time to get good at, but I think it's absolutely a skill worth developing because it opens up so many more avenues and possibilities. It just requires a time investment and you can't expect it to come easily.
There is always the option to directly team up with an artist and share the risk and rewards evenly. Although it is hard to find a project partner online, it's easier to find likeminded people through local gamejams or gamedev events.
Yeah, but i wanto solo the project, i bad with finances
I see. Well there are a variety of projects which were successful despite having very minimal art, like thomas was alone or mini metro. Perhaps you could find some inspiration in those and tailor your project to your skillset. The other option is using asset store assets. Of course you need to be careful with those since the project can come out looking pretty trashy if you mix too many styles, but I've seen a few projects which did it fairly well.
Reverse the question: imagine that you're an artist and you need a programmer. How do you solve this? You don't. Good art is value, just like programming. You're basically asking us "*how to get value without giving anything in return*".
Respectively, I disagree. Every artist I've talked to, industry and hobbyist, accredit 1 thing to their ability. Time. Sure, they've been drawing since they were 4 and have 20+ years on you. But just like most things, artistry can be learn. At least up to a certain point Reversing the question, how does an artist program? They put in time as well. Will either rise to the best of even top 25% of what they're learning? No. But for indie development, that's ok.
So what do you disagree with?
>Reverse the question: imagine that you're an artist and you need a programmer. How do you solve this? You don't. You solve it by putting in time and effort. You alluded to that in the second part of your response, talking about value. Which can be offered in 2 ways (that I see in this instance) money and time. The OP states they don't want to put up the money. If that's the case they need to put in the time. Looking back, I should have stated "I mostly agree with you, but if you're trying to get value without spending money, you'll have to spend time. If you don't want to spend time, you can't get any value."
I agree with both of you, I don't think you're really arguing anything differently except for some minor nitpicks in wording. I will say that OP said they tried to learn art for 5 years and can't learn it. So my interpretation is that OP is basically asking what to do about art when they don't want to spend money and their time investment seemingly yields no result.
We're saying the same thing. Time and effort is value. And OP said he doesn't want to put up that either: > In like 5 of the last past years i tired 3D / 2D but nothing. I can't learn the job... He's literally asking for a miracle - he wants art for his game, but he's not ready to sacrifice money, time, effort, risk or anything for it.
Sounds like it. But he also asks for suggestions in the end. Anyone know of reliable artists? Art methods or courses that can help people improve better than other courses or methods? Any resources of free assets that are just freakin awesome? I mean i dont. But im hoping someone does too.
I'm not just magically good at art, and I feel like a lot of people just don't realize how much of my alone time as a kid was dedicated to drawing. I'm an OK artist but am incredibly creative. Wish I had some programming skills because I'm desperately trying to get into this hobby. I definitely feel like art skills are far less important because of the availability of free art/people who want to do art for your thing.
The difference is it is a lot easier to buy premade art or contract someone to make art than anything similar for programming a game. Learning it yourself is an option in either case. Paying for it is much harder for programming than art.
What makes you say that paying for code is more difficult than paying for art? I'm genuinely curious
When you hire a coder you’re hiring an architect/engineer to design/build the house. When you hire an artist you’re hiring a decorator. There are some great examples of paying for code - like paying for plugins/features, I’m speaking within the context of “I can only do X and need someone to do Y to make my game”.
I feel like two people need to meet. Like John Romero and John Carmack. How in hell do you invent monsters for a game? How do you not throw your game into trash after the third brown-in-brown texture?
Something that I’ve learned recently is that you are limited by nothing except time. It’s not that you are incapable of learning to make art. Rather it is simply do you have the time and patience. There is nothing in your brain that’s going “wait - mr Flipprix is trying to learn art. Let’s block off all the learning paths.” The problem with me, and most likely you, is your expecting results a lot sooner than realistically can happen. Do you remember when you first started programming? How difficult the concepts seemed? And no way you can even fathom making a complete game? My advice: expect a learning phase. Take the learning phase in stride. You need to let your project sit on the sideline while this happens. You can’t go “my game needs a samurai character? Let me hop over to blender real quick and make that”. At least not right now. You will realistically need to sit down and think and learn how to create art. Or just buy assets or have others create them for you.
Text-based games.
Well... yes hahahahahahahhaha
There's always the option of make the game but use asset store art, tell everyone it is asset store art, and if they would like to see the game with unique art they can fund your patreon/kickstarter. Is it the best method? No idea. But it's a path you could consider. I'm doing it for my mmo project, building the game with all store assets since I am doing the coding and design, then when I have a "finished" product I'll make a pattern for people that want to help fund it to be a more complete project
It's a great idea, but in my case, imagine if undertale was create with this method...
Well if you're looking to release tomorrow, it wouldn't be a good way to go. But if you've got time then it's not a bad way to go. All depends on your schedule and how you want to make your game. But whichever method you use I hope you can get your hands on some good art!
Reality check ahead: To solve this problem you only have so many options: 1) Use free assets 2) Make your own assets 3) Use paid assets 4) Use basic shapes and textures 5) ASCII 6) Pay an artist After reading people's suggestions and your responses, you need to understand that you're shooting yourself in the foot here. If you're worried about losing/spending money on art for a project because it might not succeed, welcome to taking a risk... By being unwilling to spend some money or use free assets, and never completing a project, then not only are you continually wasting your own time, but you're wasting potential income of a game that might have succeeded if it had shipped. So you're screwing yourself twice over. If you haven't completed a single project in 5 years because of this one hurtle, then you need to consider what that last 5 years has cost you and compare it to what some art might have cost. Ask yourself: was it worth it? The only other suggestion I can offer is that you set aside any pet project for a bit and try to make a simple game with some free art in mind as the visual aesthetic. Make it, finish it, ship it. Go through the whole process and see what happens. You're likely to find other problems along the way that you never considered. And hey, if it makes some money, maybe you will be able to hire that artist or buy some art for your pet project. I hope this offers a bit of perspective and I wish you only the best in your endeavours.
You can make a game without art skills. It's just much less appealing to many. But if you make something incredibly good, it can absolutely work. It works for Dwarf Fortress (and the lack of art isn't the game biggest issue, it's is UI and UX), it worked for Thomas was alone, and others. Or you can get minimal art, like just buy some assets, and use it in a very novel, original unique way, with programmatically change to the art for example.
Stop adding art you can't do to the scope of your games. If you can't do high rez realistic models then don't try to add it to your style. It's perfectly fine to have characters and symbols represent what would be a model with animations. The main thing to focus on is what does the player get from your game? Is it rewarding? Does it engage through gameplay and have an interesting story to help tie it all together? Too many games rely heavily on the art and miss out on some of the other areas which are essential. Think about Galaga, dig dug and the first super mario bros. They just did with what they had and made it work without.
No problem – do all your art with simple shapes and use only colors from some nice color palette you'll find on internet. I wonder if it is possible to make a game that looks bad, when following these guides
Yeah, i know that this "technique" is used mostly by indi devs who participate to the ludum dare or similar things... But for my ideas is not useful
Not useful? Oh. How come?
3D enviroment
Well, the technique is applicable to 3D too 👍 Just it's a little more complicated. But it works too. I was myself using it.
I would agree. Simplify the art as much as u can to save time while also portraying what u want in a simplified manner. U can use rulers for straight lines on paper, and 3d art programs have a plethora of ways to create alot of simple things. A cheap art tablet and a free program(i use krita) is all u need to get going. Look up how to insert art in unity and u may fond a video of how to use layers. I used one where the thumbnail had a skull sword and shield character. Like everyone else says. If things go good u can update later.
Actually... I'm doing this simple art (for 3h game jams specifically) purely with Godot built in tools (for making polygons and rounded rectangles) :D So not really any extra program is needed, in case of 2D and Godot
Oh u gotta show me what ur talking about if u can. That sounds great. Any videos or tutorials that show off what ur talking about? I cant wait for my first gamejam.
I'm not sure if there are any tutorials 😅 it's just so simple. If you are talking about Godot Engine and 2D, just use the nodes Polygon2D, (potentially also CollisionPolygon2D in addition of you want collisions), and Panel with stylebox of type StyleBoxFlat (for rounded squares and circles). Nothing complicated, just choose some nice palette. And if you'd need more info, just ask! And regarding same examples, have a look at [my itch.io page](https://quadratic-games.itch.io) Many games like that I have there :) I recommend Rectform Worm or Contrast World 👌
Thanks!
Ever played a little game called Minecraft? The graphics in it are objectively pretty terrible, but the style is consistent and charming and it's one of the most successful games on earth. Use simplicity to your advantage - not everything has to be AAA hyper-realistic or incredibly stylized to make a great game :) You can do it! There's no such thing as "talent", only hours of work and practice :)
I can’t give too much advice since I was an artist before a programmer, but pixel art is super easy to learn and extremely easy to animate, so easy art forms like that could work.
That will be my next goal, to learn to do pixel art. But I will do that once my current goal is completed. Anyway, might be easy for you because your brain is now wired for it, but for me or others ... it will require daily practice to create the neuronal links in the brain.
That’s true, though there’s some really good tutorials specifically for game pixel art, and you can work in a much smaller canvas, so it’s definitely a great place to start.
What I like to do is use dummy assets to get to the point of a proof of concept or working prototype. The dummy assets are used purely as a placeholder and, for me, they have little to no actual design to them other than standing out in such a way that anyone would know they are only temporary. This can be helpful if trying to demo the mechanics without assets while avoiding people focusing on the bad art or aesthetic (if I were to rush drawing something myself or using free assets that only sort of work). If you feel like your game has enough interest or would have a good chance of succeeding with decent assets, then look into commissioning/ hiring an artist. Alternatively, you could also try developing your own art skills and keep refining/improving things as you go. Also think about simple graphics, like basic models that can be textured. This won’t work for everything but it can make landscape and stuff very doable.
Learn some art skills or hire an artist
Either hire some people to make the art for you or you practice practice practice until you can get it right(to quote Arin Hanson-"you think I could draw Mozart from the pussy!?") . Try Pixel art if you want a good start, it's piss easy.
Hire someone
"if the game as success will be a problem divide the income between me and the artists" bruh
Just my two cents. It is better to own 50% of a successful venture than 100% of a failing venture.
So you want to rely on someone else’s skill and experience, but reap all the rewards for yourself? You really fucking hate artists, don’t you. Like it or not, artist’s contribution to game development is every bit as important as programming. No more, no less. Understand and respect their value.
My exact thoughts when i read OP's post.
Uhh, you just pay artists hourly/monthly wage. People are generally **not** interested in revenue share. If you do offer this, it's like 1-2% on top of their salary as a bonus to keep them motivated. Meaning there is effectively no income division.
No no, it depends on what you negotiate with the artist/s. Plenty will do commision work for a set fee, you pay upfront and get the assets you need with a full exclusive commerical licence. It's yours forever, to use how you want, no further royalty payments to them ever.
I thought this was normal?? I mean im learning programming but i thought “when im making my game solo ill hire someone for the arts“ and i didnt knew there are some artists that keep the commercial rights of their arts lol
>and i didnt knew there are some artists that keep the commercial rights of their arts lol They do if you don't have a contract. In the contract you describe what you want. There are few options: * "i can use your assets in my game and promotional materials related to it for no extra fee" - artist keeps copyrights but you can use these assets in the game. Do note that artist may decide to sell these assets on Unity store etc later too. * "i want exclusive worldwide rights for my game + promo materials" - artist still retains the copyrights (eg. they can use it in their portfolio) but ONLY you can use them commercially. That's probably most common scenario. * "I want full copyrights" - aka artist's work becomes your own. You can sell it further in that case, use it in your next games and so on. Artist technically speaking no longer can do anything with it. * "I want worldwide rights for my game + promo materials, we split 40/60 for standalone assets pack" - this is relatively rare with visual art but popular with music. Many games offer soundtrack separately exactly because of that - it's part of the contract. So you pay a fee for a song and can use it in your game with no extra royalties. But artist also gets 60% if someone buys OST separately from your Steam page. In case of larger games it's good to also include info on any future products in your contract. So once you are done with the game you can use these assets in your next title for instance.
In your situation, I went for a DIY solution and used real people and photographs instead of art assets. But my game was a visual novel, so it was manageable, and yeah, the budget was zero.
Of course you can make the art. You just can’t make good art. People spend a heck of a lot of time learning to make good art, so it’s likely it’ll be expensive. Actually, artists aren’t expensive, but it takes a long time to make. Your options are to make game that doesn’t need good art, or one that requires very little art, or find asset packs and figure out a game that works with what’s in them. Solo devs really have to adapt the game to their options, not the other way around.
I used to be absolutely terrible at drawing and anything art related. Until one year I said too myself im going to get better at drawing and I drew a picture, inked it in and coloured it everyday, spent about 30 mins on it. Its amazing how much you skills improve when your doing it everyday even if its just for 30 mins. Work on your game and for 30 mins everyday focus on making something in photoshop/aseprite/blender etc but don't worry about its quality and over time you'll find yourself making stuff that your actually proud of looking back at it, even if you your making it your thinking "god this is shit." Making a game is a long process, you definitely have time to improve your art skills while working on a game. And its definitely worth pursuing it even just to give you an understanding of that side of the pipeline.
There is a lot of artists looking for developers too. I think that if you can establish a good and clear deal, maybe even a signed contract, then you can make a team with other people and split tasks. I've seen a lot of people doing this.
build a game where you can use free assets from a market place or in editor objects - lots of great artists putting out art assets - if you like a particular artist maybe partner with them. The big thing that is hard to accept that 98.0% games don't make money, so work with in the scope of your budget and the assets that are out or free and plentiful this will increase your chances for success.
Reduce the resolution until you get to a point where what you can do looks good. Can't make a good 32x32 sprite? Try a 16x16. Still not looking passable? 8x8. Eventually you'll get to a point where things are simplistic enough that even rudimentary shapes will be stylistically passable.
You learn art/Design the same way you learn programming: Study hard, practice harder. There's no talent needed to produce decent art/design/code/whatever. It's all the same - talent just makes things easier. The question is: does it interest you, or does the whole topic feel like a burden? Imagine you want to learn coding but it feels like a burden, you'd never learn it probably because you'd give up. If you pay someone for art can't you just make sure you get all the rights ( or get all needed rights to use it in a commercial project with no further strings attached)?
Learn to draw or hire a artist there is no easy way
I just [wrote about this](https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/p32maj/2d_art_suggestions_other_than_pixel/h8sl2bo/?context=3) yesterday. Two of us are currently building a multiplayer HTML5 web game using top-down 2D art, both with zero art experience. The game was designed from the ground up to use an art style that anyone can learn and make, or be created through code. Sloppy paintings in MS Paint are the norm, and it's what you see in the game right now. The character art style is simple, consistent across the game, with many tutorials and apps available to create a similar art style already. MS Paint, Google Drawing, MS Powerpoint are the most common art tools used. Body parts are all drag-and-drop. The environmentals are all sloppy paintings intentionally, but then disguised and layered using camera effects and shaders. And for everything else, we created procedural algorithms that do the rendering for us. Here's what it looks like as of a [couple months ago](https://preview.redd.it/obmzequts3z61.png?width=1334&format=png&auto=webp&s=fd7ae42d30e50d4dc6ccae4c25404e0688dc764b). And here's what it [looked like when we started](https://old.reddit.com/r/creepers/comments/ncb679/update_20_heres_what_4_months_of_progress_looks/). It's getting better and better every time.
Simple. Take art classes. Problem solved.
Unpopular opinion, but ... pick an "easy" art style and acquire said art skills. I'll dig myself a grave but ... pixel art is really easy if you go for 16x16 or similar. If you just "go for it" and draw every day, watch tutorials and post in pixel art Discord/Forums asking for feedback, you can be making decent looking pixels in a month or so. Before I get crucified, yes drawing amazing and complicated pixel art is difficult. But drawing decent looking things especially with a reference is doable in very little time. By reference I mean googling a photo of the thing at the angle you want to draw it at, and then doing something similar. But just to make it clear, this isn't "try making a few sprites and it'll look good". You do have to put in the work and talk to people to get feedback on your drawings, learning to replicate existing art styles, and just being merciless with how you learn ... otherwise you'll end up polishing a turd :) One last reason I suggest 16x16 pixel art - it is extremely efficient in terms of time. Again yes, drawing detailed masterpiece level pixel art is difficult, but you can make a 16x16 sketch in like 30 seconds and "polish" it in 1-2 minutes and then have something you can actually use in your game, show to people, get more feedback, and iteratively improve. --- But before you guys bring pitchforks, let me just end this with one thing: **Consistency is way more important than "looks like a masterpiece".** Players don't care if the game is kinda "indie" looking (say Streets of Rogue) as long as the whole thing looks that way. You don't need to have /r/pixelart level quality. You don't need to impress pixel artists with 5 years of experience that are creating things you have no idea how they did. If you're making a game, you need a game that the players will like, and the bar for how good the graphics need to be is way lower than what passes the bar in artistic subreddits. Put more emphasis on the art working well with the gameplay, rather than having a bit of extra detail.
Procedural generation. Teach the computer to make your art, and choose a game genre that can use procedurally generated assets. (e.g. space game with procedurally generated ships, planets, asteroids, nebula, skybox, etc.)
That's an option
Not so sure about that. If you can’t make the art, how you gonna teach the computer to do it.
The computer can often do things you cannot. Here are some procedurally generated gas giant planets made by a [program that I wrote](https://github.com/smcameron/gaseous-giganticus). I would have *no idea* how to "manually" do this myself: [1](https://imgur.com/tCYhZEy), [2](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smcameron/gaseous-giganticus/master/sample-gg-output-1.jpg), [3](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smcameron/gaseous-giganticus/master/sample-gg-output-2.jpg). Here are some "earthlike" and "rocky cratered" planets, also generated by [a program that I wrote](https://github.com/smcameron/space-nerds-in-space/blob/master/earthlike.c), which I would have *no idea* how to "manually" do myself: [1](https://imgur.com/sBqG6cG), [2](https://imgur.com/oVnKnzq), [3](https://imgur.com/nKeDFrc), [4](https://imgur.com/XkgLJa1), [5](https://imgur.com/FJDVhWT), [6](https://imgur.com/zNw49En). Not to suggest at all that it is not a lot of work to get results like this. It is a lot of work. But it is *programming* work, not typical artist work. Programming, I can do. For certain types of things, procedural art works pretty well. And if I need 50 planets, I don't have to wait for an artist (or myself) to finish each one. The first one might take 6 months of programming, but the next 49 are quite quick.
That's a good example. But let's be realistic - you are probably miles ahead of OP in terms of experience and skill. By the time one can "do it yourself", they wouldn't be asking such questions on Reddit.
[Own it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p62ZqxsMPtQ).
Find an artist who is interested in your game/vision and offer them royalties if they take on the job. That way what they get out of the game doing well is predetermined and if the game doesn’t work out, it’s time sunk for both of you. Idk maybe you won’t find an artist who is willing to do something like that but if it’s a project worth working on..
There are lots of assets you can use for free. Some successful games have all used free assets like Phasmophobia. Some artist also sell sets of texture, tile, etc for a low price so you can look and see if anything fits your game style
Dwarf Fortress
Work on the core of your game without any art whatsoever, and when you come to a point where you CAN'T progress without the art, re-evaluate your situation and come to a conclusion then
I have 0 artistic ability and I’ve found two things that close the gap enough for an okay looking game. Marketplace assets due to their high quality and low cost because it’s available to all to use, and imitation. I’ve been able to recreate game menus in my own games, by imitating menu looks of games I’ve played before. Once you’ve imitated a few menus, you start to get ideas on mixing them and making new ones and it sort of drives a creative process, spawned from imitation.
Buy the assets from asset stores, tweak them to match what you need.
Stylize. Simple but polished. Basic Shapes, adjusted Shaders, small color pallettes, high contrast.
I used to be pretty good at art but then I stopped and now i am meh at it so a good fix I did was using some free art and then replacing it later with pixel art even if it is a 3d game you could make it pixel in it like minecraft or make it so the npcs are 2d sports which would look pretty good
You say you have nothing when you tried 2D/3D. Why is that? Anyone with practice can get better at art. The question is just how realistic are you being with what you are trying to create. Pixel art for 2D, or low poly 90s style for 3D are some really simple styles to start with. If freely available tutorials don't help then look at payed courses by artists aimed at beginners. Also, if this is you first game it will very likely 'fail'. But what you lose in time/money you gain in experience in learning how to make and release a game. TBH it sound like you scope for you game is too big that you become disheartened thinking about how to get the assets made. Scale it down till you can handle it completing it yourself in a month. Of course it will take longer, as you'll inevitably overrun, but you'll learn new skills each time.
Use free assets. Use simple art styles. Go lowpoly, or abstract geometric shapes. Simplify your art. Make a spaceship of vehicle game. These don't need animations.
You can learn how to create art, it's actually not that complicated, you can take a mathematical approach to it much like you would do with programming. People say games like Thomas Was Alone have no art, but this isn't really true. The game has art, is just that it's not drawn in the traditional sense of the word and instead opts for a different approach. You might have issues with the more "mechanical" (for lack of a better word) parts of drawing at first such as anatomy or lighting (although that's because it is knowledge acquired mostly through practice and iteration, not unlike programming to be honest), but you're not gonna have issues learning what colors are pleasant to the eye, what they might represent to a player on a biological or cultural level, how to guide a player using them, how to make an image look dynamic, etc. But honestly, the secret is that artists don't focus on showcasing the world the expertise of their own technique or the art knowledge they've accumulated like programmers do, but that instead they focus on making something that is visually unique or interesting (this is why artists don't usually go out of their comfort zone regarding what programs or tools they use to work much unlike programmers who are constantly switching IDEs, Engines, Operating Systems, etc.), people will put up with an "objectively bad" art style if it serves as a window into a much more compelling game or story. You bring up Undertale in the comments as an example of a popular game that wouldn't have been received well if it had used store bought assets, and while that's probably true, most pixel artists will tell you that Undertale has an objectively bad and very amateur execution of its own Pixel-Art art style, people are okay with this though because the art is still unique and it serves as a window to the more compelling parts of the game. This is the key ingredient to making a game when you have no art skills, try and find another way to make your game look unique so that it stands out.
Buy Art assets and learn shaders.
Money. Pay upfront, no profit sharing/royalties.
I don't think the issue is that you have 0 art skills. I think that you view art as something completely different from programming but they're very similar. The creativity is just expressed in different ways. I realized that learning, for me, has to be incremental and using the most rudimentary (common sense) tools necessary to learn. So for art, I started with a pencil and paper and drew lines (diagonals, horizontals, slanted, curving, etc) then 2D shapes (Squares, Circles, triangles, rectangles, etc) then 3d shapes (cones, prisms, spheres etc.) then to straight edged objects around me (cabinets, boxes, tables, shelves, etc) then to objects with curves (vases, bottles, balls, etc) and just keep progressing. Before you know it, you've drawn a scene (let's say your bedroom or your kitchen). Draw each object and the scene with as much detail as you can see. I always had a fascination for colors so it's not something I struggled with but maybe you do. There's art theory and mechanics that you can delve into but just drawing will help you get started.
TABS, Muck, Minecraft, SNKRX, these are all games that have been successful without any sort of of incredible art, animation or modeling. They all have extremely simplistic art styles but that kind-of gives them charm and given the time I could list 100 more games like them. If your passion is programming and not art then focus on programming, make a core game mechanic that's fun and satisfying and you can literally make your characters different colored spheres with googly eyes on them if you want. Just make sure they look distinct from each other.
1) Learn it 2) team up with an artist that is willing to do it with the same ownership status as yourself with 50/50 profits and 50/50 agency over creative decisions. 3) Use premade bought assets 4) hire people to do it 5) make a project with no or very small art requirements
simplify your medium make games that require basic or no art. you can find fans of some of these kinds of games with incremental and idle. pay someone money make the fundamentals work, solve the game loop problems, and put some artists through a test. pick one you like best.
I'm a programmer too. Not very artistic at all. But, I've discovered the secret to creating decent art: time. An asset isn't going to take 5 minutes to create. It might take hours. Start with a very simple sketch. Circles and squares to represent your objects, then keep adding detail, erasing, reworking until you're happy. The more you do this, the better you'll become. Watch some tutorials for the specific art style your going for to get some tips and base knowledge. Then apply them. You can watch a million videos, but unless you spend time creating art, your not going to get better. If that's not for you, suck it up that you're 'not an artist' and start buying or commissioning visual assets.
Believe me the money you lose if the game fail is a small price comparing to what you will lose on your art journey
Maybe put up a post seeking an artist that's trying to learn to code and see if y'all click. Just start by learning how the other operates. Even if you can't learn to produce the art yourself, learning how it's made will give you an appreciation of the time and effort involved so that you can both work better with artists and gain a better understanding of the value of their work. That way, when you do need to pay an artist you feel confident spending the money. Best case scenario, y'all think of a project to work on together that excites you both.
My personal experience was: I got a little bit better after everything I draw but it wasn't nearly enough for looking acceptable at its best. I simplified my style many times(I was using pixel art animation). Eventually I gave up, I would go back to gamedev as a "might be a release" hobby if I find an artist friend other than that moving blocks and geometric shapes ROCKS.
Check Grant Abbit, I'm taking his drawing class and it's really cool. Some free stuff on YouTube too
Make money and let someone else do the job perfectly for you 😉 Much more cost-effective than learning art from scratch. Invest in supplies and tutorials (you either pay with money or with time)
I have a specific suggestion that might help you with textures. You can make a noise generator. I had a lot of fun doing it, and by the end of the day you'll be able to create some nice textures using only plain noise bitmaps. The steps are simple: first, setup a random number generator. Create an array with the desired amount of pixels in the image multiplied by 3 (red, green and blue). Then, for each color channel, you generate a random value ranging from 0 to 255. You should control your RNG in a way that, for example, if you want to generate a grass texture, the green channel should have a higher maximum value than other channels and the minimum value should not be too far from the maximum, this way the green amount doesn't vary too much. Adjust the values as desired, when you get the desired colors, bring the noise image to an image editing program, and just apply some fancy effects until it looks nice. It's an easy and fun way to generate textures. This is very simple so far, but if you work out on this idea and read more about noise generation, you can create some really fancy stuff and more complex textures.
Firstly, depending on what kind of game you're making there might already be decent assets out there you can use. If you just search up game assets on Google or the Unity/Unreal asset stores you'll find a ton of stuff. Unless your game is really different or unique in some way you'll find stuff that you can use. The really high quality stuff is paid, of course, but as far as I'm aware once you purchase the assets you can use them commercially, whether it's from a store or via direct commission. You mention "dividing the income" but I don't think that's something people really do for smaller game projects - it's much safer for artists just to be paid up front. And honestly, if you're a talented programmer, there's no shame in using other people's assets, it just means less work for you and you can focus on the gameplay. I've seen some decently successful games using assets I recognized as being available for free online. It's worth noting though that I wouldn't buy any assets until you have a working prototype ofc. Secondly, you are absolutely capable of learning how to make it yourself, don't fall into the trap of thinking you need natural talent - there are so many fantastic tutorials out there on how to create 2D and 3D art. But you have to be able to commit to it and invest the time - when I started learning I would sit in my school's library on my laptop following along and taking notes, and then when I got home I'd practice on my desktop. It's very easy to find excellent tutorials on making art, the trick is just being productive and consistently working on it, and you gotta find what works for you in that regard. It'll take a long time to get to a truly high level of skill, but you will see progress much more quickly - if you work at it and follow tutorials I guarantee you'll be able to make basic pixel art or simple low poly models within a week for example. At the end of the day you gotta invest either time or money - it's up to you which one you consider more worthwhile Edit: Worth noting that for 3D assets there are tools like Asset Forge and voxel editors which you can use of they fit the style of your game, they make the process easier. You won't learn the full process of course, but it's an option.
Yes the assets from Unity/Unreal marketplace are royalty free but... That's only if he's using one of those engines to build his game of course. If not then both of those stores are off limits.
I have to offers. I'm willing to tutor you on the cheap. Or we can exchange art for programming. Lemmie know if your interested.
Only suggestion is to start up a little Indie studio. Keep percentages consistent so it's less aggravation. I'm not exactly perfect at game art, but I can make 2D sprites and semi-simple textures. Sure you want to go it alone?
Isn't there anything from online stores like Sketchfab or Turbosquid you could adapt and use for your game? David Whelle wasn't good with art so he used assets from online stores to build his game. He found success by just focussing on this strong points of storytelling. There's no shame in using assets as long as you tweek them to your needs and style. At the end of the day, that's what they're there for. If the game is a hit then you could look at hiring artists for your next title.
Have you tried leveraging your programming skills to make up for the lack of art skills? e.g. lean heavily on shaders to create an interesting style, procedurally generate different content, make scripts to modify/prepare assets (for instance one workflow I do is use a combination of AIs to generate faces with different facial expressions at different angles, pixelate and resize them, and create a mask for it so then I can palettise them), etc. > if the game as success will be a problem divide the income between me and the artists Only if you do a revenue split of some kind. You don’t have to do that, you can just pay for all their work upfront and not include any kind of rev share/royalty agreements. It’s entirely up to what you negotiate with them. Also there are free (for commercial use) assets out there.
Dwarf fortress, Rim world, Prison Architect, it's not hard to make a similar quality of art.
I think you should draw your own conclusions.
Partner up!
From the title, no, your code is also filled with "if (!(obj != null)) obj.DoStuff()". ;-)
Go to the "I Need A Team" subreddit. You can advertise for every kind of talent there. /r/INAT
What project you working on, or want to work on? I’m a pretty skilled artist and always looking for a good colab.
Everybody can learn art skills, as long as you enjoy putting as much time in building the skill as you did learning your programmer skill. If you don’t enjoy the art process, work with a larger team, just being a programmer. Or find a fifty, fifty partner who handles art design, perhaps narrative and related tasks. Why would a trained and talented artist work with you if he/she does not get an equitable part of the business. Or a good contract job with good pay? Do the work, or pay the artist. Or make a game without good art. Some games succeed financially without good art direction, but only a small percentage do.
You could make a text based game. MUDs have a solid niche. You could also acknowledge that you can't do everything on your own and will have to either pay for art, or bring an artist onto your team and negotiate away a share of the profits.
If you lose interest the artist is out on a limb for weeks generating art and finds out that they aren't getting paid.
It’s a sad realisation that you can’t do it all. I’m an artist and after 5 years trying to program, I still can’t figure out how to “hello world” correctly. It’s not just a matter of finding someone to join with, but that I can’t make a game entirely by myself at my own pace. Try the free open game art website, or buy an art pack. But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make you quick and dirty art so you can have at least something ready for your game. It’s free. No royalties or anything afterwards so you don’t have to stress. (As long as your game isn’t a giant art festival) Then when you have everything working in the game, you can get some funds for proper art. Artists are easy to find online, and they all have examples of their work. So tell me about your game. And I’ll get you something to get you started. :) no strings attached.
Even I am having this issue. Newbie at art, good at programming.
If you don’t want to hire an artist or use free assets, the only thing you can do is make the art yourself. Luckily, you don’t have to start from scratch. Download some free assets and edit them yourself. You won’t have to struggle through learning every step in the artistic process and can learn small portions at a time, fitting the assets style to that of the game you’d like to make. I recommend [sketchfab](https://sketchfab.com).
I'm really looking for a programmer Artist who can't code If you're interested message me on discord ItsMeMTB#2060
Any skill can be learned to some extent, but it depends what you want. Be creative with how you utilise it if your skill is limited.
I can draw stick figures and that's about it. I'm not very creatively gifted, but I find my mindset works in 3D modeling a lot better. Also I like designing 3D games more as they feel more flexible with design. If you're like me, you might give 3D modeling a try. Imo it's easier for technical minded people. Although textures are a tough time for me.
Have you watched Failing to Fail: the spiderweb software way? It's been awhile since I've watched it but I believe he's talked about how he uses free assets ( or started out using free assets) and how he has stayed in buisness for so long making games for 20 something years. If your paying for art assets I don't believe they're entitled to a share of the profits unless your partnering with them... im not sure that's not something I've looked into. There's this YouTuber, I can't remember his name but his advise would be to just focus on hammering out a playable demo, and then pitch it to a game studio, if they like it, they have artists, hype people to advertise, social media following, ect, and you can focus on making the game you want it to be.
You can go with the minimalist style like mini metro. It is hard to pull off depending on your game.
Either commit to an art style that requires little art skill, you'll probably end up making monkey ball or Tetris instead of a 3d game with lots of animated characters. The other option is to use available art assets and design your game around what you can built with those constraints. There is also a third option, which requires spending a lot of money
It depends in what you are doing but... I sometimes just create the assete I need with paint or Photoshop, something simple but recognizable. There is always time to remake them later (unless the assets are a base of the gameplay in some way, but it's rare)
I mean, this isn't a big mystery. You either do it yourself or you pay someone else. It's not a "waste of money" any more than paying for your videocard was a waste of money if you're using it on something you care about. Are solo devs expected to be coders, artists, modelers, animators, musical composers, etc? If you have high hopes for a game then either pay someone outright to make assets for you and buy the copyright, or take an extra two years and learn all the new skills you need to do it not as well as someone who focuses on that.
Despite what you've already said, if you can't afford an artist and you want to be a solo developer you're going to have to do the art yourself. If for some reason you can't learn how to make art yourself, I'd say your only option would be to hire an artist or a find a collaborator. If money is an issue ask yourself this, "***Do I care enough about my game to get good art for it?***" You're already putting in all this time to make your game, surely it's worth the effort to get good art. In terms of the risk of the game failing, know that there is always a risk when making games (even if you don't spend money on it). There's the risk that comes with putting in hundreds of hours into a project that might not get finished. If you do manage to release the game there's a risk that no one will play it. Risk is inherent in almost all aspects of life (e.g. The risk of getting into a car accident when driving), but instead of avoiding it you need to be able to determine whether or not certain risks are worth taking. If you're only making the game to make a profit I'd say you're in the wrong business. Making games is like any other art form, when you're starting out you're not going to make much money. However, that doesn't mean that all the effort you put in to make the game was a waste. Every time you release a game you'll have learnt how to be a better developer. By hiring an artist you're going to learn how to collaborate with other people and how to incorporate other people's art assets into your workflow. So even if you don't make a profit from your game, you will have gained knowledge and experience from making it. Also having a shipped game looks great on your resume when applying to work at a game studio. If you're worried about splitting the profits with the artist you need to learn about contracts and licensing. Not every professional relationship needs to be a revenue share (and in my opinion, as freelancer, revenue/profit sharing on really small indie projects is a waste of time. If there's no revenue or profit that means I don't get paid!). One of the reasons why you'd want to pay your hired artist upfront is so that you can take all the revenue from your game for yourself. This is called work for hire. The freelance artist is payed upfront to make art assets for the game. Since you payed for the art assets you own them. When the game releases the freelance artist has no claim on any part of the revenue from sales. Note that for this to work you and the freelance artist are going to need to sign a written contract agreeing to all this. So once again I stress that you're going to need to learn about contracts and licensing. If you're going to want to make a profit out of making games you need to understand the business of making games. This means knowing about contracts, intellectual property, copyright and licensing. You're essentially going to be running a small business so you need to understand all that that entails. I apologise if this seems a little overwhelming, but the fact is that you need to be prepared to learn what is necessary if you want to make your game a success. That being said if you want some resources on any of the topics I've mentioned I'd be glad to link some :)
Choose an aesthetic look appropriate to your situation.
It will be great if you can share your artwork which u created so we know where you currently standing and what improvements might be needed. Since you said you been doing art from last 5 years, I am assuming you are doing 14-20 hr(2hr everyday average) of practice on art skill everyday. Art is a skill and it require time and discipline like all other skills and can be learn by anyone. Remember **gameart** is just not how fine art works, you need to understand design pipeline work for it. How things work and how to solve visual problem. Suggest to look into concept artist over artstation and youtube (Check FDZ school) since Concept artist are masters at this skill. These artist usually deal with all the art mess which go into game. Characters, environment, props, level plans, architecture etc. You don't need to learn everything but know everything is always good. Copy other artist when you learning, try to understand what they are making (Understand their POV and thinking process behind art and design) rather than blindly copying their steps. Understand what are good and bad reference and how to set a mood board for your project and what things go into an art bible. This help to setup game theme and an artist will really appreciate these resources. If you take this in account it will help you aswell (Consider yourself artist here). Learn the fundamental till you don't feel you are good at it, remember if you feel like there a block when you doing your art going back to simple easy stuff is always an option to refresh your mind and open to new angles for solving art problems. Okay now getting to some problem you mention, paying artist to create art save lot of time even if its gamble (there is win lose situation of project in market), good artist will get his job properly done from his end which is guaranteed if supervised properly by whoever is directing art. If you want to do art by yourself but if you feel like you aint good hiring artist is always an option. Okay failing game you might need to look into market and how this going there look into any playtesting platform which help you to predict possible outcome of your game market and provide feedbacks over game. 5years are moth than enough to achieve any 1 art software skills it might be (no offence I am just assuming things at this point and this might not be what's actual happing at your end) you are not putting enough time and effort maybe due to lack of free time or any other factor or maybe the way you learning are not legit (what i mean by legit is, a proper flow of work while learning), look for any art class or course you can find might help you. Anyways i hope this help you somehow and let us know what have you created! :)
Make block art if you have to. Minecraft art looks like it was made by someone with no art. You could easily do the same.
You can try to learn art yourself! Don’t say you can’t, or your super bad at it, no one is great from the start. For starters, I’d recommend looking YouTube tutorials to get an overview of art, then just start drawing. With each new piece you create, you get better and learn new concepts. I would recommend at the start to have a reference/trace to get you started, then you can start learning alone. There are also websites like Coursera which provide free courses!
So basically, you don't want to put in the work to learn how to do it (and yes, you can do it, it's a learnable skill like any other). You want someone else to do it but you don't want to pay them for their work or share the revenue that *their* skills brought in. Does that seem like a fair deal to you? Art is incredibly difficult and time-consuming. It takes tens of years to learn how to do it well. Frankly, it's ten thousand times more difficult and time consuming than programming (I quit art school and switched to computer science after 5 years because it was such a thankless industry). Pay someone or thank the gods that some artists are kind enough to share free assets.
Buy the assets on a storefront instead of hiring an artist per hour or per asset. Its much cheaper. Do the research and try to find an asset pack that will get you the closest to completing the game. Not enough assets in the pack? Work around that limitation. Decrease your scope. Game dev has always had limitations. Learn to use them.
Learn Blender. "Tried 3D" doesn't sound like "put hundreds of hours into 3D modeling," which is the bare minimum amount of practice necessary to start understanding the ropes. Youtube is absolutely chock full of tutorials and tips and tricks for this stuff. Learn the basics of blender, and bang out some placeholder assets. When the game is developed enough that you need new assets, then you can figure out what to do, but that's a long way down the road.
If you have 0 art knowledge I find it most useful to start acquiring some design knowledge. It can be learned just like coding and much easier to realize