TIAM: Slow starts and palettes

I spent most of the day camping and only came home early because I was sick.  So my first day, while early, was still very short.  All I managed to make was a few pumpkins and an attempt at a garden patch.  I mostly used the day to get myself used to the way the original pack puts things together.  That's a fancy way of saying I spent too much time messing around with test maps and not enough time actually drawing.

Tileset in a month challenge!

I really like those "do something hard in a short time" challenges.  I join them all the time, often to fail spectacularly, but I don't mind (much).  I like the rush of trying really hard with other like minded challengers, and the structure of it helps me focus and be more creative.  Even if I don't make it to the finish line I've gotten farther on those fun projects than I would on my own.

This time I'm doing my own sort of challenge, one I made up for myself.  I have no idea if it'll work, since I'm missing the competitive element, but it's worth a try.  In the month of September I'm going to try and make a small art pack for RPG Maker.  If anyone wants to join me, they're more than welcome.

The first Pixel Myth set is finished!

Once apon a time I decided that I wanted to make all the art for an RPG.  I was quite young at the time and doing the typical young teen thing of trying to recreate the things I liked but I was also fully aware of just how very much work that would take.  I figured that if I was really stubborn and just worked at it a little at a time I'd eventually get there.  I firmly believed at that stage in life that all I really needed was to spend enough time polishing something and through sheer effort it would come out amazing.  This meant that I believed that no effort was wasted which is totally true, but I also didn't take as much time planning things out as I should have and I spent a little too much time on things I should have abandoned.  I spent a lot of time editing sprites, trying to create my own from scratch, and trying to figure out animation.  As I worked my focused shifted from making this one game to getting good enough at pixel art to make it and then to just enjoying making pixel art.  But the desire to make that RPG art stuck around.

Eventually I did get reasonably not awful and decided it was time to get to work on those RPG tiles.  I studied every tile making tutorial I could find.  I downloaded XP's RTP and stared at it for hours trying to figure out how it was done.  I looked at rips and screencaps of beautiful pixel art from famous console games.  Then I did something super smart and didn't look at any of those existing tiles and instead used real life references and started drawing tiles.  I also hung out at a community of amazing and professional pixel artist and with a lot of really great feedback and some hard work managed to make this:

 

Things to keep in mind when making a tileset for an RPG

So you want to make a tileset for your RPG.  "This shouldn't be too bad," you think, "there are all sorts of tutorials on the subject and doing art at that size shouldn't be hard."  STOP!  Go read Celianna's post and if you aren't overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work involved then you're entirely missing the point.  It's supposed to be overwhelming, I've been doing this for years and I'm still a bit overwhelmed by the massive amount of work that goes into making your game look unique.  If you're new to art as well expect that work load to be at least doubled, more likely quadrupled.  You've got a lot of learning to do on top of all that art you're expecting to draw.

The reason why I bring this up is simple.  You have to understand what you're getting into or you will fail.  I have run into so many budding pixel artists who make exactly one square of grass tile and think to themselves "Wow, that wasn't so bad.  I just need to do this a few more times and I've got a whole set!"  They then start working on the other tiles and by the time they reach the work load that they thought would be required to make the whole set they don't even have enough for a single screen of mockup and that half finished mockup doesn't even come close to what they saw in their heads.

This doesn't mean you can't do this or shouldn't try though.  Making art for an entire RPG is a huge endeavor but it also makes for a huge result.  Your game is now unique, interesting, and the art will be made specifically to suit it.  Because of it's rarity in independently made RPGs, original art makes for a lasting impression.

So, what exactly is involved in making a tileset for a game? Quite a bit actually.  Time, effort, artistry, consistency, and sometimes a bit of money to get the tools you need.  In other words, this is going to be a whole lot of work.  Here are some things to keep in mind when doing that work.

Twin Crowns: Rashid now has flats!

It has been far too long since my last post.  It's not that I haven't been creative, it's just that all of my energy has been going into some very big projects that aren't ready to show yet.  As a way of taking a break I've been slowly chipping away at Twin Crowns again.
 

Amy Pond's "Pandorica Opens" Scarf

Being a Whovian (a fan of the tv series Doctor Who) I decided to dress up as Amy Pond for Halloween one year.  Being someone who dresses more modestly, I went for her outfit from "Pandorica Opens" and "Big Bang", one of the few with pants!  Since I'm also a perfectionist, I realized that the only way to get the scarf would be to make it.

Being a crocheter and not a knitter meant this was tough.

I scoured the internet for a suitable pattern.  On the way I saved every image I could find of Amy that had that scarf.  I not only looked at patterns for cable scarves but also looked at patterns that were supposedly made to look like this scarf.  Amy has two different knitted red scarves she wears, which apparently confused a few pattern makers.  The closest I found to the scarf I wanted was this pattern by Amanda Throm and while it taught me what the standard was for knitting a cable, it didn't match the pictures I had of Amy's scarf.  In the end I found nothing that would work.

There was only one thing left to do.  Make up a knitting pattern for my first knitting project.

It actually wasn't too hard.  I still have no idea how to cast on (I just crocheted a chain the length I needed and picked up the stitches from there), but once I understood the concept of knit and pearl everything else was easy.

So here's my version of  Amy's super long, thick, red, cabled scarf.  The pictures are of the scarf after a full year and a half of abusive use including being yanked on and dragged around by a toddler, so yours will probably look nicer.  I'm not a knitter so I don't know how to properly format the pattern, please forgive any errors.  Since making this I've decided that I don't like knitting so this will probably be the only knit pattern you'll ever see on this blog.

Open Game Art

Since Ludum Dare is coming up I thought I'd talk a little about a really cool resource for programmers, Open Game Art.  OGA is a collection of free to use artwork, sounds, and music for programmers so that they can mockup or even make entire games without struggling with finding an artist first.  (BTW, finding an artist is actually a lot easier if you've got good art in your prototype.)  The archives aren't the easiest to sift through and so the highest quality resources are a bit hidden but the search function works pretty well and there are some really nice things already there.  The goal of the site though, is where this place is really amazing.  The point is to make it easier for artists and programmers to find each other, communicate and appreciate each other.  The way that the forums are moderated really supports this.  The site has advertisements but they're hand picked and put in by the admin.  All funds goes towards making the site better including doing things like paying artist pro rates to make more resources for the site.  This is the part that makes this site a friendly place for pro artists and takes away a little of the "but it's free, gimme" atmosphere that some of these resource places can get.

This is also a good place for artists, even if OGA isn't running commissions.  As artists we all have art kicking around that we won't use.  Experiments, failed games, and so on just end up sitting on a hard drive and doing nothing.  Artists are encouraged to offer those pieces of art as assets.  Doing so gives you some nice visibility on a site where programmers gather, and makes you look easy to work with and dedicated.  If you're feeling bored you can also participate in the weekly(ish) art challenges.