I have a question for art professionals who have a lot of experience in the industry. Preferably someone who's done 2D and 3D. Now I understand that for every person it's probably different, but I'd love to hear everyone's opinion.

My question is, what do you think a programmer with ZERO art skills could create higher quality art for in a smaller amount of time for, 2D or 3D? For the last month in my free time I have been randomly messing around in Illustrator and 3ds Max. With the help of tutorials I have managed to do the basics of both worlds. In Illustrator I managed to create a few decent 'sketches' of random monsters, while in 3ds I managed to make a decent human quite easily surprisingly. There are two things I'm afraid of:

- Animation. I think spritesheets are more complicated than people think? Although 2D skeletal programs seem like they might be able to help a little. In 3d it seems like animation would be a little easier. I'm talking about someone who has never really drawn in his life or ever done anything art related here. What do you guys think?

- Coloring. This seems harder than the drawing almost. I've only been doing the basics of drawing and have absolutely no idea how people make those awesome colorings in 2D art. I was looking at Nekro's concept art and it looks so amazing. I love their art. What do you guys about this? I'm guessing for models you use a program like Z-Brush or whatever it's called and pretty much paint a 3D figurine kinda thing? What are your takes and difficulties on coloring for 2D and 3D?

Pros and cons to both would be great. In the near future I plan on taking a whole month just to focus on learning 2D or 3D art. I understand this won't get me to AAA level, but I'd like to be able to make a few awesome high quality monsters as long as I stick to it. I surprisingly like using both programs, so I don't really have a preference. Any information on anything related is GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this!

It depends.

If all you need is some boxes and circles, maybe some gradients, a programmer can push those out pretty easily. For anything more complex, you probably need an artist.

Sprite sheets are time and effort consuming, and they require a specific set of skills and talents. 3D models are also time and effort consuming, and they require a different set of skills and talents.

2D is easier in some regards. Artists can make everything look pixel-perfect, animations are known frames that play exactly when and where the artist put them. 2D is harder in some ways, the worst case scenario is being near final and discovering that a huge swath of animations needs heavy modifications.

3D is easier in some regards. Modelers can reuse jigs, reuse textures, reuse models. Animators can easily make complex motion. You can make large changes to either the model or the animation at any time with little effort. 3D is harder in some ways, you have many items (models, bones and joints, textures, animations) that work together, and there are many ways it can break during development.

While programmers spend their days smashing keys on a keyboard, artists spent their days drawing and sketching and making art. Just accept that both groups need each other.

First of all, with a month of work you won't be able to learn much. It takes a lot of time and effort to make decent art in 2D as well as in 3D.

That aside, I recommend doing 2D work first.

One of the easiest things you can start with if you want to start creating games is sprites. Do your animations in 2D. Make everything in 2D. Learn how to use layers and how to animate something in 3D.

Say you want to desperately make a game in 3D you could always make some small low poly objects in 3Ds Max but ZBrush would be overkill in that situation. If you use ZBrush you're going to need to know how to make Normal Maps, how to get your ZBrush mesh from high poly to low poly that can be used in a game and so on.

So, I'd recommend 2D if you're starting off right now. In a month you could definitely learn how to make some nice 2D sprites and how to do for example simple pixelated objects.

Some resources:

- Sprites: link

- Pixelart: link

I have a question for art professionals who have a lot of experience in the industry. Preferably someone who's done 2D and 3D. Now I understand that for every person it's probably different, but I'd love to hear everyone's opinion.

My question is, what do you think a programmer with ZERO art skills could create higher quality art for in a smaller amount of time for, 2D or 3D? For the last month in my free time I have been randomly messing around in Illustrator and 3ds Max. With the help of tutorials I have managed to do the basics of both worlds. In Illustrator I managed to create a few decent 'sketches' of random monsters, while in 3ds I managed to make a decent human quite easily surprisingly. There are two things I'm afraid of:

- Animation. I think spritesheets are more complicated than people think? Although 2D skeletal programs seem like they might be able to help a little. In 3d it seems like animation would be a little easier. I'm talking about someone who has never really drawn in his life or ever done anything art related here. What do you guys think?

- Coloring. This seems harder than the drawing almost. I've only been doing the basics of drawing and have absolutely no idea how people make those awesome colorings in 2D art. I was looking at Nekro's concept art and it looks so amazing. I love their art. What do you guys about this? I'm guessing for models you use a program like Z-Brush or whatever it's called and pretty much paint a 3D figurine kinda thing? What are your takes and difficulties on coloring for 2D and 3D?

Pros and cons to both would be great. In the near future I plan on taking a whole month just to focus on learning 2D or 3D art. I understand this won't get me to AAA level, but I'd like to be able to make a few awesome high quality monsters as long as I stick to it. I surprisingly like using both programs, so I don't really have a preference. Any information on anything related is GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this!

Not a 'professional' but I dabble in programming and 2d and 3d. Short answer, for basic and decent, 2d is definitely easier. There is a reason why most of the indie games are in 2d. Yes 3d has some reusablity advantages but this will mostly only be relevant in advanced high volume situations. The pipeline for decent 3d is much more complicated. Modeling->texturing->rigging etc vs create a sprite sheet. And the engine and integration issues for 3d will also be more complicated. Don't discount that 3d software is infamous for either being underpowered or a major PITA, often doing things in nonintuitive ways. Illustrator and photoshop although not the simplest software is miles ahead in usability and simplicity than autodesk bloatware.

as frob said - doing your own art (if your the programmer) isnt going to work too well for ya. Even if its a small game - such a large portion of fun comes from things being nice to look at

I would say if you cant find an artist for now start coding the game using sprites or models downloaded from the net. Or if you want to just become an artist then do that. Doing both will lead to an inferior end product though. Just from my experience at least.