Create Art

Art Tutorials

These are a work-in-progress, and describe both how to make art fit into wesnoth's style, as well as giving some considerable tips on drawing in general. Especially useful is the External Tutorials page which lists some very good art tutorials available on the web.

General Computer Graphics

How to Anti-Alias Sprite Art - A means of removing the jagged edges on pixel lines
Art Supplies - What physical items you need to do larger cell-shaded art like that of Jetryl/Jormungadr/et al
Computer Inking a Sketch - Info from Jason Lutes on his portrait workflow
Scaling Digital Images - how to properly resize an image on a computer

Terrain Graphics

The following is information specific to drawing terrain for Wesnoth. Read Frame's "Tiles Tutorial" for a good overview of how terrain graphics work.

Tiles Tutorial - Frame's tutorial describing the process of making terrain tiles in wesnoth, and how they interact with adjacent tiles.
How To Make Seamless Tiles - The tutorial is aimed at Photoshop users, but the technique is similar with The GIMP.
Castle Tutorial - A description of how Wesnoth's castle tiles work (needs updating, but useful nonetheless)
Multi-Hex Tiling Tutorial - A description of how multi-hex tiles work.
Editing Castles - Instructions for how to make/edit castles (and other corner-based terrains) using yobbo's GIMP script.

These describe the system used to specify how terrains behave in game:

TerrainLettersWML - A list of the letters used to represent terrain types.
TerrainGraphicsWML - If you really need to get technical, start here.
Ayin's Terrain Graphics document - If you really, really need to get technical, this describes the terrain graphics WML system in depth.

Sprite Art

The following are different tutorials about sprite work compiled by various wesnoth sprite artists. These will give you the most specific-to-wesnoth information about making sprites, and are well worth a read.

Creating Unit Art - a list of specifications you will need to match.
Give Your Hero A Personality - tricks for editing existing images, including some clip art.
Basic Animation Tutorial - or "How to Animate Sprites for Dummies," covering the basic theory, and all of the mistakes to avoid.
Team Color Shifting - how to use our new team color system (only for wesnoth 1.1 or greater).
Creating Shadows Under Units - how we create the shadows for the units in-game
Making Bow Animations - the current standard for how we want bow animations to work

External Tutorials

The following page contains dozens of links to tutorials covering all manner of artwork, including sprite art. These were not made by wesnoth artists, but should prove very useful for general instruction.

External Tutorials