Art Terminology - Roareye Black

Artforms Gallery Can Store

Traditional Art
Traditional art is a form of art I'm sure you're all familiar with. It is the method of putting pen or pencil to paper and drawing. You can sketch, colour, and create whatever you like on a physical canvas/paper, and as long as the entire image is done by physical materials, then it qualifies as Traditional art.
Our tutorials here will go through the basics of drawing, through sketches and all the way through to colouring your own art as well as perfecting your lineart.

Digital Art
Digital Art is a method where you either scan in a drawing, or draw it using a tablet, and then use a professional program such as Paint Shop, Fireworks, Photoshop or other like program to finalise the lineart and colour the image in. It's different from Oekaki because Oekaki strictly uses hand-drawn lineart and then only pixel art to finish off the artwork (Oekaki can be said to be the bridge between the two artforms). Digital art is the use of a more professional program to achieve dynamic lighting effects, shading tones and other such qualities using digital tools.
Our tutorials here will teach you what tools you have available to you, what each of them do and how you can use them to create stylised and professional looking pieces of artwork.

Oekaki Art
Oekaki in itself doesn't HAVE to involve pixel art. It is usually the term used for (usually anime) artists to use a tablet (Peripheral which allows you to draw like normal and the computer copying your every move) and usually using a specific program (OekakiBBS was the first one) to do shading. So where does pixel art fit into this?
Sometimes, instead of using a program, an Oekaki artist will draw out the character model on a tablet (Or piece of paper then scan it in) and then use a program like MS Paint to colour it. In the professional games industry, this same technique is used in games such as Street Fighter, Capcom Vs SNK and King of Fighters. They draw out the basic pose of the character, scan it in, resize it to a certain scale and then colour it. For simple animations (Such as breathing) they simply do subtle edits of the base artwork inside the Paint program so that they don't have to draw as many frames by hand. This is how Oekaki is blended with pixel art on both a fan and a professional scale.

Pixel Art
Pixel Art - The general term for all pixel based artwork, as it is literally pixel art. Pixel Art can include all the terms on this page, but in everyday use, it is described as artwork made pixel by pixel on a program such as MS Paint. This means there are no colouring or drawing aids from things like Paint Shop Pro (Which can do the colouring for you) and is usually landscapes or portrait shots.

Dolls - Where a pixel artist has made a base (Hairless, clotheless etc) of a person or animal for the purpose of others editting it with whatever clothing and hairstyles they wish. However dollwork is editting of another person's artwork, and as such can never be claimed as your own art. Doll art is especially popular on sites like DeviantArt and give a good entrance to new artists to experiment with pixel art, however in itself Doll art is rarely considered it's own art.

Sprite Art
Games include alot of pixel art, but in a game pixel art would be non-playable images. Taking Sonic as an example, the cut-scenes where Sonic is talking but not being controlled are pixel arts. However the controllable character animation which the player must input a button or direction for the character to move is a sprite. Sprites are made from both general pixel art (Pixel by pixel) but also by Oekaki. Any imagery which is controlled by a player is referred to as a sprite and spritesheets are available on this site (Downloads section) and other for you to see each frame of animation.
Spritesheets - Literally a large MS Paint canvas of sprites. These are usually taken ('Ripped' is the term) from the ROM of a game by a 'Ripper' who then compiles them into one easy to use canvas. From here, an artist can edit the images or take them one by one for use in their own fangame or animation sequence. Although spritesheets are commonly referred to editted artwork, there are sprite artists who create full spritesheets and character animations from scratch, pixel by pixel.

Designing
Designing is the process of organising ideas and thoughts onto paper until you create the final product. Put simply, design should be all the of the paperwork and background effort that makes your showcased artwork have that extra special something.
This will help you go from sketched ideas all the way through to professional standard blueprints and give you an idea of the scope and detail that archictecture, landscaping and object designing entails as well as the ability to design a detailed character.
Used to a huge degree in modern gaming, designers can get their way into the industry through designing levels, objects, characters and bringing their unique creative thought into a project. The gaming industry sie of this is dealt with in Games Design, however the artistic basics of the skills you need can be found here.

Literature
Literature is a non-visual artform, consisting mostly of text to tell a story. Literature is still popular today against competition such as film and gaming because it allows it's reader to visualise the story in their own way, and interpret their own meaning from it, whereas on film or games the characters, sets and overall look are controlled on screen by the set/costume designer.
Literature can include many different topics, and it's work is often seen in cult videogames all the time. Games such as The Elder Scrolls which have a massive amount of lore in the game to read, or even in the script writing itself.
Alot of books are converted into films, but recently some genres have found an easier time progressing into games. Tom Clancy books are generally better recieved and well constructed than films by the same author. Certain genres such as these can create unique environments which are far more fun to participate in than to simply watch.


Artforms Gallery Can't Store

Music Audio
Music Audio is where we have all of our instrument-based audio. Most of the time this sort of music is played in mp3 format, but there are other extensions such as wav and aac. We have tab sheets in our Downloads section which are tested to make sure they play correctly, which you can pick up and try out.
Our tutorials here will mostly be focussed on equipment and how to choose and set it up.

Singing Audio
Singing speaks for itself, it's the ability to use your voice as an instrument in a musical way, keeping in time, tone and tune whilst (Usually) relaying a message within the lyrics.
Our tutorials here will give you good guidelines on how to start singing and try and optimise your voice to become a better vocalist, but no cash-back guarantees if you still sing lousy afterwards. It's your neck afterall.

Vocal Acting
Voice Acting is heard in games all the time, as well as on radio dramas and cartoons (Such as Disney, anime series etc). The name says it all really, you project your voice into a microphone and try to show all of a characters emotions, feelings and intent in just your voice. Sometimes voice acting goes horrendously wrong (For comedy, see the House of the Dead series), however it's quite a shame that if the voice acting is perfect, it'll mostly go unnoticed.
I suppose that's the point really, it's an addition to a game's realism rather than a necessity, but done badly it sticks out like a sore thumb. All of the tutorials we have here are made so you understand the benefits of what equipment to get and how to get your voice acting quality up to a decent standard.

Game Design
Game Design is literally all about the initial and in-project design and conception of video games. Video Games Design itself is at it's most necessary at the beginning of a game, when little to no code has been generated and the characters aren't finalised. The game design team have to create the final look of the characters, the environments, the game's graphical look overall and make sure it stays together throughout the creative process.
Our tutorials here will teach you how to start getting involved and familiar with how the creative process works, which avenues into the video game industry exist and how to merge your talents to have the best chance of gaining valuable ground in the business.