Make Games Sketchgroup (Meta atmo)

damousey

We had a thread, waay back that was a sort of repost/ rehash carried over from SAGD. http://www.makegamessa.com/discussion/9/makegames-sketchgroup

Could we restart this thing? It's just too awesome to leave behind IMO.

Those of you who were participating, what happened? were there just not enough participants to keep it afloat on the boards, or is the idea/ structure somehow flawed- is it less awesome in reality compared to concept?

if we bring that thread back, each person would need to copy and paste their posts to get the format to play along.

Elyaradine

I'd happily take part again. I can probably adapt whatever skill I'm trying to learn to fit the format/theme. (But when there aren't many people participating, I start to think I'd benefit more from spending time on my courses and stuff.)

damousey

Maybe we should make the format here better fit what else we have going on if that's what causes the drop off.

Also, remember it's "sketch" not fully realized masterworks, right?

Jurgen

Hey @damousey, what does the Sketchgroup entail if it would be revived? Doing pixel art, pencil sketches, concept art maybe? I'd be interested in something like that.

Elyaradine

Cleaned up Jarred's original rules page:

Copy from SAGD, I don't think this is the whole post but I'll edit it.

Post your images if you still have them!

RULES:

• If you want to partake, post one awesome topic.
  
• Choose someone elses topic, Draw it.
  
• Anyone can join, you don't have to be good. Just have fun.

Two nights a week (can obviously spend as long as you want), instead of watching movies / series or playing diablo 3. You spend time drawing something. It doesnt have to be blizzard quality, obviously, this is just a SKETCHgroup. The primary goal is, practise, and good design.

There will be a theme, like, Sci-fi Dinosaur Cat hybrids of the future. Heres where we practise drawing things like this.

The one thing the themes won’t be, is; Draw a goblin. Draw a robot. This is boring and doesn’t help anyone. And more often than not in the games industry (especially in indie games) the ideas for monsters / environments / characters are never this easy.

We can alternate the weeks during the month, First week character design, second creature design, third environment / prop design, fourth vehicle design. You should be able to part take in all of them. If you say that you only do characters I will fly through the screen and beat you with a ham. In art, if you know your fundamentals, you can draw anything. And you should be able to draw anything, in small teams its out of the question to hire 4 artists to do 4 different design jobs. The person who can do it all will get hired.

We could also mix it up and do a week where we have to sculpt a concept. Also we could have a set model (obj or fbx) that everyone can download, and its already been unwrapped, and you have to PAINT the texture. Painting textures is something EVERY game artist should be able to do without a problem, NO PHOTO TEXTURES.

So lets get to it and come up with some themes?!

EDIT: If you are new to game art, you might be asking what do I use to participate in a sketchgroup
1) Pencil and paper (you can’t go wrong), No excuses.
2) If you wana draw in photoshop, go buy yourself a R300 genius tablet, you can get them anywhere. No excuses.

EDIT: You can add an optional extra to your idea, to help the design, IE: (This character is great at setting traps), you don’t have to follow it to the T but it might be nice for someone that is looking for a bit of an extra challenge.

EDIT: My opinion: What is a character, What is a monster, what is a vehicle, what is an environment?
1) A character is usually playable or an NPC (main story characters), these guys have gear, and are usually designed to be easy for a viewer to relate to.
2) creatures are basically everything else organic in a world. Everything from badass monsters, to squirmy earthworms. This can be a bit blurred with characters but the basics are there.
3) Vehicles, self explanatory, but can also include things like the oilifants from lord of the rings.
4) environments, you usually want to create a world that looks like it could be played on, or inhabited by something. Real life landscapes kind of fall into this but for game design we want something more interesting and more condensed. Prop design and architecture design also falls under this category