I’m an experienced programmer but a noob at game art. How did you begin learning to create art for your games? 
Any tips or advice would be appreciated!
A ton of Blender tutorials + making my own stuff in between. And, like, deciding on an art style that you can actually manage.
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This doesn’t really answer your question. Letting you know anyways in case it’s helpful!
I’m in the same boat as you, and I decided to not worry about the art for now. Instead I’ve been focusing on figuring out how to use Godot and if I can actually get some fun gameplay. Everything in my game is currently just untextured boxes!
I figured if I manage to actually create a fun game, then I’d be much more motived to figure out the art. Also if the game is actually playable and fun, it would probably be easier to get actual artists to help out etc
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Looks, Art is really harder than game development, as I think. So for big games, I hire some artist to create art for my game, it can be 3d models or many 2d art. It is not impossible to be a solo developer but it is extremely hard. I know the basics of blender and photoshop, so sometimes I create small things.
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I agree with the sentiment! If your gameplay loop is fun with untextured sprites, it’ll be a blast with good art.
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Going the art route is the first best step for making games. Depending on if you are able to get a team or not. If you are solo, then art should be the firist one to adventure into. Programming is easy, just little bit of learning and tiny bit of practice. Art has a big learning curve, it can take years for some people to get good at it.
If you are going for 3D artwork, then I recommend checking out CGCookie to learn blender and artwork. A paid quality education will advance you much faster than free low quality. My CGCookie suggest is based on you using blender.
I started out learning 2D first, with Matt Core on ctl+paint. He gives you free drawing I & II, the full course. The real fun begins when you buy the paid tutorials, well worth the price he is charging for those. Part of 3D is doing concept art. You are also able to quick study your reference subjects with 2D. Matt Core is a professional math teacher, so he is good at teaching.
And now the sad part, you can not become great or really good from tutorials only. You have to practice.
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Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll check out ctrl+paint and will consider paying for some 2D art tutorials in future.
My recommendation is to not bother learning 2D art, even if you’re going to be making 2D games. Learn 3D modeling with Blender, and you will kill two birds with one stone: you can easily create 2D artwork from 3D models, and you also learn 3D skills you will need if you decide to branch off into 3D games.
My focus is 3D, but I have made 2D games as well. I create 3D models, then create 2D sprites from them. My sprite sheets are generated by creating animations in Blender and having it render the animation to separate PNG images. Then I use sprite management software to load the frames and spit out spritesheets.
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Use a simple pixel art editor like asprite. Its fast and easy to learn through tutorials on youtube. Amazing communities surrounding pixel art also.
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I also wanted to say to you, that you should work on both the programming, godot and artwork at same time. You do not have to do just one at a time. You can have some time during your freetime for Art, sometime for programming. Keeping yourself on different subjects should help you learn better, according to what science says about it.
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I know I’m late but I’m in the process of learning pixel art for my game. I recommend looking at the works of games you’re inspired by, maybe ones that might resemble what you have in mind. Check out the https://www.spriters-resource.com/ for sprites and https://www.models-resource.com/ for 3d models.
Also opengameart.org and Top game assets - itch.io for free stuff.
What about the programs that we should be looking at for creating Artwork? I used to use a very old version of PaintShop Pro (ie really old) because it did what I needed it to at the times. But lately it’s started playing up, so, I started using Gimp 2.10, I really don’t like it, I find it totally unintuitive to use, but, if others think it’s good, I persevere. Is there anything else I should be looking at that isn’t Adobe? Not interested in 3D, if the time comes I’ll buy those assets/characters.
Regards.
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A reply would be appreciated!
Creating art is not hard, it is pretty simple, just need to choose a good software:
Paid:
- Photoshop (Easy, Every Art)
- Aseprite (Medium, Pixel Art)
Free:
- Photopea (almost like Photoshop)
- Libresprite (Free Aseprite)
- Krita (Medium, Hand Drawn)
- Inkscape (Easy, Vector Art)
Also there are many AI that can create any art, but it is good to create own art.
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This program looks good and @ only $19.95 USD not expensive at all.
I will check out Photopea as well because I need a Photoshop like tool but without the subscription price.
Thanks for responding 
.
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Even though Aseprite sells for 19.95 USD, its source code is publicly available and can be downloaded and compiled for personal use. You can create comercial assets with it, but can’t redistribute the compiled version.
Check this link for more info: Aseprite - Faq
I have downloaded and compiled Aseprite in Windows and Manjaro Linux and works perfectly fine, although it may be a little tricky because of dependencies and all that stuff (especially if you are not used to typing commands in the terminal).
If you were to compile it yourself, I’d recommend reading the tutorial found in the GitHub, be very patience, and use chatgpt for any doubts during the process xD.
Personally, I think that Aseprite is amazing for pixel art and I plan to pay for it in the near future to support the project.
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For learning pixel art I always recommend Pixel Logic, it’s a great read for $10. Honestly I’d recommended it even if you plan on doing non-pixel 2D art. When I first got into digital drawing I found pixel art way easier to do than full blown drawings (probably because there’s less room to mess up when you’re working on a tiny canvas :-)), and a lot of the same ideas apply to both, like color theory, clarity, and just the process of drawing itself.
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What specific Photoshop tools do you need? I switched to Krita, it’s more targeted at artists but it has so many tools and filters I’ve been able to do everything I used to need Photoshop for, though it took a while to get used to.
Yes! But as far as I know, LibreSprite is a fork from the last Open Source version of Aseprite (2016 or so)
I guess it has less features than Aseprite? Do you happen to know how different are they nowadays?