Good at writing, bad at drawing?

[MrDaisy]

Hello,

well as in the topic...

i am good at writing stories but my drawing is bad and i can't make my own original characters to fit the story...

here what i was drawing before ( it was in math class ) 

http://instagram.com/p/jbvyzqMDsG/

i already know that my drawing is bad..  and i am also thinking about watching some tutorials to improve myself....

and now i am planing to use characters from resources section.. and i already have a huge collection of them...

but what do you think?

should i keep trying to draw my own or just use the available resources ?

thanks in advance.

 

[Evan Finkel]

Use ace character generator for characters. If you want custom character then you have to look up for an artist, but you can have your own concept about character's clothing and hair etc, right?

 

[That Bread]

Yes you should do what he does say above, but I don't think you should give up drawing. If you truly enjoy it, seek to become better. I only recommend using default resources or hiring an artist, due to the fact that mastering the arts will take time and devotion. If you have that kind of patience, then write your story while you become better at art, then when the time comes add your art to your game.

 

[MrDaisy]

Use ace character generator for characters. If you want custom character then you have to look up for an artist, but you can have your own concept about character's clothing and hair etc, right?

i am looking for artist right now, but i can't pay for all characters.. because if i counted them they can be over 100 characters.. and about the clothing and hair ... etc, i already have them in my mind... and i have already draw collection of weapons for the story... and shield... and other things that are needed... but all of them sketches in paper... so i can make them by myself later....

but my only problem is drawing the characters ( faces or full body )

 

[That Bread]

A hundred? Are these all main characters? If not I suggest highlighting the main characters who are important.

 

[Lars Ulrika]

What you can already do is using ace generator and do some simple edits on parts you want to make more "custom". 

That's what I'm actually doing as I'm still not good enough at drawing myself -_-.

 

[MrDaisy]

Yes you should do what he does say above, but I don't think you should give up drawing. If you truly enjoy it, seek to become better. I only recommend using default resources or hiring an artist, due to the fact that mastering the arts will take time and devotion. If you have that kind of patience, then write your story while you become better at art, then when the time comes add your art to your game.

i practice drawing daily (30 min ~ 1 hour) and writing the story also for about 30 min ~  1 hour daily

A hundred? Are these all main characters? If not I suggest highlighting the main characters who are important.

almost 25 main character, and the others are also important but not as much as the main characters..

so, i just do the main characters with emotional faces and busts....

and the other with just normal faces... or only texts ?

What you can already do is using ace generator and do some simple edits on parts you want to make more "custom". 

That's what I'm actually doing as I'm still not good enough at drawing myself -_-.

i am also already doing that... 

 

[That Bread]

I recommend only doing 25 with the faces and busts. The other lesser characters just don't bother.  I reccomend this due to time, and an artist would never do a hundred for free... 25 I don't know.

If you really think its necessary for the lesser characters to have faces, go ahead.

 

[Sharm]

It's pretty common to only give faces to people who are central to the plot.  So the PCs and a few of the NPCs should be plenty.  I would strongly advise you get your main character list down to at least 8, when you add a lot of playable characters to a game you end up not being able to properly characterize them before your game is over and they get bland and stereotypical very quickly and the important NPCs end up being plot devices and not characters.  If this is your first game then your scale is way, way too big, your going to burn yourself out before you get a demo together.  If you can't scale it back then maybe this isn't the game you should be working on right now.  Maybe come up with a plot where you only use the characters that come with RM.

If drawing is important to you, definitely keep up on it but I wouldn't delay your game until you're good enough.  Just use the existing resources, edit a bit and make do.  You could try to get an artist, but a good artist is really only going to want to pair up with someone who has proven themselves in some way so keep that in mind if you try to recruit one.  Everyone has their own project, you're fighting an uphill battle to try and get someone to abandon theirs and join yours.

An alternative solution is to do the writing for someone else's project, an artist you like for example.  You prove yourself and then the artist is more likely to join you on your project.  My point is that there are ways to be only the writer if you want to do that, or to be a one man team if that's your goal.  But either direction is going to require some sacrifice and hard work.

 

[TheRealDMac]

A hundred? Are these all main characters? If not I suggest highlighting the main characters who are important.

Yea you could always use an artist/work really hard on creating sprites for a couple main characters you really want to emphasize, and then customized generic sprites for everybody else. And if you have a hundred characters, are they students/soldiers/members of some organization? (Seems likely if you're using such a massive group.) If that's the case give them a uniform. Then you can just make generic male A and use his outfit and the neck part of the portrait as a template for all the males, and generic female A and use her outfit/neck the same way. Just press "generate face" and "generate character," save the first character, and then keep making new faces without closing the character generator. You can also make several facial expressions for the same person this way.

Granted, these won't be the most unique sprites in the world, and some people will be jerks about your default resource use, but it'll be a good (and very efficient) starting point.

 

[MrDaisy]

I recommend only doing 25 with the faces and busts. The other lesser characters just don't bother.  I reccomend this due to time, and an artist would never do a hundred for free... 25 I don't know.

If you really think its necessary for the lesser characters to have faces, go ahead.

well, i am going with only the main character emotions, support/side character wont have emotion faces... 

It's pretty common to only give faces to people who are central to the plot.  So the PCs and a few of the NPCs should be plenty.  I would strongly advise you get your main character list down to at least 8, when you add a lot of playable characters to a game you end up not being able to properly characterize them before your game is over and they get bland and stereotypical very quickly and the important NPCs end up being plot devices and not characters.  If this is your first game then your scale is way, way too big, your going to burn yourself out before you get a demo together.  If you can't scale it back then maybe this isn't the game you should be working on right now.  Maybe come up with a plot where you only use the characters that come with RM.

If drawing is important to you, definitely keep up on it but I wouldn't delay your game until you're good enough.  Just use the existing resources, edit a bit and make do.  You could try to get an artist, but a good artist is really only going to want to pair up with someone who has proven themselves in some way so keep that in mind if you try to recruit one.  Everyone has their own project, you're fighting an uphill battle to try and get someone to abandon theirs and join yours.

An alternative solution is to do the writing for someone else's project, an artist you like for example.  You prove yourself and then the artist is more likely to join you on your project.  My point is that there are ways to be only the writer if you want to do that, or to be a one man team if that's your goal.  But either direction is going to require some sacrifice and hard work.

thanks... and i think i am going to do as you said... start with small project with RM characters.... or maybe writing story for someone.... 

Yea you could always use an artist/work really hard on creating sprites for a couple main characters you really want to emphasize, and then customized generic sprites for everybody else. And if you have a hundred characters, are they students/soldiers/members of some organization? (Seems likely if you're using such a massive group.) If that's the case give them a uniform. Then you can just make generic male A and use his outfit and the neck part of the portrait as a template for all the males, and generic female A and use her outfit/neck the same way. Just press "generate face" and "generate character," save the first character, and then keep making new faces without closing the character generator. You can also make several facial expressions for the same person this way.

Granted, these won't be the most unique sprites in the world, and some people will be jerks about your default resource use, but it'll be a good (and very efficient) starting point.

Thanks, this is also a good idea... using one uniform for whole group... and change the faces ....

 

[CRogers]

You don't have to do everything simultaneously. You can, and some people (and game making companies) prefer that approach, but you don't have to.

So if you are confident in your writing now, work on writing the game and practicing art. Once the game is written you can worry about the art then.

That's the approach I've been using, but, as I mentioned, some people believe the project comes out better when all steps our down at the same time.

 

[Kaelan]

I think you need to figure out what your main goal is. What's the most important thing to you right now?

If it's to become a better artist and you enjoy art, then working harder at that should be your focus, and don't worry too much about finishing a game, just use it as a motivation to get better. If it's to release a game, then you should focus on your strengths - writing in this case - and just get something playable out there, even if it's just a demo. If you make something good enough, others might become interested in helping with things you're not so good at.