Programs for creating game Artwork

Hi All,

Was wondering what program(s) you guys use to create the art work for your games. I'm looking to create art work similar to games like Cut the Rope, Angry Birds, Candy Crush ...etc. What is the most ideal program to create great crisp looking graphics in a reasonable amount of time? I think if you really wanted to you could probably create these graphics in almost any paint program.

So I guess, I am looking for the ideal program(s) that I can:

1. Create artwork quickly.
2. Create great looking images.
3. Is somewhat intuitive (not overly complex).
4. Images can be modified fairly easily.
5. Can create fairly complex geometry if needed.
6. There are plenty of helpful tutorials and forums available for help.

Right now I am training myself on GIMP which is working okay, I just see all the more serious people using Photoshop and wondering if I should spend my time there instead? Also, I’m wondering about Adobe illustrator, do professionals map out geometry in Illustrator first then fine tune it with Photoshop? Or am I over thinking this and Gimp will get me everything I need regarding the above 6 things? I think Gimp can get me there but am I fighting an uphill battle is there a better, fast, more efficient way to achieve my goals?

At any rate I would appreciate your thoughts on this…

Thanks,

Vanz

 

Games like Cut the Rope or Angry Birds use a vector art style (clean shapes, gradients, simple shading) so I'd imagine they were done in Illustrator or InkScape (free equivalent). If you're attempting a similar style to these games, learning a vector art package has it benefits - the biggest being how easy it is to resize and reuse, and the ease of being able to 'tweak' things without large amounts of re-doing.

In the end whatever you use, you'll be exporting to bitmap formats, so there's no technical reason why you couldn't do the work in Photoshop or GIMP.

I'm sure you can find a host of Bitmap Vs Vector discussions around if you really want to get into the pro's and con's of each.

 

Are you a programmer? If so, don't bother doing graphics. I suggest you spend more time on programming. Being both a programmer and artist isn't good for quality.

You can't find any program for this kind of stuff that will do graphics for you or 100x faster. You have to hire a designer/artist to do this job for you if you want to have a quality work. You can buy graphics from the Unity Assetstore as well if you don't have a lot of money but as i mentioned before there is no such an app to do things quicker/better for you. You can do the same thing in GIMP as it you would do in Photoshop. No difference if we're talking about game art.

Lots games use vector graphics and if you want to do it you can use Adobe Illustrator or Corel.

Bye.

 

Yeah, thanks... I have someone who is a good artist but she usually just works with paints and does not like working with computers as much. She now wants to get more into doing her stuff on computers so I want to recommend to her a program that will minimize her frustration...

Thanks,

Vanz

 

If GIMP is working for you, use it. Photoshop and Illustrator are more powerful, but expensive.

You don't sound too confident in your abilities, so go for something more stylised. Realism will be compared to really good artists. Of course really good artists also used stylised art, but do your own style for less direct comparisons, and to make games your own.

 

GIMP is working okay, I think it can do everything but I'm concerned that I'm not being as efficient/fast as I should be. I'm basically creating stuff and if I really like it, I keep it if I don't like it I use it as a template to outsource it to odesk...