Figuring out the art
07 August 2021
Figuring out if building a complete game as a solo game dev has a lot of components to it. It reminds me more of starting a business than a purely creative endeavor. Luckily I’ve had a lot of fun trying to start a few businesses. And by “few” I mean “more than I’ve like to admit to here”.
So far I’ve been focusing on three dimensions of work when it comes to building my own game:
- The Technical Side (Programming, Game Development and Design).
- The Business Side (Marketing, Promotion, Networking, Distribution, Budgeting, Forecasting).
- The Art Side (Graphic Design, Game Assets Design).
For the technical side, I’ve been spending a lot of my time learning, building prototypes, and testing out different engines or tools. Since I’ve been developing software for a while, the technical side of things is starting to fall together pretty quickly. I see how to get from point A to point B, the concepts I would have to figure out along the way, the riskiest parts of a given project, etc.
I can also get a general feel for the “business” side. I’ve helped run a small software development agency and have also started a couple of small businesses on my own.
What I didn’t expect being the biggest hurdle is art.
How long would it take?
On a scale of 1-10, I probably fall somewhere around a 3 or 4 on art ability. I’ve always drawn a bit for fun or have learned small tricks from my dad who studied art. I liked to do charcoal drawings throughout high school and college for example, but getting a workflow going to generate the assets for an entire game is another story.
Based on the handful of assets I’ve worked on over the last few weeks, I think it would take 600+ hours for even a small game.
Maybe all of my ideas so far have too much scope considering my current ability. I’m working towards putting together a simple, complete game within a month or two of development so obviously spending 4-6 months full time on art isn’t going to work.
Looking at stock assets.
I’ve been using stock asset packs from the Unity assets store for prototyping, but if I’m trying to release an original game (even a small, simple one) I’d prefer to have unique assets.
Today’s work.
Now after spewing out all of my concerns, ironically today I’ve felt pretty productive with art. I’ve created designs around a puzzler prototype I’m working on and was able to kick out some pretty cool looking stuff in a few hours today. I’ve been using Aseprite to make pixel art.
Here’s a train sprite and animation I’ve worked on this afternoon:
So what’s next?
Two options basically:
- Find an artist to work with.
- Just keep practicing.
For now, since I’m still just having fun with game dev as a hobby, I’ll see how #2 goes. Wish me luck. :)