N00b artist seeks your advice

[Magnus Xen]

I want to try adding some art to wesnoth but I know I am going to need to train and try out some stuff by myself for a while before I'm going to add my own contrabutions to wesnoth.

Ideally I'd like to add a whole new faction fully created by me (art and all). Basically I've read through most of the tutorials on art creation and stuff but I'd also like to ask ye general public to pointers they may have.

Also where can I access the current art for the game. I'd like to start off by taking base units from the game and modifying them to teh point where the base unit is no longer recognisable and then kinda cliam its my own unit but to do this I'd like some one to point out where the unit art files are kept and what i need to do to access them.

I'm more than likely going to use good ole Paint *ducks for cover*

Magnus Xen

[Sgt. Groovy]

I would suggest that before even thinking about art you would design the concept of your faction throughoutly and create the unit trees. Then, before you start doing actual sprites, make concept sketches, pencil drawings which show what kind of weapons, armour and clothing they have. The sketches don't need to be visually "good," they are just the basic idea in pictures. Also, you can find references to historic warriors that resemble your idea of your faction.

Once you have all this together, and if your concept is interesting, you might find people willing to help with the sprites.

[zookeeper]

I'd also like to note, unless I'm very mistaken, that everyone, who has taken it as their first project to build a new faction or era, has failed. I'd seriously suggest beginning with some light contributions to the main game (drawing animations, for example) or some existing add-on before attempting a major long-term project like that.

[Kestenvarn]

I'm more than likely going to use good ole Paint *ducks for cover*

Please don't.

http://www.gimp.org/windows/

[Magnus Xen]

Thank you to both of you for your comments

I have already thought out most of my unit trees and ideas (they have been clear pretty much fromt the get go) irony is that I've played quite a few types of fantasyish stratergy games. What makes Wesnoth so hectically cool is that I developed (mainly by myself) a pen and paper games VERY much like wesnoth with the whole different factions thing (I had bandits/elves/mages/elementals as my races) so i want to basically create an elementals faction from my old game and make it for wesnoth.

So most of teh conceptual work is already done in terms of setting out the basic ideas. I also understand that i can not expect my faction to turn out exactly like it did in my old game as the faction must be balanced for wesnoth. if you want I can post what stats I've already developed.

Magnus Xen

[Magnus Xen]

Kestenvarn:
I've never used Gimp or paint shop pro so i'm not so sure how that will go but I can try using Gimp if using paint is going to be a real problem. but unfortunalty I'm not going to swop based on one person's opinion but if enough people ask me to rather use gimp I can seeing as I am just starting.

MX

[Iris]

MS Paint doesn't handle PNG transparency. And you NEED transparency for most art in Wesnoth. More generally, MS Paint doesn't handle PNG pictures properly. And Wesnoth uses PNG pictures.

The GIMP and Adobe Photoshop, AFAIK, are good tools for making Wesnoth art, and both of them handle PNG correctly.

[Thrawn]

Kestenvarn:
I've never used Gimp or paint shop pro so i'm not so sure how that will go but I can try using Gimp if using paint is going to be a real problem. but unfortunalty I'm not going to swop based on one person's opinion but if enough people ask me to rather use gimp I can seeing as I am just starting.

MX

Use Gimp. It has a pencil tool, and an easier color selection process than MSPaint. Although it is more complex-looking, you can still easily do all the basics, but on a transparent background (meaning when you put the units in game you won't have a white square around them )