What is Video Game Clip Art? (Gaming Art)
Picture this: you’re strolling through a sea of endless video game titles, each vying for your attention. Your eyes glaze over the uninspiring parade of plain text covers—until suddenly, you’re captivated.
An electrifying game cover jumps out at you, pulling you into its world with stunning artwork that not only pops but also perfectly encapsulates the essence of the game. Welcome to the power of video game clip art—an unsung hero turning mundane boxes into magnetic masterpieces.
Gone are the days when a simple title could do all the talking. As the video game industry grows, so too does the competition to make your game cover an irresistible visual treat. Text alone, no matter how cleverly stylized with color or font choices, just can’t cut it anymore.
It’s like putting lipstick on a pig; it might be a slightly better-looking pig, but it’s still a pig.
But what really makes a game cover sing? Graphics and artwork. And it’s not just about looking pretty. The artwork must be a visual symphony that resonates with the game’s core themes.
Think about it: would you expect an action-packed adventure game to have a dull, static image? Absolutely not! You’d expect to see dynamic scenes bursting with life, excitement, and motion.
Believe it or not, the allure of an interesting cover image has swayed many gamers to part with their hard-earned cash simply. On the flip side, a poorly executed or uninspired cover can spell disaster for sales.
So not all of us are Michelangelos with a mouse and keyboard, able to craft unique, eye-catching artwork on a whim.
This is where clip art swoops in to save the day. It’s the ace up the sleeve for those who may lack artistic prowess but still want a cover that oozes professionalism and appeal.
When used judiciously, clip art can elevate your game cover from “meh” to “must-have,” making it not just a container, but a vital part of the gaming experience itself.
What is Video Game Clip art?
We can define clip art as a pool of ready-made artwork images. You can buy large libraries of video game clip art that are organized alone for video game themes. They include action clip art, horror clip art, an adventure clip art and many others.
There are also many sites that offer free collections of video game clip art. Video game clip art comes in many forms that include printed and electronic. However, most video game clip art today are available in electronic form.
Video game clip art is normally designed for illustrations. The images can be hand-drawn or digitized with art software. Looking at 1990s clip art, there has been a great transformation.
The clip art of today are digitized and their main products are illustrations.
Why use Video Game Clip Art?
In most cases, video game images are the right choice for illustrations. With video game clip art, they look and feel like high quality cartoons. They are universal and can approach a specific subject.
Whether you want a soldier jumping out from an airplane or an adventure image, they can design it. Clip art is well-designed and can be placed in any layout. Unlike various images, clip art can fit well inside a body of text, and there are several shapes of clip art.
With video game clip art, there is a massive amount of art available. This means no matter what type of clip art you are looking for, you can easily get it.
Another advantage of using video game art is that they look like commercial animations. This means they are probably the best form or images to represent a video game.
Also, most of them are royalty free. This means they are cheaper, and it helps to add interest to the cover page or video game box.
Types of Clip Art
There are many formats of clip art files, but the most common are JPEG files and vector files.
• JPEG–with JPEG, the images cannot be resized without changing the entire quality.
This means that the resolution of the files should be high so that the images can appear clear and smooth.
• Vector–Unlike JPEG images, they can resize vector art without losing the quality of the image.
It’s designed to have a flexible arrangement of individual shapes.
For you to open a vector file, they will require you to have a software program that can open and edit it a vector image.
Some people think there is no difference between vector images that are used in digital game art.
Most vector images can be classified as clip art but not all clip art are made of vectors.
Copy Right Protected Clip Art
Many video game designers face a dilemma when it is illegal to use a video game clip art. First, clip art can be classified as professional images, simple drawings, and technical illustrations among other definitions.
Even though the definition is flexible, it is not the case for the rights of use. The right to use these images depends on the copyright owner.
Hence, video game designers need to draw a line between video game art that is legit and those that can cause legal issues.
Ways Video Game Designers use Clip Art
Free video game clip art–there are many free clip art sites where you can get video game images. However, most free clip art is vulnerable to many viruses and spyware.
It is difficult to get the good free art for professional or business use. Hence, free video game clip art are not reliable.
Published clip art–most of the video game clip art you see online are published clip art.
It might be hard to know the source of the images, but if you would like to use them for commercial use, you need to get permission.
Contact the publisher to track the source.
Most of them are unique and are great for commercial use.
Copyrighted clip art–copyrighted video game clip art are not open for everyone.
For instance, it is impossible to get permission to use an image of Disney’s Mickey Mouse on your video game cover. It’s also illegal to copy such an image or cartoon character for your own use.
Copyrighted clip art are off-limits unless you have an agreement with the holder. Right protected/Right managed clip art–sometimes, a video game designer might want clip art that has never been used before.
Once you gain the clip art, the seller promises not to sell the image to any other video game company. They protect your rights to the image. Even though the clip art is more expensive than regular images, you will be the legal holder of the image.
Editorial use of clip art–these are images for sports, news, and entertainment. These images are used for the video game industry. However, most of them are protected. You will need to get permission from the copyright owner.
Final Thoughts
Before using clip art for video game projects, it is important to find out if they are copyright protected. You should also ensure that the image matches the video game theme.
There are various digital outlets on the Internet where you can buy a license and download all kinds of clip art. You can also hire an artist to create the video game clip art for your projects.