Game Art

[Belliinator]

Hey, how do you get into making game art for a project that you are not programming?

[meborc]

Hey, how do you get into making game art for a project that you are not programming?

you speak to the developers of the game and post some of your stuff on the game forums...

[Blitzkr1eg]

Yep, try going to the official game site and go to the contact section.

Then look for an e-mail or form. And then send them an example of your work as well as the reason why you'd like to help.

Most likely they will give you a reply..That is, if the dev. team is still active. Some games out there have an active website, but the team has abandoned or put the game dev. on hold. And if that's the case then you probably won't get a response..

[lingnoi]

Sending some artwork in the first place would be better though. People always say they're going to do this and that on a game project but never return or produce any results.

Something like "Hi, I saw your game and made this player model for it. What do you think?" goes down a lot better then "Can I join your art team?!".

It's important that you produce artwork to the game's style. It's useless if you go off on your own creative juices and make an awesome looking western character when the game is a Sci-Fi or doesn't match anything that's already in the game. Your goal is that none of the artwork should stand out from the rest, it should gel together well.

If on the other hand the project you're doing some work on is new and you're the only contributor you might be able to get to there first and suggest the kind of style the game should go in.

If it's an open source game you're probably going to be asked to submit your artwork under some kind of open license. This is so other artists can learn from your work, your artwork can be used in other open source projects and you don't suddenly turn around and say the project can't use your artwork anymore. A typical license would let other people copy your work and possibly edit it.

If you're interested more in holding on to the artwork you have rather then producing more art you're probably going to hate this idea of giving it all away. If that is the case, why are you contributing at all?

An essential part of contributing to a team means that you can take other people's constructive criticism of your work and not act like a Pre-Madonna. Keep in mind that when you receive comments on your work it is in good spirit and everyone around you wants you to improve your skill.

The best kind of project to get involved in is one without much of an art team, by doing so you'll have more creative freedom on your work and more of your work will actually go into the game. If you're feeling that contributing to a more popular game will get your work seen by more people keep in mind that if you're less likely to get anything into the game. Since a more popular game is already swamped with artists they're more likely to reject your work.

You should also take into account that if you contribute to an unpopular game, your contributions might be the key to making it popular and most of your artwork would be in that now popular game.

Remember that not all artwork will ever be used you'll most likely end up throwing away a lot of your work for some reason or another. Don't get frustrated over it as this also applies to everyone else working on the game too. Just keep producing more artwork. The more art you do the better you get so in a way it's a good thing.

You don't have to ask if there are any games that need an artist to get involved. Look for a game that you are interested in contributing to and start sending work. You don't even need permission to start doing this and you'll always be thanked for your efforts.

The free gamer forums (http://forum.freegamedev.net/index.php) seem to be quite popular for developing open source games. You might want to have a look at the blog, some of the games around and have a think about what kind of style you want to work on.

[sub2007]

If it's an open source game you're probably going to be asked to submit your artwork under some kind of open license. This is so other artists can learn from your work, your artwork can be used in other open source projects and you don't suddenly turn around and say the project can't use your artwork anymore. A typical license would let other people copy your work and possibly edit it.

To add to this, open source projects prefer open file formats, so the best programs to use are Inkscape for 2D work or Blender for 3D. If your experience is in commercial software, this is sometimes OK, but open source programs are generally best.

As a quick plug, if you do 2D, Secret Maryo Chronicles is a fast growing open source platform game, which is currently in constant need of new/remade graphics to replace the current Nintendo styled ones. You can get plenty of ideas and share your work here: http://secretmaryo.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=10&sid=e58d8c8f17df7d5a96f79a2e817bb1af . You'll get some good feedback, and there's a good chance your work will get into the game. :)

[Tripmonkey_uk]

As a quick plug, if you do 2D, Secret Maryo Chronicles is a fast growing open source platform game, which is currently in constant need of new/remade graphics to replace the current Nintendo styled ones. You can get plenty of ideas and share your work here: http://secretmaryo.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=10&sid=e58d8c8f17df7d5a96f79a2e817bb1af . You'll get some good feedback, and there's a good chance your work will get into the game. :)

Funny.. I was going to suggest the same game.

It's got a great friendly team behind it and they'll offer you all the help they can if your willing to take polite criticism and do the graphics in the same style as they're already using.

If you don't want to do it in the same style for the game itself, you could always create posters, flyers or web graphics in a style of your own. You'll still be helping out by advertising the game anyway :D

What sort of graphics are you good at and what software will you be looking at using?