I often read game design blogs that it is foolish and a waste of time to make your own artwork for games that you make, but for me, the artwork is just as important to the prototype as it is to the final game, and I simply can't make one without the other.
For that reason, I spend immense amounts of time on graphic programs trying to teach myself how to make better artwork, and as I learn new and better techniques, my artwork improves, and, I believe, the overall experience of my play testers improves as well.
The above picture is one of my latest attempts to discover some board game art secrets. I have been using Adobe Illustrator to do most of my drawings up to this point, but I wanted to take the graphics a step further (as I always do). I usually avoid by hand, but its important to the overall style of the game, and here, you will see a sign-post and flag associated with our forthcoming game. I drew these using chalk pastels, scanned them onto the computer, loaded them in Adobe Photoshop, erased the background, adjusted the levels, copied them into Illustrator, did an object trace, and placed them on the board.
Be sure to look for these objects on the board when the game finally comes out...
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I agree that art can be a very important part of a prototype. Early prototypes need to be quick and ugly, but as the game starts to come together, the art should improve. My aim is to produce a "final" or "finished" prototype that looks as good as I can possibly make it. This is the version I will show to potential publishers and customers.
ReplyDeleteWhen Revolution! was published, the professional artwork borrowed quite a bit from my final version. My current theory is that the better a game looks before publication, the better it will look after publisher--and the closer it will be to your original vision. It's challenging to solve every design problem and decide on every small detail. A publisher might change something, but they might not. The more of these things you've already sorted out in a pleasing way, the more of your vision makes it to the end. I'll let you know if that theory holds true if I can ever manage to get another game published!
Thanks for the comment! I'm glad that my efforts on artwork may not all go to waste!
ReplyDeleteI think working to solve graphical design problems can help come up with more creative game mechanics too. Instead of saying "I'm sure the artist will come up with a way to represent this," doing our own art can force us to think even more creatively to solve problems, and in the process maybe come up with solutions that we would never have thought of otherwise.