2d coloring Techniques

#1 I'm not a professional game artist but I have looked at a lot of concepts and such and my general feeling of it is that you can use what-ever means you want to convey color and design provided that it gives a good sense of what the end result will be like. Most companies use Photoshop coloring, which I think is because the look of the colors will come closer to what the end result would look like.
Generally speaking the colors in the concept are only a basic refrence and aren't the end result anyway so as long as the idea is there, I'd say go with what works for you.

Alc

#2 I don't know why you couldn't use traditional methods such as colored pencil, paint; etc. But then you run into the whole problem of scanning your art or taking a good photo of it with dig camera or whatever., then opening it up in Photoshop, MSPaint, or CorelDraw or whatever you're comfortable with anyway to get it to work with your format. I've often done sketches and scanned them, doing the coloring and finish work in Photoshop.

I think that using that method works great to get your concept stabalized, but the end result, of course, will always be digital and in working that way you might find a happy medium between traditional art and digital art. I think alot of what is done digitally is done out of convienince and ease, though either way is not neccessarily better.

I use Macromedia Freehand alot, a vector based layout/drawing program similar to Adobe Illustrator to hash out outlines and detail for shapes for things that I'm working on, then I'll transfer the image to Photoshop to add the final detail -shading, color blends, lighting effects and such. Corel makes a program called CorelDraw that I think is as powerful as Photoshop and has some neat effects and features that rival PS, It's a little less intuative then Adobe's products but I think the price tag (and don't quote me) on CorelDraw is lower than Photoshop. I also know know a guy who does the majority of his art in Macromedial Flash...he'll draw and paint with it just like he would a canvas and then transfer it to Photoshop for the finishing touches.

I think there's nothing wrong with using traditional methods to create your vision AT ALL. And most of the best concepts start out on paper. But eventually it all has to end up in digital format one way or the other.

Your best bet is to experiment, eventually you'll come up with techniques that work for you. I WOULD DEFINETELY start on paper though sketch it, paint it blow your nose on it if you feel so inclined. You'll find that once your idea is there it's much easier to make it work in the digital format. It's all up to you, there is no right or wrong way to do it.

#3 Michael, I've always been interested in the hand drawn look for game textures. Problem would be getting them into the computer as you want it. A very good compromise is Painter 5-7 (or maybe lower?) I use 5 and the traditional tools are superb, almost perfect IMO. I'll try and find some 'pencil' drawings if I can that I created in Painter and put them on the web to show you how effective it is.....

#4 CorelDraw also has some good tools to 'sketch' in a digital platform. One thing you might want to look into is a Graphics Tablet. Wacom makes some of the best ones

Wacom Graphics Tablets

This will allow you to actually sketch on a digital canvas as you would peice of paper. It also allows you to work with varying degrees of pressure when you paint to simulate an airbrush, paintbrush etc.

I've used one before and they are very cool. They're kinda pricey but you might be able to pick one up used or on Ebay for a reasonable price.

I think Logitech has their version of a graphics tablet in the works too. They're really reliable as far as hardware goes and usually pretty affordable in their products.

#5 Thanks for all the replies! I think I am going to give photoshop another try(Ive tried it once before but wasn't too good with it.) Got any tips for it, inparticular how to do shading?

And about the wacom tablet idea. I have one.....but I can't get it to work very good.

For some reason, even though I love both of them, I can't get art and computers to work together very well. Go figure, my two favorite things to do and they won't coexist for me....

Thanks,
Michael

#6 The best tip that I can recommend for any graphics application (2D or 3D) is to go through the manual that ships with the software and do all of their tutorials. Once you know most of the tricks and features of the software then you can go forth and start to make your vision a reality. If you choose to ignore this, expect to have one hell of a hard time using the software and getting the results that you seek.

Logan

#7 well, a concept is a concept.

they don't even have to be colored.
i've seen anything from rough sketches to an oil portrait, to a photoshop color etc...