Artistic skills - or the lack of them...

The visual appearance is an important part of the video game. Just take a look to the most successful games in any category, and you will notice that very few of them contains low-quality graphics. 

 I am not saying that fun and interesting game (whatever is the definition for that) cannot be done with simple and even low quality graphics. But well-finished graphics makes it easier to market a game to the players. And don't forget the marketing materials, like thumbnails, screenshots and gameplay videos, just to mention some.

 Unfortunately, I am not very good in creative drawing and I find that one my biggest obstacles when trying to develop better quality games. I am able to draw straight lines and geometric patterns such as engineer (which I am), and that's quite about it. But when I should draw cartoon-like characters or complex background for a game, then I'm in trouble. I just don't know where to start! And if I get started, I will soon get frustrated and do the job quick&dirty way. And that is not pretty...

 Anyways, I have tried to learn the basics of game graphics. I believe in learning by doing -method, so I have challenged myself to draw any kind of a game graphics. My skills are (hopefully) improving little by little, so I believe each new project cat be a bit more complicated than the previous one.

Ah, I almost forgot to mention that I have some existing skills in 3D graphics: I can model machine parts and other stuff reasonably well in 3D, as long as I am not supposed to draw any cartoon character.

 If I ever start making a commercial game project, I am pretty sure that I will hire e.g. freelancer to do the graphics and sprite animation. :)

 -Jussi


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