If I just want to learn to make anime style art and retro pixel art graphics, is it worth the time and effort to go through loomis and all the standard basics?
If I have 1 month to spend 8 hours a day pushing myself hard at art and those are my end goals, how do you suggest I divide up my time?
I have all other skills needed to make video games but art is a non-existent skill for me, so I'd like to work smart and hard and get my skill level as high as possible in a short period of time.
It's highly recommended to learn to actually draw if you want to make anything bigger than 24x24 sprites or something. You won't learn anything in one month though.
Don't want to be an unhelpful cunt but really you should partner with an artist if you can't draw yourself.
>inb4 autistic contrarian
![d6f[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/XYrNBKW.jpg "d6f[1].jpg")
>posts question right above question thread
>>2428480
You're not being an unhelpful cunt if you offer realistic advice, I appreciate it.
I can hire an artist, but I'd obviously prefer to do it myself and not have to pay someone else.
I know how long it takes to become a decent musician and that there is not 'set in stone' amount of time, but I'm trying to get an idea of realistic time frames for how long it would take to be come a good pixel artist and good anime artist, and if there's any specific ways to achieve these goals faster than being a general artist.
>>2428470
What do you specifically want to know?
I can only claim to have done this shit since i was like 14, took a long break, but I know the in and outs p well
>>2428470
It's very reccommended. It'll help make your pictures more believable because they'll have a basis in realistic anatomy while being exaggerated and stylized. Even in the stylization thread on this board they will tell you to study loomis (or life in general) rather than from your imagination.
It takes awhile to commit something to memory and if you only draw what you think something looks like you're commiting the wrong thing to memory and you'll struggle when it comes to doing something more complex, or people will notice it looks off unless you keep it incredibly simple, in which case you'll be a very simple, weak artist.
Do your studies, you can do fun drawings on the side too but you should be doing studies more than doing fun drawings. Try it in a weekly formula kind of way if you want to get better. Spend the weekdays doing studies, and do fun drawings on the weekends and apply what you've learned. Try it for one week and see if you make improvements. I did after one day of study after putting it off my whole life, if I can make improvements you can. Don't be lazy. you'll be much happier in your work three years from now if you study alongside your anime/pixel work instead of only doing the latter.
>>2428470
>If I have 1 month to spend 8 hours a day pushing myself hard at art and those are my end goals, how do you suggest I divide up my time?
spend all of it grinding the fundamentals and none of it practicing pixel art. pixel art presents its own set of obstacles that make it easier to learn the basics in a medium like drawing. once you have a foundation, learn pixel techniques, there's really not that much to it. 90% fundamentals, 10% pixel-specific technique.
>>2428615
>generally I think the smaller the resolution of pixel art, the MORE skill it requires (unless you want it to look like an 80s roguelike)
That is true but I would say it's different skill than the kind of skill you need for regular art. Knowing real human anatomy for example is not that relevant when you don't even have enough pixels to fit it all into.
>>2428630
but you need to know which details are more or less essential. noobs will always include eyes on tiny sprites even if there isn't room, for instance. I guess it's (generally) more accurate to say that you need more drawing-related skills for larger art, and more pixel-related skills for smaller art, since you really need good cluster control etc.
>>2428636
>you need more drawing-related skills for larger art, and more pixel-related skills for smaller art
That is a pretty good way to put it.
You can get pretty far in small pixel art just by copying what other pixel artists do even if you don't know much about drawing.
Larger resolutions tend to be more about drawing something and then converting it to pixels.
>>2428482
In my experience this isn't true
>>2428647
yea honestly if you're only going to do it for a month it'd be better just to go straight into pixel art. Some people will try to convince you that it only takes a week or something ridiculous to learn fundamentals, but you can look through sketchbooks of guys lauded for their quickness in learning and professional skill like Dave Rapoza and Algen you'll get a good idea of how long it really takes grinding fundamentals to get gud. I mean really you could just do some mspaint shitty pixelart and work on fundies on the side for years to come and be fine instead of putting this arbitrary time on when you should start doing shit you want to do.
>>2428707
>mspaint shitty pixelart
is all that will result from ignoring the fundamentals. he doesn't need to master the basics of art, but he needs a firm grasp of color/form/etc if he wants his pixel art to not suck.
also I wouldn't recommend using mspaint, even if you're a noob making derpy art.
>>2428696
Nice anecdotal evidence, my man.
>>2428470
I'm doing exactly the same thing as you, although I'm not only doing it for the sake of pixel art, but also for vector art, concept art and even webdev etc. Started one and a half months ago. If you only have one month of training I would do 27 days of fundamentals and 3 days pixel art, that way you would get the best result for a month in my opinion.
How good will you become? depends on how quick you learn, how you spend your time and how determined you are, because not everyone can keep up 8 hours a day for a month, I averaged about 4 hours a day for a month.
I can give you a schedule if you want, but really you would get way way further if you can make it 2 hours a day for 3 months and you would also preserve everything you learned better.
>>2428470
You need to learn fundamentals as others said. If you have only 1 month to learn them, do only fundamentals and after that learning pixel art will become much easier. But, since you want to make games I would say that you have more than 1 month to learn. For instance if you start your game right now and if it isn't flappy bird clone it would probably take you min 3 months to finish it, or like a year realistically looked. And for the first 80% of game you can focus on mechanics/story/music and on the side learn fundamentals and pixel art. For instance 6 hours of programming and 2-3h of learning art. That way, when you get to the stage that you need original art you can start making it and it would look good. If you are close to finishing game it is probably easier just to hire artist.
I really don't wanna sound like pessimistic douchefag, but I can't see how you can have professional work in 1 month.
Hello Anons
I would like to use an analogy here to try and help everyone understand, plainly, how any art/craft works in terms of learning and ability to compose on a certain level.
now, let us take a person in high school. They can read any children's book. They can read their tween novels and perhaps they can read the far larger words in scientific journals or the pros in a philosophic treatise. Hell maybe they can read every word in all of those. The issue is this. They probably don't actually understand in the least, most of the central words in the higher end books.
You say sure, that is a given. But if kids books are little doodles and we assume that animus are something around high school graduates and even college if the person is good enough at using the art style intelligently. Then what the OP is asking is, do I need to be able to write a scientific journal in order to write a teen novel. I say no. But the original question is mislead. The core question OP has is, what do I really need to be able to do to be able to write(draw) that teen novel(animu).
In both writing and visual arts we have a common base. The fundamentals. Every discipline has these. Writing has these set up as things like knowing an alphabet, grammar, vocabulary, and so on. But no one usually takes that stuff far enough to do anything but read what they need to. It works the same with visual arts. We know enough to know what things are and to basically, read an image if it isn't too complicated or needs more than a little analysis. The other side of both things is that, well, you might be able to READ the thing. But you don't at all UNDERSTAND the thing or how/why it is the way it is. Because of this, you can't be expected to replicate something alike what you are reading/viewing.
So our new question becomes, "what do I NEED to understand in order to compose this kind of image?"
(cont.)
So are there any exercises or anything you can practice in order to get better at pixel art? Should you try drawing smaller things at first or larger?
>>2428470
just hire an artist. jeesus.
>>2429131
Just regular sized stuff is fine. The best you can do it just draw and read up on the elitist pixel art theory about things like limited palettes and cluster control. A pixel artist called Cure also lurks these waters, at least he did a year back when I was also more active, he might also give you some pointers if you post enough shit.
>>2429120
We can look at animu and observe a few trends which give us our base requirements.
Characters seem to be pretty central in most animu. Because of this, we can infer that at least SOME kind of basic anatomy understanding is needed to achieve varying levels of proficiency in our composing. I often observe that things like weapons, armor, and so on play a big role in animu. Still particularly character-centric as they require interaction from a user with a certain kind of sentience (don't give me your magix living sword bullshit right now). But in general, what is added to our requirements is some basic understanding of design.
Honestly, if we continue like this, we can see that it's all very obvious. We need all that 'boring' shit. The fundamentals. Know how to properly render and express objects in 3d space. That is what it all boils down to. What animu is, is an aesthetic aberration of reality which we may or may not choose as our main 'genre' in which we compose work. Asking "how do I get good at animu" is akin to asking, "how do I git gud at playing metal?". But metal is music and animu is representative art. Yet no one ever asks about the core discipline. "how do I play music at all?"/"how do I get to a point where I can express these things in convincing 3d space at all?"
If you cannot play music you cannot play metal/blues/classical. If you do not know how to accurately represent the impression of an accurate 3d image, you cannot realism/animu/cubism(probably).
Yes you need to be able to represent 3d images well. No you don't need a degree in anatomy to animu. But it would probably help a fuck ton in composing in a way that would give the impression that you know what you are doing.
Artists are not made by their tools. Even if those tools are knowledge. Artists are made in how, why, and how well they use their given and acquired tools.
(cont.)
>>2429143
My ultimate suggestion is that you simply get yourself to a point where you can do very simple representation very well. Then see what kind of stuff you can do with those tools in the realm of animu/manga. Then just look at what you want to improve or change and then look up what you will likely require in terms of knowledge to be able to understand the objects you wish to represent. Then figure out how well you need to understand them in order to achieve a certain level of complexity. That's all really.
Anyway, my apologies if that was a bit long.
>>2429153
so gestures perspective and anatomy pretty much eh?
>>2429169
Honestly I think gestures are a giant waste of time very early on. It's more of a mid/late game item. Perspective is essential. Anatomy will come in only when you actually have your cubes, spheres, and other primitives down well.
Dynamic Sketching is probably THE most essential starter's kit to anyone wanting to git gud efficiently and without getting too caught up on bullshit.
Here's a link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgDNDOKnArk
>>2429179
ah, thanks for the appreciation. I can't say I do it for the props or anything. But it is nice nonetheless. Not sure how I would go about doing so without breaking my anonhood ; -; and I don't honestly have the time to do that stuff at the moment. If you don't want to forget it, just screencap or copy it into a word doc or something. But it is useless to have it around as anything more than a reminder to keep your eyes open and your learning simple and direct. Just take care of yourself and you will do okay.
>>2429178
Thanks for the vid link anon.
Honestly I skimmed over a lot of what you write but the part about needing to get the basic shapes down in perspective in order to apply your anatomy knowledge really caught me.
I can name muscles, but it all looks like shit when I draw.
Off to draw cones and shit, I wish you the best.
>>2429189
You could paste it into the Google Doc at the New Sticky thread
>>2429179
There are archives, warosu and fireden to name 2
>>2429189
hm, I'm taking a look at the sticky but I don't really see a section where I could place my post. Oh wells. Some other time maybe.
>>2428470
>getting into art just to draw anime
You aren't gonna make it.
>>2430741
lol why do scrubs love to say this specific thing, 'not gonna make it'
>>2431475
Lol seems like she can barely bend in that suit and she is just awkwardly trying to sit
>>2431492
That could very well be the case lol who knows
Good thing it serves the purpose of displaying the 'product' the piece is concerned with.
>>2428482
not actually true 2bh. if you want to learn to draw like the realistic style, practice that.
if you want to learn to draw anime style, practice that.
From what i understand of pixel art is it's an even more difficult process than most "normal" art.
You still need to learn how to draw to a decent level. Then you have to fuck about with programs and rearrange the pixel width in a very precise manner.
IMO restricting things to a "month" is foolish.
It may take longer than that. If you draw like shit then it's going to look like shit "pixellated" or not.
>>2431756
it's not true to the extend that you need to be able to render the human form in that level of detail but you do need to have an understanding of anatomy and form and lighting to make animu or cartoons that look nice.
>>2431766
agreed
>>2431763
>From what i understand of pixel art is it's an even more difficult process than most "normal" art.
I've done pixel art and I wouldn't say this is really true. It's just very very different from regular drawing. It seems difficult for similar reasons that learning a language from a different family tree to your first language is difficult - there's very little overlap. Much of your regular drawing skills like all the muscle memory you've built up is useless, and the medium itself forces you to rely on extreme stylisation instead of drawing things exactly like they are in real life.
Whether you need to be an ace draftsman to do pixel art well, depends really on what level of mastery we're talking about. If you want to do Metal Slug tier pixel art you definitely need solid drawing skills in addition to understanding the pixel art medium perfectly.
If we're talking doing something on the level of current indie games like Undertale or Nidhogg you don't need to be great at drawing (though granted you won't get to even that level in one month)
