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Art Tips For Programmers?
An anonymous reader writes "Recently I've found myself in a bit of a bind with artwork. My programming contracts have been rather small, barely enough to pay myself let alone an artist. The art needs aren't intensive, mostly icons or sprites depending on the project. Despite owning a few key apps (Photoshop, LightWave, Maya) my art production output is rather poor. Are there any other developers who have learned to be self-sufficient? Are there any resources available to educate me on the finer points of making graphics that look professional?" One resource for the less-artistic among us is the collection of free SVG clip art at freedesktop.org, though it won't give advice for creating new art. What are some others?
On place to look for art and helpfull artists is Deviantart
-- If you actually say LOL instead of laughing, maybe it's time to go outside! --
I highly reccommend inkscape, which is pretty good for creating svg art, even for those who are not very artistic. It make drawing really easy.
Also, try openclipart.org, where there is a lot of public domain licened content you can use.
Buy one of the icon collections at StockIcons.com for only $350usd. They can be used royalty-free for any personal or commercial projects.
http://www.povray.org/ POV-RAY can make art. kpovmodeler is (or was) included in kdegraphics to help with simple scenes. If you are a programmer, then you may like povray - which is basically like a programming language. I installed kdegraphics on my fedora core 3 laptop, but kpovmodeler wasn't installed :(. Either it was taken out of kdegraphics or fedora screwed up somehow. I didn't see any notice of its removal on the kde website - nor the kpovmodeler website.
A great untapped resource: college students. If you know folks in college, or there is a local college with a decent art program, contact their career advisor (or anyone at the art school) and let them know that you've got work that needs to be done.
Generally, you'll find one or two students who have the budding (or more developed) skills and know-how, and who will be more than grateful for the opportunity to earn a little extra cash or, more importantly, who will work for free in exchange for being able to use a "real world" project or two in their portfolio.
Not only are you "giving back" to the community, but you get what you need for cheap/free.
Two words of caution though. First, don't be a condescending ass. A lot of non-artistic, business-types tend to think of art students as starving-scum-of-the-earth, and they end up coming across as assholes who don't get the best they could. Second, realize that college students aren't always 100% reliable (were you?), and budget for that time-wise).
Ack!
All the Wacom models work reasonably happily with Linux+X and the relevant drivers at http://linuxwacom.sf.net/ - wacom is not at all linux-hostile.
Using a tablet means you can draw like an adult on your computer (directly on the screen if you spring for a Wacom Cintiq...).
I used to think a mouse was okay for GIMP and Blender use. It's not. It _utterly sucks_ . I got myself a tablet on a whim and now I can draw as well on my computer as on paper (okay I'm not brilliant at drawing on paper, but like most people I've ever seen, I'm far better on paper or a tablet than drawing with a mouse!)
don't bother with photoshop. While it has the tools to deliver the goods, it's not really designed for people unless they already have extensive experience using it.
I'd REALLY suggest trying GIMP. For a newcomer it's far easier to create good quality (and standard format) images. I've been in the same situation as you, and getting used to the way PS works for my own needs takes just a little too much time I could be spending coding.
One resource that has been invaluable to my company is http://glyfx.com/. They make icons, splash screens, etc. It costs money, but it is not that expensive and you can use them for all your projects after just one purchase. The icons are also high color and very modern, give them a shot.
For the love of god, please don't use photoshop lens flare effects! Unless of course you're going for a retro look.
Yeah, Art Students are a great way to get what you need on the cheap. I should know. Several of my friends - myself included- got fucked over right out of the gate because we believed what the contractor told us- that it would be "a good portfolio-building experience."
So's sitting in my bedroom jacking off into the GIMP, thank you.
"Portfolio Building Experience" means it pays a pittance if you're lucky, and you can totally forget about having any rights to your work. Oh, and PBEs are typically long hours with shit pay and no benefits. My first field experience was one of these- a contract job to do some multimedia work. After the dust settled, my hourly for the project was somewhere around eighty cents.
You get what you pay for- if you get into the habit of taking advantage of art students, don't be surprised if the talent pool suddenly dries up on you.
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1. Stock photos. A good picture is worth a 1000 design elements. Start scavenging for stock photos NOW. A good place to start is here: http://sxc.hu/.
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2. Avoid excessive effects and filters when not needed. Nothing ruins a good design like trying to emboss everything or making it 3D.
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3. Keep it clean and simple. Think Apple.
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4. Learn from the experts. Visit places like http://www.deviantart.com/ You can even post designs and get peer reviews. Also, http://http//www.alistapart.com will help.
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5. Use and abuse CSS. The separation of design elements from everything else will help immensely. You will be amazed by this site: http://www.csszengarden.com/ Change the themes and be amazed by the power of CSS!!!
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6. Buy graphic design books, preferably those with collections of commercial art made by different designers. Get inspired
;-)
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7. Get a digital camera and take lots and lots of pictures of the world around you. Current examples of designs and logos and ads will help.
I hope that helps!Cheers,
Adolfo
This is a wonderful style guide to building icons meant for Windows XP, and the techniques are good for icons of all sorts. You can figure out how to build good looking icons out of simple design elements.
The absolute best art learning book I've ever seen is "[url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/ -/0874774241/qid=1100569243/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/10 2-9640388-0042521?v=glance&s=books&n=507846]Drawin g on the Right Side of the Brain[/url]" by [url=http://www.drawright.com/]Dr. Betty Edwards[/url]. It teaches "how to see" instead of "how to draw"... rather, instead of saying "see this? draw it. keep going, eventually you'll figure it out. Maybe"; it teaches you how to start seeing the same way artists see (which is ultimately what allows people to draw well).
I highly reccomend it. The before and after images are just asounding -- in just 5 days Dr. Edwards' students show simply AMAZING progress.
jimmac has a nice site on this very topic
Much more to it that you probably guessed.
The Iconfactory offers royalty-free icons and design services. You may want to look into them. They have some nice-looking stuff.
I'm sure that http://www.rentacoder.com/ has sections for photography / artwork. You could probably make a good enough offer (recnogition, free copy, etc) that you don't need to pay anything.
If you are trying to create icons with those tools, you have a basic misunderstanding of the medium.
Photoshopping is for editing, well, photos. It's fine also as a finishing tool for icons that are already made.
Maya is used for making 3D models, which is almost always overkill for an icon. (I've never used Lightwave, but I recall it being a 3D app as well).
What you need is a vector graphics editor. I would have to recommend Adobe Illustrator myself, although Inkscape is coming along quite well (and is free, so start there if you just want to see what I'm talking about). As for Macromedia Freehand, it seems to be a good program. However, I've always found it awkward (many will disagree) and at the school where I work it has incredibly many printing errors, so I can't really say.
And, beyond all that (as others have said) the key problem is most likely that you are an amatuer, not a professional. So, take an art course. Just go to a local college and sign up for a 2D design course of some sort.
Funny you should mention Tigert, who does use the Gimp.
I know a lot of artists for free/open source software projects use non-free programs like AI or 3DS, but not all.
Different people are used to different tools, and I primarily use Sodipodi, with a couple of extra programs on the side (most notably the Gimp).
Wait 5-10 years before using the free art tools? That's crazy talk. They're usable enough to do great art now. (You know that Susan Kare, one of my favourite artists, did a lot of her most beautiful work using only MacPaint or Windows Paintbrush?)
Delete the original layer (which you have no right to appropriate),
If you don't have the right to use the image, the above procedure won't get you off the hook. Tracing the outline creates a derivative work of the photo and the copyright holder of the original image can still make a claim on it.
Of course, you could always work around that by taking your own source pictures with a digital camera. I've done that a couple of times (without the tracing step, granted--I need to give that a shot) and it's come out not-too-horrible.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.
"Open Source Web Design is a community of designers and site owners sharing free web design templates as well as web design information. Helping to make the internet a prettier place!"
I've spent $75 the last 3 months at Lynda.com taking online courses of the Macromedia Suite. That $75 has given me hours and hours of great learning at a fraction of the price of an evening class at a brick and morter school.
I've cut back on TV and try to watch for a couple of hours a night. Miss some nights, but on others I'll watch for 5-6 hours.
I don't have much artistic talent, but for my web pages I wanted clean fonts, lines, graphics etc. I knew what I wanted, but not how to achieve it properly.
I can know produce output that is exactly what I envisioned, even though that vision might not be so artistically inspired :)
Try Sitepoint. is a very good web design site. At first there were only technical articles, but they added an art column, and now they got their art and design newsletter.
Here's the article: Good designers copy, great designers steal. Two thumbs up for that one. They even give you examples of how to do it right.
Might wanna try.
I use sodipodi. It's actual a decent and quite capable tool. Tigert uses (or has) GIMP, but when he started it was much much less capable than it is today. Think about that.
Larry Ewing, the designer of the Linux pengiun, used GIMP 0.54, which is about where Sodipodi is compared to something like Adobe Illustrator today.
GIMP 0.54 and pengiun
Sodipodi complements GIMP *greatly*. It's a joy to use both together, since GIMP vector tools aren't that useful for actual drawing purposes and can be tedious.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
I've found Wings 3D to be an easy jump for a programmer to make into 3D modelling, if that's a form of "art" you're after as well. The texturing modes are a breeze also.
Mutant Freaks of Nature: "Frighteningly Addictive"
[just published this past August]
ISBN:1585422193
ISBN: 067163514X
ISBN: 0874774241
I also purchased the following at Linuxworkd NY this year and found it a good read that would be germane to your needs:
- The Art of Interactive Design
Once you have an idea of what you need to illustrate, you should be able to use any application (I recomend using the same Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) standard used at Open Clip Art because:by Chris Crawford
ISBN: 1886411840
- Edges;
- Spaces;
- and Relationships;
(Read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brian)Relationships (yes there is some crossover);
Lights and Shadows
Gestalt
As a designer I have exactly the opposite problem. I have a strong foundation in (and teach) graphic design however my programming abilities are limited at best. Essentially I can install and configure scripts but that's about the limit of my abilities.
Since I own and operate a tiny web design studio (on a shoestring budget) this often leaves me in a bind when it comes to development projects. I can't afford to keep a full time PHP programmer on staff so I'm forced to sub things out on a project per project basis. Even though this work method is prone to failure (my experience has been that development projects are rarely, if ever delivered on time) I know well enough that programming isn't something you can just 'pick up' by reading a book. Like any other trade it requires training, dedication and at least a little bit of skill.
In my opinion this is the major problem with developers who "design" web sites. They marginalize the actual design of the site as if it's an afterthought (eg. who needs a designer, I have animating clip art!). The truth is, a successful site is a marriage of good design and solid programming. And until you realize that, and accept it, you're belittling all the work involved in either trade.
DigiSquid Design.
You can go to school for 4 years, as I did, if you want to learn how to draw, paint, and design. But you would do yourself more good if you just take the time to understand the basics. Pickup a design fundamentals book that covers things like the "Golden Section", repitition, framing, etc. The other great thing to learn is the use of color, and color combinations. http://www.pantone.com is a good place to start. You could also pick up a book about color. Other than the basics like these, you would have to spend a lot of time and energy learning and practicing how to draw, that I don't think you are looking to do. Oh. And don't design your website with programmer blue!
Do pencil sketches. Scan. Edit and colorize in photoshop. It's the best way I've found. The pencil is still the best tool for what it's good for, and photoshop is the best tool I've found for what it's good for.
This may be redundant, but did anyone suggest trying to learn Povray? It's not that hard to learn, and with it, you can create some amazing images very easily, even if you are terrible at art.
However, it's a rendering program, so perhaps using it for icons and sprites is an overkill.
I'm a developer myself, and often in need of icons. I find microangelo studio (http://www.microangelo.us/) very easy to use. It's also not very expensive (somewhere around 40 bucks for a license) and there's a free trial available.
I must say I also have the same problem. It's quite difficult for me to start with a blank canvas.
After many years I started being quite good at borrowing from others.
My favourite software is Corel Draw. Some people think it is quite difficult but not for me, since I've been using it from version 2.3 and I now have version 11. I know how to use most tools there and I always install the maximum number of fonts and clipart. You don't need to use the clipart "as it is". Take it, ungroup the elements, delete some things, change others...
DON'T start from stratch!!!
I made many things that initially were based to existing stuff, but after some time I had eventually replaced all those elements with things of my own creation.
If you have an analytical mind with a bit of sense of style (like me), don't go for artistic software like Photoshop. Go for something more like Corel Draw. Use Photoshop only for... photos!! Duh!
Good luck and start working! Experience is everything!
Fear is the mind-killer.
I must admit I've never even seen Photoshop, it's much too expensive for me to even consider.
Second hand copies of out-of-date versions are much easier to get hold of. I find Photoshop 5 does pretty much everything I need. You can find copies on eBay for next to nothing.
If all you need are icon graphics for a programs toolbar photoshop, maya and other high end graphics programs are going a bit overboard.
Try Microangelo from Impactsoft. It's the application I use to design icons. I've been collecting and designing icons for about 12 yrs. now and haven't found anything better to do this job.
Photoshop 8 CS : $275 USD
Lightwave 8 3D: $249 USD
Maya Personal Learning Edition : $ZERO (free as in beer)
Note that these are all essentially student discounts: "normal" people will have to pay quite a bit more. I got Photoshop (4.0) plus MSVC (5.0) and a couple of others as a student (5+ years ago), and paid something like 20% of "normal" cost for them. I still use both of these in their original versions, I haven't even felt the need to upgrade yet.
Also, as mentioned elsewhere, you can pick them up from someone on Ebay for considerably less, although the legitimacy of those copies could be questionable.
I think getting a basic feel for colors and their significance as well as thought that goes into graphic design would help to create decent amateur art. Another quick and fun way is to buy a digital camera and go crazy with the photography! Your knowledge of perspective, beautiful vs. ugly colors, and a lot of stuff will increase dramatically. I had the Canon A70 and then A75 - both quite reputable 3 MP cameras that had quite a few features to play around with.
This sig donated to Pater. Long live