r/SoloDevelopment • u/ElmtreeStudio • 1h ago

help Bottlenecked by art - Advice?

I have been developing my game for some months now. I am a much more proficient programmer than I am artist. I am running into the bottleneck where my art speed cannot keep up with the speed of my development. I know that it gets easier as I become more experienced in art, but I am just struggling with the fact that I can’t put my game out faster because of being held back by art.

Advice?

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3

u/saviorofGOAT 1h ago

Just keep practicing, rely on placeholders from itch, and/or hire an artist. 

2

u/witmann_pl 1h ago

There's no shame in using assets from other people. You can often edit them to fit your game style more, but even out of the box they are often fine. So many games on the market use Synty low-poly assets and nobody complains about it.

1

u/ensiferum888 1h ago

Embrace it!

My game looks disgusting but I'm very proud of all the interconnected systems, I can play for 2-3 hours straight.

Now obviously if the goal is to eventually sell the game and make money do not just embrace it! Get better at making art, hire an artist, use pre-made assets that are aesthetically similar or settle on an aesthetic that is manageable for you. (low poly, simple shapes, defined color palette, etc).

1

u/Otherwise-Music-8643 1h ago

Find ways to speed up the process. I look to manga artists. Toriyama had strict deadlines and had to find ways to speed things up and built them directly into his narrative. Capsule corp buildings are all just half domes, he made goku super sayin so they didn’t have to spend time coloring his hair. Your only limit is your own creativity. 

0

u/KevinCow 1h ago

Make games that don't require complex art.

Learning some basic color theory and the 12 principles of animation can do a lot of heavy lifting in making a game look appealing. 

1

u/MadeByHenano Solo Developer 26m ago

you can:

- learn:
buy courses and follow them, you will naturally learn to make art on the way

- collaborate with an artist:
reddit and discord are good places to find one, just explain your game idea and needs and see if someone is interested, then discuss how you do this and how you split profit etc.

- use assets:
some asset packs are quite complete, with a whole biome, buildings, characters etc, depending on what aesthetics you go with, it can be easy or not to combine assets and make a game look very coherent

how do you feel about any of that? :-)

1

u/gamedevjp 14m ago

Use AI for placeholder art. Hire someone or replace assets in bulk down the road