I saw a video which uses elegant and simple art at the same time which I'd love my game to look like. https://youtu.be/P5e7cl19Ha0   The art seems so simple that it looks easy, and I tried, but I have very little art skill and I can't do something as good.

Is this kind of art doable by a non-art person? How can I learn to do that? How long can I improve from zero art skill to making good simple art like that? I say simple from an non-artist point of view, but is it? What kind of software do artists use to draw and animate characters like that?

1 hour ago, Michael Aganier said:

How long can I improve from zero art skill to making good simple art like that?

The art style is known as vector art, Vector art should be a good choice for a new artist. Improving takes study and practice, not much that can be done about that. 

Since you probably won't be planning on learning anatomy you should draw over stuff, like this:

The only tips I can give you is that vector art gets narrow near joints to make them visible.

If you need animations you will need to draw over videos and you will need vector software that can do animations. Photoshop can if you have it, Blender is what I used above; took longer to find the image than to draw it.

For animations you could also use 3D animations from motion capture and from animation sites, then draw 2D over that.

That's pretty cool.

1 hour ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Blender is what I used above;

When I think of vector graphics, I always thought of inkscape and illustrator. What is the advantage of using a modelling software like Blender?

2 hours ago, Michael Aganier said:

What is the advantage of using a modelling software like Blender?

3D vectors. Besides that 3D modeling tools have much more options related to the vector graphics. Something to remember is that 2D vector graphics in a game is 3D models, often the Z axis is only used as a depth setting.

As a example, if you used Spline for bone animations it would import into Unity as a flat 3D model.

Getting high quality animation is easier in 3D software. Because of refined bones systems and access to well developed animation tools. All kinds of texture baking can be used, including normal maps. Easy importing as almost all engines supports FBX or OBJ. Easy and cost effective morphing.

Manual setup of the mesh also allows for more optimized meshes.

Using 3D software to make 2D art is good practice for people looking to eventually expand into 3D gaming.

One reason not to use 3D software is complexity. For example baking a atlas in 3D software takes a know how, it isn't difficult but isn't obvious.

Good info. I started learning blender with the wiki book Noob To Pro. I've readed all of section 1, though it's only about basics and interface.

On 5/26/2018 at 1:16 AM, Scouting Ninja said:

If you need animations you will need to draw over videos and you will need vector software that can do animations. Photoshop can if you have it, Blender is what I used above; took longer to find the image than to draw it.

What I had in mind is to make characters with the same general shape so that they can be rigged to the same skeleton. I want to make 1 animated skeleton and be able to use it to animate multiple characters and export them into spritesheets. Is that possible with blender?

Also, could you describe how you've done your vector character? Is the whole model 1 piece? Did you made each pieces separately? What kind of lighting did you render with? I'd love to see in action how you go through that process.

3 hours ago, Michael Aganier said:

to make 1 animated skeleton and be able to use it to animate multiple characters and export them into spritesheets. Is that possible with blender?

Yes, all good 3D software can do this. If you want to to target different proportions you will also need to learn the Inverse Kinematics in Blender. It takes a while but once you know how to use it, you will be able to make animations at a faster and easier.

3 hours ago, Michael Aganier said:

Also, could you describe how you've done your vector character? Is the whole model 1 piece? Did you made each pieces separately? What kind of lighting did you render with? I'd love to see in action how you go through that process.

I used a flat plane. Then in edit mode shaped it by moving vertices around and extruding edges where I wanted.

Use the move, rotate and scale tools to move your vertices in Edit Mode (TAB_KEY), to edit a plane like the one in the left of the image.

To the right you can see it rotated it to show what it looks like. Parts that should be under parts, should really be under them.

You can see my material would be a single color with "Shadles" enabled for a flat single color look. All the parts of the same color would share a material.

In edit mode, select a vertice (right click), then hold down the CTRL key, then click somewhere to "draw" a vertice. F_key allows you to fill 3 or more vertices to make a polygon.

Unfortunately I deleted the one I made and right now I am a bit busy. Tomorrow I will make a proper example for you. The above should help you a bit for now.

3 hours ago, Michael Aganier said:

I've readed all of section 1, though it's only about basics and interface.

Just remember that Blender's real interface is your keyboard. They take the stuff that normally bloats the screen and move it down to the keyboard.

Most of your buttons are centered around "WASD", just like a game. If you mess up: Shift+C is the camera reset, it also Resets the cursor.

OK, a lot of images, I hope it helps. I decided on images as gifs are would have been too much and I can't make a video in my sleepy condition. I hope it doesn't break the forum  .

Grab the reference image from: https://phelandavion.deviantart.com/art/Pirate-STOCK-I-527928432 Diviantart has a lot of good images. I choose this one because it has some depth and details to work with.

Tutorial 1) setup:

Now we can really get started. The tutorial will speedup as I assume you learned what to do.

Tutorial 2) The basics of vector drawing in Blender:

Tutorial 3) The drawing the body and speeding up:

Tutorial 4) Multi materials on a mesh:

Tutorial 5) Finishing the rest:

When you zoom out it should look something like this now. Already it is a good faceless character that can be used for a enemy.

Using everything we learned above we can add some details. Just remember to check the depth of the details to see if they fit.

Tutorial 7.) The last part, refined details:

This is the front and side view of the final character:

A lot of this just takes practice, not really much to explain.

Extra, to fix stuff:

If you do need to merge vertices it is CTRL_M. If you want to flatten vertices you can use scaling to do it. Under the screen is a "Mesh" Menu, there is a "Cleanup" sub menu that is very important for cleaning the mesh from extra and loose vertices.

The Blend file, (Blender 2.79): Vector.blend

I really hope this is useful.

This is really great @Scouting Ninja, thanks a lot for the effort. I'm reading your tutorials along way the book I mentioned. I'll show some results as soon as possible.