I was browsing recent photos on my mobile phone and stumbled on some of the raw photos I used to create backgrounds for my LD40 game The Dark Castle, and thought it would be a nice to talk about how to do graphics quickly, when you are just a programmer with some rough Photoshop skills and a so-so phone camera.

Example: I wanted to make a background that shows the location of my game, a dark medieval castle! Now my drawing skills are... rusty. Perhaps I could make it happen, but not in any LD timeframe.

So, photo manipulation? I had no castles around... but I did have these KLM booze bottles... and there is a moon outside, right? Time for some creative composition!

In hindsight I probably should have added a splash of color in this one to make it 'pop' more, but it is a good example of 'just combine what you have' arting + composition. :smile:

Other tips:

• Go outside, make photos of brick walls, hedges, gates... anything that would be a pain in the ass to draw
• Everyday items! Knives, belts, glasses with liquids in them (make it red/green/yellow in photoshop!)
• Avoid making pictures of things that are themselves primarily pictures, if you can (that would be more akin to using that image directly)
• Embrace one filter per game, for most images (for consistency in looks)