Everything You Need to Know About 2D Video Game Art

2D Game Art refers to the visual elements created for games that operate within a two-dimensional space. These assets consist of flat characters, backgrounds, objects, and user interfaces without the three-dimensional depth of 3D models.

Artists employ vector and pixel art methods to create intricate and optimized visuals, guaranteeing seamless performance on all platforms. 2D art's simplicity makes it versatile, fitting various game genres like retro-themed styles and contemporary indie projects. Even with the popularity of 3D, 2D game art is still important due to its effectiveness, aesthetics, and diverse creative opportunities.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear these words — two-dimensional game art? Something old-school, probably pixelated, and original. Such moments can make you feel like a gaming connoisseur who has unraveled the truth unknown to others. However, this feeling has another side, with many nuances hidden behind simple but heart-warming graphics.

In 2D games, developers use a flat graphic design based on sprites with zero 3D geometry. Sprites are visualized on the screen as flat images, and the camera lacks perspective (orthogonal projection). Let us better talk with some examples instead of convoluted terms. Look at Hollow Knight, Children of Morta, or Tiny Bubbles to understand what we are talking about.

Not all games with 2D art stick to the limits of two dimensions. Some titles successfully combine 3D environments and characters with two-dimensional gameplay. For instance, in some games, the camera can show you the world from the side, cruising from left to right, while your character moves only in two dimensions. This combination creates a cool 3D effect that adds points to the visual style, albeit with no real practical functionality.

In addition, there are games with 3D geometry and depth, where the camera shows everything in orthogonal projection instead of relying on perspective. This popular game solution uses a bird-eye camera combined with an isometric view (Disco Elysium, Path of Exile, etc.).

Working with animation in 2D and 3D projects may be surprisingly different. Most 3D games use skeletal animation: each model has its rig with other sections, and by moving their parts, artists animate the entire model.

With 2D art, you must build frame-by-frame animation and combine those frames into a sequence or sprite sheet. These frames are shown quickly, similar to how a flipbook or stop-motion works. A typical second of animation traditionally requires 24 frames, also called 24 fps (frames per second). However, to optimize production, many animations now use 12 fps, where each frame is repeated twice to reduce workload and production costs without sacrificing fluidity.

The creators of the critically acclaimed Cuphead used this technique to animate characters in their game. This method can be pretty effective in the right hands.

It is a popular career choice for many artists because 2D art is often used in various marketing promos, cartoons, and presentations, not just games. It can be very demanding, though, as it requires understanding the rules of composition, experience with staging light and shadow, academic drawing, and knowledge of color mixing basics.

Furthermore, creators who work on characters and models must be more than familiar with human and animal anatomy (even if they do simple visual art). It can be more difficult to convey motion with two-dimensional art, so artists must be creative with effects, poses, and animation sequences. Key responsibilities include:

1. Design characters, environments, and props that fit the game’s style.
2. Create concept art to guide visual development.
3. Animate characters and objects for lifelike movement.
4. Develop UI elements like menus, icons, and buttons.
5. Collaborate with designers to integrate art seamlessly.
6. Maintain consistency with art direction.
7. Produce promotional artwork for marketing.
8. Optimize graphics for different platforms.
9. Stay updated on trends and techniques in 2D game art.

Therefore, an experienced artist must be equally skilled at hand drawing and digital art, armed with an analytical mind, and ready to learn from others.

“Game artist” in big studios is a broad collective term that unites multiple specialties under one umbrella. It includes concept art creators, illustrators, character designers, environment artists, UI/UX designers, and other creative positions. Let us explain what they do.

These are specialists who visualize the idea of future art. They draw crude sketches to explain how a character, object, or particular location might look. This job requires an open mind and unbounded vision to search for relevant materials from games, movies, cartoons, or just real-world photos to use as references.

Concept art creation is about variability and searching for multiple options instead of producing complete pieces. Sketches are just the foundation, the very first step of visualization. Others will take approved images and finalize them without the help of concept artists. So if you have ever seen concept art and wondered why it looks unfinished, now you have an answer.

Artists of this kind work on static images—for example, those seen on loading screens, covers, and promotional materials. Their creative minds also produce posters with the main characters of the game which are included in various deluxe editions or virtual postcards for the community.

Every game needs a user interface consisting of numerous screens, menus, panels, pop-ups, etc. UI designers take care of all these seemingly less important visual elements. They know where to place buttons and how those should look to catch the gamers’ eye without interfering with gameplay. They understand how to make the interface consistent and synchronized with the game’s settings. Honestly, it is much harder than you think because artists must understand the gamers’ logic and needs.

The action in games takes place somewhere. So, you need to draw a digital world where everything happens. Call in a team of professional environment designers, and they will create realistic landscapes, futuristic cities, medieval buildings blended with hi-tech, and anything you can imagine. To do that, environment artists must have a deep knowledge of architecture and masterfully work with perspective and lighting.

These artists will provide humans and humanoids, animals and aliens, cyborgs and robots, mutants, and other god-forsaken creatures — whatever characters you need. No character designer can draw even a basic figure without solid anatomy knowledge of different species. Character artists enliven half-baked concepts, emphasizing the special features and traits of personages (for example, adding clothing and weapons according to the fighting style) and adding a special unique flavor to them.

Jacks of all trades and masters of some. These well-rounded professionals have tremendous drawing experience that allows them to fill the gaps in every department, from concept art creation and illustrations to character and environment design. Usually, such pros are needed on small projects (or limited teams), where one artist creates 2D art, makes textures, does modeling, and does basic rigging.

2D art comes in various forms and shapes that form different styles. Some call them visualization concepts, but we prefer to say “visual art styles.” Here are a few popular examples you probably have seen in games.

Early game consoles and computers lacked the processing power for complex visuals, so developers used pixel sprites—tiny, grid-based images of individual pixels. Despite these constraints, developers achieved remarkable levels of detail, crafting rich, intricate worlds with limited resources. Early 2D game art styles from this era, like those in Super Mario or The Legend of Zelda, set the standard for visual storytelling in games.

Pixel art games have been getting a huge resurgence in today's land, particularly among the indie game development community. Although these games use the same basic principles of creating images from pixels, modern technology has allowed for enhanced visual effects like blur, ambient occlusion, and dynamic lighting. The unique charm of creating 2D game art in pixel style is its ability to evoke nostalgia while offering modern gameplay experiences.

Modern 2D games rely heavily on vector art graphics, especially since many titles aim for a clean and sharp visual style. Unlike pixel-based images, vector graphics are composed of paths defined by mathematical formulas, making them scalable without losing quality. This is essential for games to be played on different sizes of screens and resolutions to make the artwork look higher quality when viewed on a mobile device or a large monitor.

In minimalist game design, vector art is often the go-to choice due to its simplicity and efficiency. The smooth shapes and uncluttered vector graphics designs enable developers to produce pleasing, fresh games. Many 2D game art software programs, such as Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape, specialize in vector design, enabling artists to efficiently create scalable, high-quality assets.

Hand-drawn animation remains a timeless technique in the world of game development, rooted in traditional animation techniques where each frame is crafted by hand to create fluid, lifelike movement. This method involves meticulous attention to detail, requiring artists to sketch multiple sequential frames to depict motion, much like the early days of retro game design.

The process often begins with concept art creation, where characters, environments, and props are visualized in 2D before animators bring them to life. When creating 2D game art using the hand-drawn method, each frame is individually made and spliced together to create fluid animations with a unique expressive style that appeals to an earlier generation as well as a contemporary audience.

For decades Photoshop has remained the tool of choice for many professional artists. Most studios praise Adobe’s software for the ability to do various routine tasks in one click with scripts.

Despite being the golden standard, Photoshop is not the only tool for creating 2D art. Here are a few popular alternatives to consider.

• Affinity Designer — a graphics editor by Serif, which was originally developed exclusively for macOS but eventually got both iOS and Windows versions. Positioned by the creators as "the fastest graphics editing software," it supports many image formats and comes with a large set of settings and features.
• Autodesk SketchBook Pro — a raster graphics editor software that allows you to work with animation and supports import/export to PSD files. It is available for free for personal use.
• Pixelmator — this software is available only for macOS and iOS and, therefore, fully integrated into the Apple ecosystem. What's interesting about it is that it uses machine learning to work with images most efficiently.
• GIMP — a free graphics editor that can be a good alternative to Photoshop. Rather flexible as it supports third-party plugins.
• Krita — is an open-source drawing tool. Has a huge and active community that constantly works on improvements and adds new features to the program.

In a world of high-resolution graphics, 3D, and realism, there is still enough room for original 2D projects made with a passion for the craft. They don’t need ultra-realistic designs and complex visual effects to immerse you in the process. Let us suggest a few fantastic titles we played and thoroughly enjoyed.

The developers from Vanillaware have created a side-scroller RPG with incredibly beautiful animations. They have intertwined traditional fantasy motives with loveable heroes and stunning imagery. All that together gave us an epic action-packed adventure, where every cutscene is nothing short of a Hollywood masterpiece. Characters, monsters, locations, and even simple objects in Dragon’s Crown are made for classic games and books (e.g., Conan the Barbarian).

Pixel art is what you expect to see in classic 2D platformers and old isometric games from the SNES era. But today, developers can use this art style in other genres as well. Meet Prodeus, a first-person shooter with pixel graphics right from the ‘90s. If you love old-school shooters, you will be delighted to meet the same gunplay and level design in this game. Not many FPSs bring back that distilled nostalgia today. The devs from Bounding Box Software made a smart choice and included a wide range of graphic settings to let everyone tune the game’s visuals according to their taste.

This game draws a lot of inspiration from Minecraft but throws in many other good features from well-known games. As a result, you get an action-adventure game with open-world, sandbox, and platformer features. So if you love platformers, you are in for a treat. To succeed in Terraria, you must be efficient with many movement tools and learn how to avoid enemy attacks. It is going to be hard but mainly due to constantly being distracted by gorgeous 2D art in each zone.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Terraria/comments/16g8sph/boreal_wood_walls_or_regular/

The surrounding world in Braid pleases the eye with colorful imagery that shimmers with different shades and tones. The melodic music harmoniously complements the juicy picture. Braid does not spell primitivism as many other platformers do. Two-dimensional art here works perfectly, and with any added depth, the game would lose a hefty chunk of its magic.

Braid is yet another indisputable proof that indie games play the most important role in today's electronic entertainment industry. While established studios and publishers are chasing after realistic graphics and special effects to make games more like movies, talented creators demonstrate that there is an alternative approach to digital art.

When seeking a reliable partner for 2D art production, it’s crucial to find a studio with a strong portfolio that understands the technical and creative demands of game development. Look for a team with experience in creating scalable graphics, ensuring that assets can be adapted to different resolutions and platforms without losing quality. This is essential for maintaining visual consistency across diverse devices.

Beyond artistic skill, the ideal partner will collaborate with your team, ensuring that 2D assets align with your overall game design and narrative vision. Look for studios with strong communication practices, flexibility in adjusting to feedback, and a proven track record of delivering on time.

Passionate game designers at Argentics work profusely on building original worlds and inventing unique characters that set the mood and attract the audience. We are fully dedicated to the game development craft and ready to take on any project you have in mind. Reach out to us and have a nice chat!