3 Tips for Choosing Game Graphics from Assets Store

If you are a one-man game development team, and you are also not an artsy person, it is pretty common that you struggle when creating graphical assets for your game.

To remedy this, you might want to hire an artist to do the graphical elements. But, if your budget is limited, another option is by using premade game assets. Whether it is the free or premium one.

However, this will lead to another problem. Inconsistency.

Blindly using different elements with different design styles usually resulting in a cluttered, messy, and unprofessional-looking game visual.

Messy looking graphics caused by using too many different styles

So, here are a few tips you can use before buying any premade game elements.

1. Use game assets from the same artist.

I've found that assets sellers tend to create consistent design styles in their marketplace products. Use this to your advantage, if you find good game characters, backgrounds, or UI elements, instead of looking for other items, the next place you should check is their artist's portfolio. Check whether they have other elements that you need in your game.

Consistent style and quality by a single artist.

For example, check this pzUH's portfolio! Even though the theme varies, his style and quality are quite consistent that you can use all his designs to build the whole game.

2. Use elements from the same series.

Sometimes, artists collaborate to create series. They usually create elements that complement each other. Eg, one artist creates characters and the other creates backgrounds or UIs.

Collaborating artists usually promote each other products in their description. Or put each other design in their mockup to show that the product is compatible with their partner's items.

Look at the product's preview or the description. Check if it mentions other designer's items. Something like, "you can find the background here". Or, "the characters are not included, you can buy it here".

3. Use graphics with similar traits.

This one is a bit harder. If you have chosen the graphic-assets. And then you need other items that are not available in option #1 or #2. Then, you might want to look at the different sources. It is totally OK. Just keep this in mind, try to pick assets with similar traits like outline weight, color mood, shading type, etc. For example, if your game uses bold outlines for the characters, then try to find graphic-assets that have bold outline too.

Look at this image below! On the left-hand side is artwork by craftpix_net, and on the right-hand side is artwork by ragewortt, even if they are not exactly same style, their drawings share almost same traits. Both designs use black outlines, cell shading without gradient and the same color mood.

While it is not 100% same, both styles share same traits.

To Wrap Up

If all those tips didn't work, contacting the sellers/ providers and ask them to create custom items is also a good idea. Not all of them will answer, but there is no harm in asking. Afterall, those are only tips. Be creative! Just make sure you know what you do.