Birth of a Freehand: One method for creating freehand textures

This article will attempt to explain one method of creating textures used here at the Emporium. This method is used when we have sketched something or found a design that we like.

Start: The image
To start off with you need a design or drawing you have done that fits the grid you will be tracing it on to. For this article we have used this design that we came accross in a book of Egyptian stencils.

Step One: Tracing
For this step you place your graph paper over your design (or if drawing you can draw right on the graph paper). Use a pencil to trace the design following the lines of the graph paper. You are basically pixelating your design. Since our example design was symetrical we only did one half. Here are our results.

Step Two: Clean-up
Now that you've got the basic outline of your texture it's time to clean it up a bit. For our example we also created the other half of our mirrored design. Here's where we are at so far.

Step Three: Add Shading and think about Color
At this stage start to think about what colors you would like to use for your texture and where you want to add some shading or other design elements. Our design is starting to shape up. We've put some shading on there and are thinking of using bold colors.

Step Four: Create!
Now that you have your design drawn on the grid you are ready to create it either in the game or on your computer to share with others. We've chosen palette 12 for our design becuase it had the bold rich colors were were looking for. Experiment with color and have fun! Here's how our example turned out.