To me, creating vehicles is the best part of pixel wars. They are like their own pieces of art that one feels very proud of when they are finished.
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/663000vehicles.png[/IMG]
[I]Vehicles can be fun to draw and can turn out to be beautiful additions to a pixel army! [/I]
I have seen a few post from people saying they are horrible at making vehicles. Therefore, I have made a quick step by step tutorial on how I make my vehicles in MS Paint in hopes that it helps people become better at creating tanks, jeeps, planes, or whatever!
[B]Step One: Find a Reference![/B]
Most professional artist use references when creating their work. Be it Leonardo DaVinci to game character designers, they were looking at something when they drew/painted their masterpieces! For my tutorial, I am going to make a UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter.
When making a vehicle, you want to find a technical drawing of what you want to create. This is usually a black and white side-view drawing of your vehicle. I am going to use this one as a reference;
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/fb00001.png[/IMG]
[I]Remember to find a black and white technical drawing of your vehicle, it will make the future steps much easier![/I]
[B]Step Two: Copy, Paste, and Re-size[/B]
Now that I have my reference, it's time to re-size it to fit my army. Chances are that you will find a reference that will be way too big to actually make into a usable vehicle, so you want to make it an appropriate size that corresponds with the size of your foot soldiers. You want to have one of your normal, 25 pixel tall soldiers handy when doing this, to use as a size reference. To re-size a picture in paint, simply right click the picture, and go down to the "Resize/Skew" option. From there you can make the picture smaller or bigger by adding or subtracting from the percentages given.
When resizing a vehicle, always keep in mind;
>How tall the vehicle is in real life
>How tall your foot soldiers would be in real life
>How many of your guys stacked on top of each other would equal the height of your
vehicle
Before you re-size your picture, always remember to copy an paste another one on the page. When you re-size it you will lose a lot of detail from the picture, so it's always good to have the original around too for later use.
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/beae002.png[/IMG]
[I]Don't worry about losing detail in your re-sized picture, that's why you kept the original sized drawing![/I]
The Blackhawk is about 17 feet in real life. Assuming my little Vincent Vega sprite would be 5'8 in real life, three of him on top of each other would be 17.4. Therefore, the helicopter would be just a bit shorter than three Vincent Vegas all stacked onto each other. I am not trying to be exact, the helicopter might be a little smaller or bigger, but just get a reasonably sized vehicle out!
[B]Step Three: The Outline[/B]
Your vehicle is now at the perfect size! The next step is to outline it! When I started making vehicles, I would try to redraw them line for line using my little re-sized picture as a reference. I soon found out that it is much easier to just outline them from the re-sized picture than try to make the whole thing from memory.
When you are outlining your vehicle, use a bright color as not to mix black lines up with lines from the picture. Outline the basic shape, then all the details you can see. If you need to, use different colors to make sense of things!
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/a16a003.png[/IMG]
[I]Remember to use colors that stand out so that they don't mix with the colors of the reference drawing.[/I]
Now your vehicle is starting to take shape! Notice how I left out some details and made my own adjustments to the outline. If the reference picture you are using is too scrambled to make things out, just leave them out entirely! You can always go back and add them during the detailing step.
Now that the vehicle is outlined, you need to get rid of any colors that are not related to the outline (the lines from the reference picture). To do this, take a different, bright color and make a box around the vehicle. I will use purple because I like to make my eyes hurt.
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/f774004.png[/IMG]
[I]Draw a box using the box tool around the vehicle. Make sure it is a different color than whatever color you used for your outline.[/I]
The purpose of this is to get rid of the effects of anti-aliasing on the photo. The simple black lines of the drawing actually consist of different shades of grey that MS Paint is not advanced enough to group together. trying to detail with it in the way makes the process much more complicated!
Fill in all the white spots with your color, then, with the brush tool, go over the spots not picked up. the end result should look like the picture below.
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/a4a2005.png[/IMG]
[I]Remember to fill in the whole picture. Try not to leave in any black, white, or grey.[/I]
Now that your outline is free of anti-aliasing smudges, you can clear out the color used to get rid of it to white.
[B]Step Four: Detailing[/B]
This is where the fun begins! Now that your vehicle outline is clean, it's time to make it look good!
When doing basic detailing, I use three colors; a light, dark, and medium color. The dark is for an outline, the light is for the vehicle color itself, and the medium is for shading. For my helicopter, I am going to use a dark grey color pallet for the body. Remember when picking colors, don't use pure black for outlines. Even on black-colored vehicles, go for a really dark shade of grey. It makes it look much better. But that's just like, my opinion, man.
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/6560006.png[/IMG]
[I]Try not to use pure black for outlines, especially for color schemes outside of the grey range.[/I]
After you picked out your colors, it's time to paint. Start off with the body. Paint the outline of the vehicle with your dark color, as shown below.
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/ad4007.png[/IMG]
[I]Outline the body with the dark color. Notice how I left out some details on the body. We will go over what to do with that later.[/I]
Next step is to fill in the vehicle with the light color, as shown below;
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/bb12008.png[/IMG]
[I]Fill in the body with the [B]light[/B] color.[/I]
Finally, finish off with the shading. put a line of the medium color to either the left or right of the lines in the body of the vehicle. if you want to make it more realistic by gradient shading with more than one medium color, go right ahead.
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/1336009.png[/IMG]
[I]Draw a line to the left or right of each dark outline. You can shade the top or bottom as well, if desired.[/I]
With your body complete, now you can focus on more fine detailing. I left certain parts of the helicopter untouched because I wanted to show them protruding from the chopper or make them stand out. to do this, simply use a darker color than what you used on your outline.
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/a8040010.png[/IMG]
[I]To show protrusion, simply use a darker color than what you used for the outline.[/I]
Your vehicle is almost done! Now comes small things, like windows, wheels, decals, whatever little addons you want to put on. When coloring things like windows, follow the same steps you did when coloring the body. Get a light color for the base, and a medium color for the shading. with things like letters and numbers, just use the colors you colored the outline with!
With all of that being said and done, you should have a product that looks good and is ready for Pixel Wars!
[IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/3140011.png[/IMG]
[I]Now you have a nice vehicle to add to your army![/I]
Bad ass!
You cheated!
:cool:
Very nice, great guide!
Dude the whole point of this is to use your own shapes
Now your poisoning the people
Tracing. :rolleyes:
Don't trace, it's cheap.
It isn't like he stole it.
We didn't say he did.
It's effective. Also, you can edit the shape if you want...
It cheap. :v:
And i thought your good at Pixel Art
This could work for normal guys too...
Yeh, agreed with Trifon :crying:
Though to be fair
Raga did the same once
Hey, this is an alternative for people who might be able to make troops decently, but can't make a car to save their life.
>_>
<_<
Im pretty much the opposite
:sigh: Smilez, I thought your vehicles were epic, but you cheated, I am disappoint.
Well that's how I do it. If I want to make a certain vehicle of correct proportions, I use that method. If I want to create a helicopter contraption from my head, I piece it together. If you dont like it then you're just SOL.
Stop saying your disappointed, they look kick ass either way - does it really matter how he made them?
Also, here's my outcome when I used more or less the same techniuqe as yours (It's quite old though):
[img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/881200c130.png[/img]
Guys seriously, stop crying that it's tracing. Anatomically correct vehicles are better than what a person who can't freehand vehicles would come up with. The guide in itself is very good and descriptive.
[url]http://www.the-blueprints.com/frontpage/[/url]
Really good site to get tons of blueprints on just about anything. Recommend that you register though, as it re-sizes all images to 500x500 max if you aren't logged in. Registration is free though and only takes like 10 seconds.
[QUOTE=Ragamuffin..;21126490]Stop saying your disappointed, they look kick ass either way - does it really matter how he made them?
Also, here's my outcome when I used more or less the same techniuqe as yours (It's quite old though):
[img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/881200c130.png[/img][/QUOTE]
I'm a she.
Yknow what, i may have said its bad but i gotta try this
This will help me construct vehicles. It may be cheap but It will help someone who can't pixel art beautifully. E.g. Me. Thank you Smilez....
[QUOTE=Smilez;21126844]I'm a she.[/QUOTE]
Lies, everyone knows there's no wimmenz on teh interwebz :downswords:
Still, I can see this guide helping tons of new players learn how to sprite vehicles. Or at least make a decent looking sprite.
I do it the hard way. :clint:
[QUOTE=Visorak06;21127197]Lies, everyone knows there's no wimmenz on teh interwebz :downswords:
Still, I can see this guide helping tons of new players learn how to sprite vehicles. Or at least make a decent looking sprite.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I'm just fucking with you, I'm a guy. But art is a process. Professional artist don't simply draw/paint something by looking at it. Sure you can freehand, but if you are trying to re-create something like a vehicle, you want to make it look as real as possible. I guess it depends on how you look at it. In terms of trying to be creative, no it's not the best option. In terms of making a good looking product, it's a great option! If I were going to sell my NCDF army, I would draw all my vehicles like that because they simply would look better than doing it by free hand because as a buyer, I would rather purchase that than a free hand drawn vehicle any day! Thats just how I see it. Yes, its very capitalistic of me (sorry Kommy) but thats how I see it.
[QUOTE=DragonSpawn777;21126144]Hey, this is an alternative for people who might be able to make troops decently, but can't make a car to save their life.
>_>
<_<[/QUOTE] That'd be me :P :fuckyou:
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