Hey there! It’s Thomas!
I get it: when you see beautiful game art on social media or
in games, you might feel a bit out of your league. I felt the same. It sucks because
you just want to make a beautiful game, but you feel you're not talented enough.
I felt this way, but then I started studying the art of Eyevind Earle, a brilliant Disney
artist, everything suddenly clicked.
I noticed he was very precise with colors.
Do you see how he uses two main colors, brown and yellow, and then a pop of a very
different color, green?
So I started replicating this practice, and suddenly it all made sense. My art was
suddenly breathtaking, and I was even featured by TIME Magazine. And all it took
was a tiny understanding of color!
So here’s what I want you to do: follow each step in the following pages. You’ll
discover what I found: color is everything! You’ll soon find yourself thinking that
maybe, just maybe, you might be a brilliant artist!
You’ve got this.
Your friend,
Thomas
Let’s first think about your game art’s “color theory”. Basically, we just need to figure
out what color theory we like, and stick with it. There are 6 color theories that
always work great. Pick a method you think will work well for your game.
Okay, so, I picked the tetradic method. If I want to, I can rotate a little bit in my
selections, but I’m going to simply go with the selections in the image on the
previous page.
Next, I’m simply going to pick only two from the selections in the method. So for
me, because I’m going with the tetradic method, I want to only pick purple and blue.
I’m going to adjust them slightly. I like these two colors:
These two colors are going to be the majority of the colors used in my game,
world or level. I’m going to stick tightly to these two colors! You should do the same.
You can use any color between these colors. In fact, you can make a gradient in your
art software, going from both of these colors, and feel free to use any of the colors
between the gradient. Here’s what I mean:
Ok, so we know what the majority of our level is going to look like. But, we want a
tiny pop of color to use for enemies, the player, collectables, etc. I’m going to pick
the orange from the tetradic method.
Note: If you don’t have a third option available for you from your chosen method
(such as complimentary), simply test a variety of colors that are very different than
your two colors. Remember, the goal is to create contrast so that important items in
your game stand out!
We’re now ready to start painting our game art in our software, like Photoshop or
GIMP!
I highly suggest creating a layer, similar to this one below, so that you can simply
“color pick” colors while you design art for your game, level, or world!
Like this! Now while I’m working I can always reference my various colors, and pick
from them!
Bonus Tip
You’ll notice that I’ve used varying lightness and darkness values (light purple snow,
dark shadowy purply for the trees) in my artwork above. So, it may help you to also
add a subtle white to black gradient over your colors. Like this:
Now I can pick and choose from the color bar with the color picker tool in photoshop,
and know exactly what color values to use. No more guessing and checking!
Just remember to disable your color bar before you export your art! Ha!
I really hope this was helpful! Keep this guide handy, and you’ll be shocked how
quickly your art transforms.
Your game dev friend,
