Gathering Storm - Graphics

November 08, 2011

There is no perfect game, and I make a habit of finding flaws in everything. I didn't point out flaws of games in my last post because I'm jerk, but because I want to articulate as well as possible what I find less than desirable in other games so that I can make my own game as desirable as possible.

That said however, there is one aspect of my game doomed to be less than desirable: the graphics. I am doing this thing largely by myself. I plan on employing some people in the late stages to help with music and art for the cut scenes, but I am doing all in-game art myself, and I am no artist.

I don't have any sort of drawing station, and I don't want the art to completely suck, so I've resorted to drawing everything pixel by pixel. I mean, pixel art is great and all. I think it will end up functional with a twinge of nostalgia, but looking at Epic Battle Fantasy's monster design and battle animations just make me feel wholly inadequate as a game designer.

The other downside to my artwork is that it takes forever. Did I mention already that I am literally drawing everything pixel by pixel? Sometimes I use a generic picture from the internet as a guide, and other times I just start with basic shapes or pictures I've taken with my own webcam and then draw each pixel I want over my general guides one at a time until I see what is in my head.

I would like to re-emphasize the word "guide" at this point. Though I may start with something else as a jumping-off point, the artwork I end up with, down to the individual pixel, is very much my own. For instance, below you can see how I cobbled together a real picture of a rattlesnake, an embarrassing picture of me without a shirt and a cartoon snake head (unfortunately the only files I could find have already gone through some processing) to create Detriuss, one of my favorite (and definitely the most time-consuming) pieces of artwork thus far.