Encouragement for designers who do their own art

[Del]

Ya, know, I must have saved a thousand dollars on my tactical core rulebook, by doing my own piece and board art.

(this is for a PDF project that will see hardcopy printing)

I mean, I have professional art from the esteemed Mr. Bleeker on the front cover, and the two business logo's, and 1 recycled piece in the book, but I even managed the back cover and all the play bits. As well I do all the graphic art for the web enhancement (sort of like a mock up news website in the year 2035).

(this is for a PDF project that will see hardcopy printing)

So far no one is laughing at my pieces and I even get a few props for the cyberkitten (think hybrid cat-human NATO officer)

I guess I follow in the Tarentino, Rodriguez, Mel Gibson school where I do "the directing/writing, and the acting" of the game biz.

I reccomend it to others, because this isn't an industry where profits give you throw around money. Hell, this isn't an industry that gives you profits. It was also a great learning experience, and I'm encouraged to the book art on a steampunk RPG in my future, which will be a great challenge.

If you want to check out the art I'm talking about let me know. I don't really consider this a press release. That all comes next week.

Do the art yourself, you might be surprised how good it turns out.

Sincerly,
Del Esau

[Astrivian]

I have enslaved my brother to draw some art for WindSpeaker. It is slow going because he has a hard time focusing since he is a weasel, but when he is done with a piece i dig it to the highest degree.

Personalized art adds an extra unique dimension to the design of the game.  It adds tone -- in the lit sense of the word.  

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by publishing as PDF first? do you mean you are releasing a pdf version prior to a hardcopy in print?  Also, what program did you use to generate the pdf? (please don't say Word).

astrivian

[Del]

I released the book with accompanied intro mission and complete map modules and pieces, all of it a zipped file. Book and covers as PDF and the rest as jpegs and such so people can customize them. Soon I release in print locally and on my site.

Aye, I can be critized for using word but it's a tactical game where layout is (at least in my opinion) not as important as clear rules and bright looking components.

And besides, it was either word or I rip off Adobe for acrobat.

[Astrivian]

i dig.  I was just asking about the publishing thing because i originally tried word and i soon lost my temper.  I agree that clear directions and a good design supercede layout, in which case Word is okay.  

I am currently using InDesign from Adobe to layout WindSpeaker with artwork, charts, graphics, etc. and i highly recomend this program for layout tasks.  Also, check out my post on:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14067&highlight=

you mght be interested in the yet-to-begin discussion about PDF v. print editions.  

astrivian

[TonyLB]

My take is this:  There is a little money to be made in many facets of the RPG cycle:  Design, writing, art, layout, printing, marketing, invoicing, fulfillment, distribution, and probably others that I haven't remembered.

Some subset of those are things you, personally, will have fun doing and can do to an adequate degree.  Probably design and writing.  Possibly art and layout.  Probably not printing (since it requires massive equipment).  Maybe marketing, maybe not.  Maybe fulfillment, maybe not.

Do the things you want to, and don't do the rest.  It's as simple as that.  If you don't enjoy a particular thing, there's probably someone else who does, and who therefore will do a better job for the money.

[Matt Wilson]

Dude, I can draw like Tarentino can act, and no amount of "learn to draw the marvel way" books are going to help things anytime soon.

My games need to not have my art in them, or people who buy them might go blind.

On the other hand, I totally dug the illos for Conspiracy of Shadows and Otherkind. Not to mention Lightspeed. But me, I pay for art.

[Keith Senkowski]

Dude, I can draw like Tarentino can act, and no amount of "learn to draw the marvel way" books are going to help things anytime soon.

My games need to not have my art in them, or people who buy them might go blind.

On the other hand, I totally dug the illos for Conspiracy of Shadows and Otherkind. Not to mention Lightspeed. But me, I pay for art.

Thank you Matt.  You are a gentleman and a scholar.  I happened to go to school for art so it was easy for me, but I wouldn't encourage folks to do it themselves if they have no background in it.  Plus it is a hell of a lot of work to deal with.  Rather do what Vincent did with with Dogs in the Vineyard, get a good cover (and it is very good) and have solid layout without art.  

I'm of the mind that art should serve a purpose in the book as a part of the layout, not as a showcase.  I'm infact moving towards less art in my book, but better layout work.

Keith

[Luke]

Hi Del,

thanks for the info. Personally, I'd rather be stoned to death by old women with palsy than do my own art. I'm not quite the renaissance man that you and Keith are.

Regardless, if my nose is on straight today, I'd guess the mods are going to come down on this post. I may be misreading it, but it seems you've made a statement of fact to which we can all agree or disagree. Not much room for meaningful discussion.

If you'd like actual feedback on your artwork or your game, post it. That's a valid thread topic from what I understand. If you'd like feedback on your game, please stop on by the Game Design forum. If you'd like to  discuss actual numbers regarding time and money for art done yourself vs hired hands, I think that might be valid.

Otherwise, given what you've told us, we have no room to maneuver. So help us out!

-Luke

PS spell check, spell check, spell check

[jerry]

I have found Persistence of Vision useful. I can't draw to save my life, but I can program a little bit.

Sometimes it doesn't work out at all; I'm completely unsatisfied with the Arcane Lore cover. But sometimes it rocks; I'm very satisfied with the Encounter Guide cover; others fall in between.

As long as you can get or create good shapes, it is much like designing a set--playing each object in the correct location, and letting the raytracer "draw" the shadows, reflections, etc.

It can be time-consuming, though; if I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't have any artwork at all. On the plus side, work done for one image can be re-used in other images.

Jerry

[Del]

Otherwise, given what you've told us, we have no room to maneuver. So help us out!

-Luke

PS spell check, spell check, spell check

I'm just encouraging people away from the I Think I Can't Conundrum, and showing examples from the movie industry to illuminate my message.

I bet good design and talent beat out sheer cash flow if you have a good work ethic (ie doing the art, layout yourself)

[TonyLB]

Luke's right, however, that you don't really have an open question here.

I think you may be leaning toward "What is it in the human psyche and in the environment of Indie RPG publishing that discourages people from creating their own middling-good art, and encourages them instead to spend money on really-good art?", but it would help if you could state something, and then we wouldn't have to guess what question's being addressed.

[Nathan P.]

To throw out a related topic: if I can't/won't pay for art, where can I get it?

One answer: try your own hand at it, you may be surprised.

Another: recruit your friends. I have some artist friends that have not only agreed to do some pieces for Timestream, they've also started playing RPGs because of it. Critical success!

Another: try browsing through free amateur art sites where people post their images. When I was trying to pull my first game together, I had about a 90% "yes" rate when browsing these sites, pulling pieces that I liked and fit the game, and emailing the creator asking their permission to use it.

Other thoughts? Or is this not a good direction to go in this thread?

[KeithBVaughn]

You're not the only one doing your own artwork.  I've enjoyed pen and ink for years and have tried my hand at it many times. Plus I just did my first ever acrylic painting for the cover of my game: "Planets of Peril."

A lot of what I've seen for doing your own art is persistence. Are you willing to practice to improve? Are you willing to do a piece 3-4 times to get it right? Can you break down and analyse a picture that you like and see what makes it work?  

I'm doing the above now to create pictures for my game.  Even if I only do 1 finished drawing per week, that is 52 pics by the end of a year. That will ratio out to roughly one picture per four pages and that is quite a bit of artwork.

As long as I'm producing artwork on an ongoing basis, it will continue getting added to the book.  By the time the book is ready to publish it will have a lot of artwork.  This will be simply by allowing the artwork to accumulate while playtesting and improving the game.

One thing which scares a lot of people away from art is they don't feel they are an artiste'.  Remember even the big companies don't hire artists, they hire illustrators.  Can you draw clearly enough to get the point across? If the answer is yes then you can illustrate your game.  Figuring our limited funds, illustration by yourself (preferable) or a friend in almost mandatory.

Keith B. Vaughn

[Jasper]

Here's my own cautionary tale.  I have no formal training in illustration beyond high school drawing classes, but used to spend a great deal of time drawing when I was a kid. When I posted a free version of my game, Trials of the Grail (then Graal) on my website, I figured something was needed to break up the text.  So I whipped out a couple of quick sketches.  These were crude, and I thought of them mostly as placehodler art.

However, when I decided to do a commerical release, and spent many hours doing layout and editing, I was much less patient with the art.  Bascially, I was very sick of drawing knights in armor.  But some illustrations still seemed necessary.  So I left in those initial sketches.  Further on in production, I thought more art was needed, so I did more sketches.  In later updates to the pdf, I went on to include even more (though these later ones were smaller and cleaner looking).

Just recently a review of TotG was posted on RPG.net.  Unfortunately, I can't really fault it when it calls the art distracting and even laughable.  Now, I'm capable of better art than was in the release.  I'm even practicing now to redo it. But before you decide to do your own art,

1. Make sure you have some basic skills, and don't try to overstep them too much.  If you can't draw animals for instance, then don't try.

2. Give yourself lots of time and be patient.  As was already pointed out, you have to be willing to redo bad tries.

3. If you don't have the patience or skill, do hire someone else (if you really need art).


My problem was to say, "Oh, it's good enough."  The cardinal rule, which I broke, was that no art is better than bad art.  If you can't do the above, then leave the art out.