On day 2, I started practicing some character art. Although most of my practice was tracing and practicing strokes, I feel like I’m getting a little more into it. I always have difficulty figuring out what to draw, but I’m leaning on AI and my typing skills to help me find a direction. I know AI art is frowned upon, but it helps give me a starting point to something more creative. Since the art is always wonky, it gives me room to be creative and practice. I didn’t stream any of this process because it was WAY TOO NERVE-WRACKING. So, I will try to draw up the courage to stream some more of my art process. I decided to go with Procreate rather than Photoshop for now, so we will see how this turns out. I even found a way to share my iPad screen so we can judge it together!
I’m going to try to keep it simple and focus on volume/consistency rather than complex character and asset creation. I had fun exploring some character designs and landed on a few variations, where my character almost looks like a Pokemon trainer scaling down for an 8-bit game, lol!
What I learned on day 2:
- Livestreaming art creation is very scary
- I get a ton of anxiety when I think about doing game dev on stream
- Community is super important during the learning process to help motivate me through the difficult processes such as learning live
- I feel like I enjoy working in Procreate more than Photoshop with a tablet – so I’m going to continue my art journey on Procreate.
- Making simple, straight lines makes it feel more like a video game for me, something stylized, rather than something more realistic.
- I enjoy the process of drawing/sketching, and it gives me an outlet for the anxiety it creates (HAHA the irony)
- I need to start closing off and creating separate pieces of the art so it’s easier to animate
Resources I found for learning:
- Art Videos
- Courses
- https://www.udemy.com/course/digital-landscapes-for-absolute-beginners-in-procreate/ (still working through this one)
- https://www.udemy.com/course/procreate-solid-foundations/ (best course ever for understanding Procreate in depth)
- https://www.udemy.com/course/how-to-draw-cartoon-characters-in-procreate/ (learned how to make characters using this)
I think this is the route I’m going with the characters, simple shapes to keep it simple! See you on stream! Please note: this is not what the character will look like; this is just some practice tracing/sketches to get a feel for what I wanted.
