Today, most game creators seek game art outsourcing services to create high-quality 2D characters. However, knowing some tips and rules, you can turn your ideas into reality on your own. This article will tell you about how to make a 2d character in a professional game development environment.
How to make a character in 2D?
Sketching and concepting
Obviously, your future character directly depends on choosing the art style that fits your game. The initial stage of development is to transfer the idea from your head to the computer. Imagine how you see this character in your imagination and try to make the most accurate sketch on a large sheet of paper. This will be considered the start of 2D character development.
What is important to consider when generating an idea of what look your fictional character will have? First, pay attention to the shape and additional elements that form the complete image. Your character should look appealing in the gaming industry.
Tools
Experienced experts advise you to initially draw a sketch of the invented characters on a piece of paper. However, further you need to transform this sketch into an electronic format, using some professional environment. Usually, animators use such tools to accomplish this task:
- Photoshop.
- Procreate.
- Clip Studio Paint.
Watch the draft and recreate new sketches in one of these tools. You can take a closer look at each detail to find imperfections that need correction. Even a beginner can figure out these programs to change colors, shadows, raster lines, and more.
Best practices
It's no secret that characters play just as important a role in a video game as the plot or mechanics. That's why you need to devote most of your time to creating a unique character sketch that will definitely appeal to your target audience. A properly designed silhouette is also an important part of working on 2D character creation generally, as it will affect the recognizability of a particular character.
Just imagine that your game has a lot of secondary characters that frequently appear on the user's screen. A unique shape, additional elements, and a clear sketch will help the main character stand out from the others.
From concept to vector/pixel art
What to do next, when you already have a sketch in Photoshop or any other suitable program? Now it's time to deal with transferring this character drawing into a 2D environment. For vector graphics, you need to choose one of the leading tools. As practice shows, design professionals usually use programs like Animate, Illustrator, and Inkscape. If you opt for pixel graphics, consider Aseprite.
All you need to get started is to export the image you created from the application. For example, if you use tools from Adobe, you can easily pair Photoshop and Animate/Illustrator. This simplifies the process of transforming an image from one format to another.
Best 2D character creators
Your character is still a non-moving picture that needs to be animated. Therefore, you should again find the right software. One of the most popular solutions for 2D character animations in video games is Spine. This program allows you to create rigging, which allows you to create smooth animations.
Other software that is often highlighted by experienced developers are DragonBones and Toon Boom Harmony. Simply put, all these 2D character creators help you turn a static image into a model that can be rotated and moved.
Character details and texturing
The next step in creating a 2D character for a video game is to work with shadows, texturing, and glares. If you are already familiar with the features of 2D animation, you know that there is no depth. However, adding shadows can achieve this effect when creating your character. In simple words, this will help you achieve the right shape and make the character «livelier.»
If you want to achieve the effect of making your character quickly recognizable among others, you need to do a lot of work on textures and details. It is best to use minimalistic details so as not to compromise the game's overall performance.
How long does it take to create a 2D character?
Most beginners who plan to develop a 2D character for a game are interested in how long this process can take. This question is difficult to answer in one sentence. Why? The ultimate time to create a character from sketch to completion in a professional environment depends on various factors. Here's what typically affects the speed of development:
- Character complexity and number of details.
- Art style.
- Applications and software used
On average, a professional can develop a character from a few days to a few weeks. You may ask what methods exist to reduce the time to create a 2D character. It takes a lot of time to create similar frames each time, and you can use batch sprite processing and reusable riggs.
How hard is it to animate 2D characters?
Skeletal vs. Frame-by-frame animation
As mentioned above, the time to create a 2D character depends on many factors, including the animation method. Today, there are two main methods, which we want to briefly describe below.
| Skeletal | Frame-by-frame |
| For this method, animators usually use solutions such as Spine and DragonBones. Skeletal animation is used for voluminous and repetitive work. | Simply speaking, this is a «manual» technique in which each frame is drawn separately. You can achieve better quality. |
The animation technique you choose will vary according to your goals and the amount of time you have for character development.
Industry techniques for professional animation
Surely, the approach of professional game studios is different from the techniques used by newcomers. In studios, employees have more capabilities and resources, so they use the latest techniques. For example, they use blending animation, inverse kinematics (IK), and dynamic effects.
All this allows for better animation of complex characters with many details and movements. They draw every movement perfectly so the average player won't notice any visual deviations.
Tool integration
Since you are interested in developing an animated 2D character, you need to find out how you can integrate it into the gameplay. Of course, to do this, you need to go into the game engine you use for video game development. You're in luck because all of the above-mentioned animation tools integrate well with the Unity and Unreal Engine game engines. This simplifies working on complex animations, allowing you to customize character movements to your game and add various dynamic effects.
Challenges in 2D animation
When you are looking for an answer to the question «how to make a 2d character for games», you may notice that most professionals face the same problems while creating animations. Certainly, creating a video game character from scratch is not an easy process, especially for beginners. You may face different challenges on the way to the final result.
To make sure that the player sees beautiful animation, the created frames must perfectly smoothly transition into the next. Even the smallest changes can break the created animation and you will have to search in which place the «breakage» occurred. Another common problem is overloading the system with complex animations, which is bad for the overall performance of the game.
What is the best 2D character creator?
Tool recommendations for different projects
As you may have already realized, some characters can take days to develop, and others take a few weeks. It depends on the complexity of each project, so it's helpful to know which tools will work best for you.
- For simple projects. If you are tasked with developing simple 2D games, we recommend choosing Aseprite for working with pixel graphics and Photoshop for drawing by hand.
- For complex projects. Complex 2D games require other tools, including Spine, Toon Boom Harmony, and DragonBones.
Regardless of the solutions you choose, all tools are well-established in the video game development and 2D animation industry.
Comparative analysis
Beginners in the field of animated character development may get dizzy from so many tools. That's why we have prepared a small comparative analysis:
- Ease of use. Procreate and Aseprite are considered to have the most understandable interfaces and are perfect for inexperienced developers.
- Performance. Spine and DragonBones are great for optimizing games for mobile devices, while Toon Boom Harmony is used for PCs and consoles.
- Integration with game engines. You can easily integrate Spine and DragonBones with the most popular game engines to make it easy to add a character to your game.
We recommend looking at all of your tool options ahead of time and creating a tech stack that you will use for your project.
Conclusion
Actually, many things during the creation of a 2D character for a game directly depend on the tools that have been chosen. Therefore, you should pay attention to choosing the right software and also do not forget about optimizing workflows. This way, you can implement your ideas into the game.
