A Broad Guide to Creating Games Artworks with an Art Studio

When partnering with an art studio like Fgfactory for graphics development, meticulous preparation and seamless execution play a crucial role in ensuring the project’s success. The significance of this approach lies in its ability to effectively collaborate with the art studio and graphic design services offered that meet the desired outcomes. Both parties can align their visions and expectations by carefully planning and preparing for the project, including defining the goals, objectives, and requirements. This helps in avoiding any misunderstandings or miscommunications during the development process.

Additionally, by executing the project seamlessly, the art studio can deliver high-quality graphics design services and games artworks that meet the client’s specifications and exceed their expectations. This requires effective communication, regular updates, and a commitment to delivering on time and within budget. Ultimately, by following a structured approach and maintaining a solid partnership with the art studio, businesses can achieve their desired results and create visually appealing and engaging graphics for their projects.

Defining Clear Requirements

Gather Style and Design References

Regarding digital design services and game art outsourcing, gathering existing stylistic references is crucial in conveying the intended visual style and mood. These references guide the art studio’s artists to align with the client’s vision. Various references can be compiled, including screenshots from other games, concept art, illustrations, or non-gaming sources that capture the desired aesthetics.

For example, video game character art references can showcase the desired traits and characteristics, while environment design references can inspire the creation of immersive and visually striking game worlds.

Additionally, references for color palettes, asset sizes, and shapes help to establish a cohesive and engaging visual style. This could include diagrams and detailed notes indicating color schemes and codes, lighting conditions, dimensions, proportions, and other details. By compiling these references, artists can ensure that their concept art for video games meets the client’s expectations and effectively communicates the desired aesthetic.

Textual Descriptions for Narrative

Providing detailed textual descriptions for assets closely tied to the game’s narrative is crucial regarding game art outsourcing. Game art outsourcing studio like Fgfactory understands the importance of incorporating game narratives into their artwork. By encouraging clients to provide context, backstory, and any relevant lore, we can ensure that the visuals they create align with the game’s narrative.

The narratives of games can greatly influence asset design. Whether it’s the characters, environments, or objects within the game, each element must reflect the world and story being told. By understanding the narrative behind a game, a game art outsourcing studio can create visuals that enhance the player’s immersion and connection to the game world.

The collaboration between the clients and the outsourcing studio becomes more effective when a clear understanding of the narrative elements must be conveyed through the assets. With this information, the artists can make informed design choices that contribute to the immersive storytelling of the game.

Technical Specifications

When outsourcing games artworks, providing precise technical specifications for assets such as dimensions, formats, and their intended use is crucial. Clearly defining these technical requirements allows the production process to be streamlined, and potential discrepancies can be avoided later.

A clear understanding of the technical specifications for assets is essential because it ensures that the outsourced game design and development team has all the necessary information to create assets that meet the desired standards.

For example, providing dimensions for in-game assets helps ensure they fit seamlessly into the game environment. Similarly, specifying the required formats for animations ensures compatibility with the game engine or platform.

Furthermore, providing technical specifications also helps avoid later discrepancies and delays in the production process. When the outsourced team clearly understands the technical requirements, they can plan and allocate resources accordingly. This minimizes the risk of misunderstandings or misinterpretations that could lead to rework or revisions later on, causing delays in the project timeline.

Asset Creation Process

B&W Sketches

When creating high-level B&W sketches for game concept art or game artworks, a crucial step is establishing the primary vision. This involves creating preliminary 2-3 drawings options that capture the concept’s essence and provide variants for clients to choose from. These sketches serve as a visual representation of the ideas and themes that will be further developed in the final artwork. By using black and white, artists can focus on the composition, shapes, and overall design without the distraction of color. This allows for a more straightforward evaluation of the different options and helps make informed decisions about the project’s direction.

Many development studios outsource concept art for video games to ensure the best outcome, collaborating with professional artists who create high-quality sketches that align with their vision. By outsourcing this stage of the artwork creation process, game developers can benefit from the expertise and creativity of experienced artists, resulting in stunning visuals that bring their games to life.

Crafting Color Sketches

Crafting color variants is the next step in game concept art and game art outsourcing. Generating multiple options for clients is crucial when determining the desired color palette. One practical approach is to follow the principles of color theory. By understanding the color wheel and the three core elements of color – hue, saturation, and lightness – artists can create visually coherent and pleasant game worlds. Adjusting these elements in a pixel art editor allows precise control over the color variations. Different color combination schemes, such as complementary, monochromatic, and analogous, can achieve a pleasing visual harmony in the game.

Ultimately, graphic designers offer 2-3 color options ensuring that all preferences are considered while providing a range of aesthetically appealing choices.

Final Asset Rendering

Final asset rendering is another step in the game art development process. After selecting the design, artists work tirelessly to transform it into detailed assets ready for approval. This stage involves refining and polishing the chosen concept, adding intricate details, and ensuring the files meet the desired specifications.

Artists use their skills and expertise to bring the design to life, paying attention to every element, such as lighting, texture, and composition. They use various software tools and techniques to create visually stunning and immersive game artwork. In some cases, game art outsourcing may be employed to leverage the expertise of specialized artists or studios.

The final assets are then presented for approval, where they are evaluated based on their adherence to the original design vision and suitability for integration into the game. E.g. for the mobile gaming art the final assets should be clearly visible for mobile devices.

Asset Preparation

Asset preparation is the final step in the graphics design services and game development process when a design team needs to provide game files in a proper format. It involves creating final assets based on requirements, tailored for animations, integration into game engines, static images, or other needs.

Game outsourcing studio like Fgfactory is experienced in providing digital design services, which ends with asset preparation that meet the project and client’s needs.

Client Involvement in the Process

When it comes to creating game artworks, the level of client involvement can vary depending on the specific project and the client’s preferences. The key is finding a balance that allows for creative freedom while ensuring the client’s vision is realized in the final result. Outsourcing to a game art outsourcing studio can provide clients access to a pool of talented artists and professionals who can adapt to their preferred level of involvement and deliver high-quality game artworks.

We highlight 3 significant levels of client involvement in the process we support and offer.

Surface-Level Involvement

One level of involvement is surface-level participation, where clients review the final results and provide feedback, corrections, or approvals. In this scenario, they are guided by the Project Manager and Art Director, who oversee the entire process. This level of participation allows clients to have a say in the final outcome while relying on the expertise of the professionals.

Daily Involvement

Another level of client involvement is daily engagement. Here, clients closely monitor the daily progress of the asset creation and provide feedback on each update. The Art Director plays a crucial role in this scenario, overseeing the artists’ work and ensuring the client’s vision is realized. This level of involvement allows for more frequent and detailed feedback, leading to a more iterative and collaborative process.

Deep Involvement

In some cases, clients or their associates may have a deep engagement in the asset creation process. They closely guide the artist’s daily tasks and monitor progress, with the Art Director stepping in only for significant interventions. This level of involvement is often seen when clients have specific requirements or a strong vision for the project and want to be involved in every step of the process.

Effective Project Management

Effective project management is crucial in graphic design and branding services to ensure transparency and client involvement. Modern project management tools have revolutionized the way teams collaborate and track tasks. One such tool is Jira, which provides a comprehensive solution for task tracking, time management, and detailed task discussions. With Jira, project managers can easily assign tasks, set deadlines, and monitor progress, ensuring that projects stay on track and meet client expectations.

In addition to project management tools, communication channels are vital in keeping clients involved and informed throughout the project lifecycle. Various communication tools like Skype, Slack, Discord, and Telegram offer flexible options tailored to client preferences. These tools allow for real-time communication, file sharing, and video conferencing with a game outsourcing company ensuring clients can provide feedback and make decisions promptly.

With the right combination of project management tools and communication channels, graphic design and branding service providers can establish transparency and foster client involvement. By utilizing tools like Jira for task tracking and detailed discussions, along with communication platforms like Skype or Slack, businesses can streamline their processes and deliver high-quality results to their clients. Using these modern tools enhances collaboration and ensures that projects are completed efficiently and to all stakeholders’ satisfaction.

Conclusion

Summarizing and following the steps described above and emphasizing the importance of well-prepared requirements, effective communication, and continuous collaboration, graphic development projects with an art studio can achieve successful outcomes in the dynamic world of game development.

In addition, if you are getting ready for the full-cycle game development production, have a look at our Building a game checklist which reveals all the subtleties in the process of preparing for the development of the game.