Hey everyone. I've been working on my own card game over the past decade. Not really working on lore or art or anything, just gameplay and I'm finally happy with the rules.Now I just have to make the art. I do draw and I've been doing so for a while. I have a bit of an issue though, I like drawing cartoony, kind of minimalist art. I'm really into more abstracted caricatures in the vein of Stephen Silver or Genndy Tartakovsky. I even originally drew because I wanted to be an animator and I used to animate for a bit. Right now I just hammer out little comic strips. Card game art is the opposite. They require detailed, static art. It's more permanent. You're supposed to be sucked into the art and your brain will release endorphins no matter how many times you see it. Of course not every card in a set will have this effect but you get the idea. It's super deliberate and intentional. The art I like to draw is snappy, very focused on silhouettes and form rather than details etc.Now, its a pretty simple fix. The first solution is to hire an artist to do the final art for my cards, I'll do the sketch, composition, design, drafts etc. NEVER done anything like this before, so I have no idea how straightforward it is as a process. The second solution is also simple, I just get good. I've done fully rendered pieces in the past, even if its not my forte. The issue is it takes me a while, a week at least and I want to make maybe 40 unique cards a year. 52 weeks in a year so it's doable but It would take up almost all of my free time. I also want to work a pretty time intensive job which will take priority. It just feels like a bit of waste for me to study a totally different tone of art to make art for cards that don't really require it.So that goes to my original question: If you were tasked with making artwork for a card, how long do you estimate it would take? Especially if you're actually trained in splash art and detailed rendering.
>>7992198Pointless question. "work expands to fill the time available for its completion"Just set quotas/deadlines if you want things done in a certain amount of time.
>>7992198It would take me a long time.But, since you'll be scaling your work down so much you may find that it doesn't require as much effort as something intended to be viewed larger. Also, the cards may have reusable elements.If you're into drawing more cartoonish imagery, have a look at a card game named Guillotine. The cards are beautiful.
>Card game art is the opposite. They require detailed, static art.No.It entirely depends on the flavor of your game.If your game's setting and lore (which is the actual first thing you should worry about) i.e. the main flavor, you make art appropriate to it.Metazoo did simple static artworks akin to the OG pokemon artworks.Elestrals tcg is another game with extremely simple artworks.You just have to be consistent with the main style in the beginning.>40 unique cards a yearSorry, you already failed.You should at least have 100 for the core set sketched, and 200 more already conceptualized.In short; if you have the rules, draw cartoony but think you need to have super duper detailed art; rethink your approach regarding the art section of your game.
>>7992198I mean, you are talking about both "completion" and "design". Both are very difficult for amateurs.
>>7992198>They require detailed, static art. It's more permanent. You're supposed to be sucked into the art and your brain will release endorphins no matter how many times you see it.Not necessarily. Pokemon cards were drawn by the series artist (I forget his name, and I'm not looking it up, lol), and he's a pretty basic and simple cartoony artist - actually, his work is kinda like a japanese version of both Hart and Tartakovsky.So it's all about stylisation, and more likely, just being able to capture the 'cool' feeling that people want from their card art - this is something far more nebulous, and perhaps can't be done by you even if you are able to draw in the kind of style you think is suitable for a card.If you do decide to hire an artist, make sure they can draw 'cool' pictures. Splash art is a good comparison though.>If you were tasked with making artwork for a card, how long do you estimate it would take?For a single card? It shouldn't take too long, and if you're paying decently so that they can focus on your commission, I'd say a week or two should be fine. It shouldn't really take any longer than any regular illustration job - though times obviously differ depending on the art and their working method (they might be quite slow), and the style they're working in (a highly rendered realistic style is obviously going to take longer than a flat cartoony style). Keep in mind the artist will likely want to also include your feedback, since this is your baby.So while I say 2 weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if an artist asked for 2 months. It's less about the time required by the artist, but the time you're willing to wait. If you say you can only give 2 weeks, then the artist either accepts, declines, or negotiates a longer deadline. So long as it doesn't go over your budget/demand more pay, just because they need more time, it's all the same in the end, isn't it?So to summarise; 2 Weeks, but a good artist could ask for longer.
>>7992219Guillotine looks really good and pretty doable too. Loving the stylized but pretty simple rendering.>>7992220Thanks anon this really did help a lot. I totally get what you mean about developing lore first.I've got a premise where you and your opponent are cryptozoologists/conspiracy theorists who have special Polaroid cameras that snap a strange creature in the moment. The camera 'prints out' the cards you and your opponents use. So you get to invoke it's power but only briefly as you only get to sue the creature and it's abilities as it was snapped in the moment. a key gameplay element is the field reseting at the end of every turn, the cards return to the deck. I wanted that gameplay mechanic to reflect the elusive & shy nature of cryptids/aliens/ghosts etc. I also thought this premise would make it easier for me as a designer since there is a very beefy library of cryptids and ghosts and figures of folklore etc as opposed to designing creatures from scratch. MetaZoo, like you pointed out, has a very simple artstyle while being the same premise. Theres no reason why I couldn't also go with a cartoony, cel-shaded look but I kind of like the mystery element there. Its why I think having art that's kind of detailed. I really like Duel Masters and how the creatures are kind of abstract, but it's really outside my wheelhouse. Push comes to shove, I can just keep things toony. Like you said, i can jsut rethink my approach to the art.Oh also the decks are pretty small, about 16-20 cards, and the games are fairly short. Its why i was looking at 40 unique cards since thats like, maybe 4 unique decks a year. Obviously not going to compete with MtG but thats not really my plan. I just wanted to sell a neat side game thats compact enough you could play anywhere. Thanks again though!
>>7992303Thanks anon! You make a good point that Sugimori is the eastern equivalent lol. Great advice all around, too. I'll defs be keeping this all in mind should I decide to hire help.
>>7992374If that's your game's world setting and the scope of your project and your own limitations; then i would definitely go with cartoony to be safe.If you really want to go realistic or detailed or hire someone, then you'd need to go towards Paleo art, and depending on the degree of fiction/fantasy you want to put into your creatures, definitely should go towards creature designers.Like maybe i dunno, if you wanna design a Cyborg Bigfoot from Space that shoots laser beams out his head cannon, you definitely want a cartoonist or a creature designer.IF you want big fucking cool robots like duema only then you definitely should seek mecha artists.
>>7992613Paleo Art and Mecha Art is a great anchor for me to shoot for, thanks anon! I'm still feeling things out but I think just takling animal anatomy might be a good start and I can move up from there.I was actually thinking of having the art be 3D models. Even just like, low-poly models like a lot of early Pokemon Artwork by keiji kinebuchi or the artwork of the cards from Dungeon Dice Monsters. I could still do toony designs but the 3D lighting and rendering would give it that realism, kind of trippy effect I'm looking for. I have even less experience 3D modelling but this stuff would be super simple, and I can reuse the models several times as I make different versions of the same creature.
O had a friend who was a professional artist who knew a card game maker who would accept a series of paintings at a time as long as there were a dozen at least. The game was about alien races competing for resources so if you gave them a new alien race the game makers would apply game mechanics based on the painting subjects. This attempt was of an alien race that I have been drawing and writing about since I was 14. Unfortunately it was only my 4th painting.
>>7993050This art is gorgeous anon. I feel like the big names like Magic, Yu0gi-oh! etc have kind of spoiled people's expectations because every card should have art on the level of your panting there. Did that game maker actually request art through commissions or did he just buy aliens and alien designs from artists who had already made them?
>>7993099From those who made them. The format was a 12" by 12" block and I don't think it lasted long as a game. I was a long time pen and paper artist and my friend painted in acrylics and it was an alien medium for me. I was thinking in layers even then before I handed Photoshop, and I could have tweaked this into acceptability with it. But the scale of things on the playing card is two inches,and the aliens would be too tiny to be viable. My next design was way different but never got beyond a sketch. Moments after a photo of a Royal Fanily portrait, the family are now relaxed and relieved to have survived the ordeal, especially the young children. I made a new character of this alien race,a space faring daughter of the two ones that I made up at 14 and wrote about them for a creative writing class in high school.
