Chapter 2. Becoming familiar with the Art Editor
You may think that game making is all about writing code, but think again. You’ve probably heard the acronym STEAM in school—it stands for science, technology, engineering, art, and math. These subjects all share similar thinking skills, which means learning how to draw can make you better at science and math.
Drawing is about angles and ratios and fractions. It’s about creative problem solving and figuring out how to take an idea from your mind and get it onto the screen. Thinking like an artist means understanding which colors go together, how to break down objects into smaller parts, and how to create depth with shading. These are all things you’ll learn with this book.
Pixel art is a lot more forgiving than paint and canvas; remember, you’re not creating Picassos, you’re creating Pac-Mans. Take a deep breath if you’re worried that you don’t have the talent to design your own sprites. I promise, you do.
You’ll practice recreating shapes using the shortcuts Scratch provides in its art workspace, such as the Line tool, Square tool, and Circle tool. This will get you comfortable with drawing on the screen with your mouse, which is different from drawing on paper. You’ll also learn how to build sprites pixel by pixel to give your images a retro feel like Dig Dug or Super Mario Bros.