Are traditional art skills required for learning hand-painted textures?

Cronnix

Hi! After dabbling in 3D, level design and game dev for a few years, I've decided to focus more on it and get better with 3D specifically. The "realistic" style pipeline and tools are not that appealing to me (too complex and slow to iterate on for a hobby), so I want to invest into lowpoly, pixel 3D and stylized hand-painted textures. My goal is to be comfortable enough with it to start own game projects as a hobby in a role of an artist.

I have a basic sense for colors, composition and style, that I want to develop further, but I can't draw when it comes to traditional art. So my questions for folks that do hand-painted textures (WoW, new Runescape, Torchlight, etc) are, did you find it a necessity to have solid drawing skills, and if you didn't have them prior to starting, how did you go about developing them? 

oglu

I picked up hand painted texture painting in just a week for a current project. So, no its not required but it does help.
You just need to invest some time to learn it. Took me about two days to get up to speed.

Eric Chadwick

Yes.

To be good at hand painted style, you have to learn how to... umm... paint.

I suggest getting a sketch book, and drawing a little every day. Draw only the things you see, not imaginary things. Forces you to observe!

Post your drawings here for critique. Implement feedback. Rinse, repeat. 

Drawing and painting are primarily just learned skills. Put the time and effort in, and you will be rewarded!

Brian "Panda" Choi

No, but it's  basically painting.

Alex_J

I don't know much about it, but sometimes I play Bob Ross while I work and I like that a lot. I like how he makes it seem simple and you can learn by watching, rather than somebody lecturing or explaining visual things with words.

sacboi

Whilst IMO not necessarily a 'requirement' per se but knowing how too draw will certainly add finesse and polish to your work, also I might add there are many instances of veteran artists at Blizzard and akin studios having 2D proficiency. 

EDIT:
If interested checkout Udemy for Tyson Murphy, senior character artist (Blizzard) for further insight into the hand painted texture workflow.

Brian "Panda" Choi

@BIGTIMEMASTER
Explaining visual things with words requires watching still.  What makes Ross stand out as  a better teach to you? Are you recommending him as a handpainted texturing teacher?

Alex_J

There's no innuendo's in my post. " I don't know much about it," is meant to suggest the following is only a suggestion from somebody who doesn't no which way is up in that specific field; but Bob Ross is a well-known traditional artist and I enjoy his method of teaching by doing. So, yeah I would recommend him. I wouldn't recommend only learning from him, but if you've got the time, check out some of his videos. Very enjoyable stuff.

What I like most about Bob Ross as a teacher is that he consistently reassures the watcher that they can do things however they like. This seems simple but I think it's important. Over the years he developed his style, and because he enjoyed his work and kept at it he became a great painter. But there's no, "you must do things this way," or "make your lines like this otherwise it's ugly." He just shows you how he does things, and has a great time doing it. So his art is his art. It's a true form of visual communication. You get to know his art, and you get to know him. That's what I like. 

Anybody who is making art, I would recommend as a teacher. You can learn something from anyone. So I wouldn't say, "learn only from this person," I say learn from every one. I would just caution anybody who is on a time-crunch to seek out the best teachers -- and the best teachers are just whoever makes things clear for you.