Creating Stylized Game Assets by Ashleigh Warner

A 10-week course for creating finished props and environment assets with hand-painted textures for a stylized game. You’ll go from concept to final asset, building a portfolio-ready scene.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Create stylized, hand-painted 3D art for video games.
• Master the full pipeline from concept, modeling, UVs, to texturing.
• Build a complete environment scene with tiling textures, hero props, and foliage.
• Understand composition, color theory, and storytelling through environment art.

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic painting and modeling skills.
• Tools: A painting program (Photoshop used in lectures) and a 3D modeling program (3ds Max used in lectures).
• Hardware: A 3-button mouse and a drawing tablet are recommended.

📝 Description

This course is built around a simple idea: you learn by making stuff. Each week, you’ll tackle a new piece of the stylized art puzzle, starting with a painted cube and ending with a full environment scene.

The teaching is hands-on. You’ll watch pre-recorded demos where Ashleigh Warner walks through her entire process—from rough concept sketches and blockouts in 3ds Max to painting textures in Photoshop and 3D Coat. The focus is on practical techniques: how to paint believable metal, wood, stone, and cloth by hand, how to build tiling textures that don’t look repetitive, and how to use 2.5D card techniques for efficient foliage.

What sets this apart is the emphasis on design and storytelling. You won’t just learn how to push pixels; you’ll learn how to make your assets read clearly and tell a story. The course covers composition, color theory, and hierarchy—the stuff that makes a game environment feel intentional and alive. By the end, you’ll also take a stylized art test to simulate a real job application process.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Intermediate 3D artists who want to specialize in stylized, hand-painted game art.
• Artists looking to build a portfolio of game-ready props and environments.
• Anyone who wants to learn a professional pipeline from a senior industry artist.

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Ashleigh Warner is a Senior Environment Artist with over a decade of experience in the game industry. She currently works at Riot Games on an unannounced R&D project. Before that, she spent years at Blizzard Entertainment on the World of Warcraft team, contributing to six expansions including Legion, Battle for Azeroth, and Dragonflight. Her expertise lies in hand-painting low-poly game art and building cultures through environment storytelling. She holds a BFA in Communication Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Master of Interactive Technology from The Guildhall at SMU.

🏁 Final Result

• A portfolio-ready stylized game environment scene, including a hero prop, tiling terrain, foliage, and supporting assets.
• A completed stylized art test that simulates a real job application process.

📢 Guys, this is a Group Buy campaign, check the GBC forum thread to get access

You can find the course preview in the download section below.