Art Exhibitions in Tokyo – Spring/Summer 2026.
9 hours ago
"An Artist’s Perspective" was written by Jeremy Cantor, Character Animation Supervisor for Sony Imageworks. It's weird but this guy's iMdb page reveals he hasn't worked on any film project in a while. He did however make that lousy ol' Kevin Bacon craptastic 'Hollow Man', but I guess he moved on to be something else. Please note that the guy's a 3D animation-type guy, but I think his advice is still sound for savants like myself.
Anyway, I think I will post a bulk of this article he made, just for reference sake in differentiating the different mindset involved in designing for either a game, or film. Keep in mind that the ideas and opinions below are merely based on the experiences of a single artist and are not meant to be regarded as hard and fast rules. Remember that all rules have exceptions.
Variety vs Focus
During the course of a game production, you often get to wear many hats. You might find yourself doing any number of the following: character & vehicle design, modeling, texture mapping, background painting, character setup, FX animation, character animation and perhaps even level design and box cover art.
In the films industry, you are usually pigeon-holed into a single discipline for the duration of a production. This singular focus has the advantage of accelerating your improvement in a specific skill- set, but the lack of variety can become tedious.
Many VFX companies offer their employees the opportunity to “try out” for different departments between projects.
And of course, the variety in your work very often depends on the size of the company and production. Smaller companies and productions tend to expect wider skill-sets from their artists.
Creativity
In general, working on a game will give an individual artist more creative input than that of a film production.
On the higher-profile film productions, individual artists usually have very little if any creative input.
In games, the opinions of even the most junior members of a team will usually be given as much consideration as the lead designers or company presidents.
On a film production, however, an animator’s great idea often gets lost in a hierarchical maze once it gets filtered through the sequence lead, the animation supervisor, the visual effects supervisor, the producers, the director, and the director’s on-set psychic advisor.
The last game company I worked for had a great saying:
“The idea doesn’t care where it came from”.
I rarely see such a philosophy in the film industry.
Who’s Leading the Charge?
When an artist works on a visual effects shot, he is basically leading the charge. It is a VISUAL effects shot after all. The technicians are generally there to support the art on such shots. Many times, it’s the character performance that is telling the story of the shot. Modelers, physiquers, programmers, cloth/hair/particle FX artists, lighters, compositors, rotoscopers more or less follow the lead of the animator.
In games, however, the art/animation always plays second fiddle to the design & programming. When a game artist has an aesthetic reason for wanting to make an asset larger, but the programmer has game-play and memory reasons for wanting it smaller, guess who wins? Many games contain some really outstanding visuals, but when you get right down to it, the art/animation in a video game is really just a glorified status report. It is pretty much there to tell you the condition of your character and whether or not you’re wining. Simply improving the art in a game rarely improves the game experience, unless doing so directly adds to the realism and immersive quality of the experience.
Is Tetris more fun when the blocks are 3-dimensional and cast shadows?
The visuals in games are indeed very important, but they always take a back seat to game-play.
Technical Restrictions
In games, the artist will work within a box of technical restrictions, including polygon count, number of joints, frame rate, texture resolution and memory. Film artists have less technical restrictions (but often more creative restrictions). These technical restrictions force game artists to tackle what we call constraint-based-design, which often demands a higher level of creative problem solving prowess.Technical Knowledge
Game artists are generally expected to be technically savvy.
It’s easier to get away with being 100% right-brained in the films industry.
Innovation
The science of interactivity is still in its infancy. Knowing just what makes a game fun is still an evasive target. A good plot with well developed characters, solid acting, strong cinematography, intelligent directing, appropriate music, and decent FX will result in a good movie. The same rules do not apply in games. Make a strong plot and interesting characters for a video game, and junior will usually just ask you which buttons to press. A game must be easy enough to be fun yet difficult enough to be challenging. This is a fine line to walk and there are no formulas that can be implemented to arrive at a perfect balance between these two extremes. Game-play must be constantly tested and evaluated. Games offer more opportunities for experimentation. However, they also offer a lot of opportunities for failure. Films often fail as well, but it’s generally easier to figure out why.
Attention to Detail
Film work tends to demand a higher level of attention to detail. However, a game artist will finish a production with a larger quantity of work.An animator on a film production is usually given on average two weeks to complete a shot. A game animation is usually expected to be delivered in a matter of hours.
When working on a composite film shot (where a CG element is combined with a filmed background plate), a great deal of attention must be paid to matching the lighting and physics between the real and the invented elements. Games are rarely assembled this way, therefore, it’s usually more acceptable to bend the rules. However, internal consistency is an important element in both mediums.
Playing to Camera
In film, we have a saying:
“It doesn’t have to BE right, it just has to LOOK right.”
An animator can cheat a pose so that it looks perfect in the camera view, even though it might be totally off-balance if seen from a different POV. Most games are 3D these days, therefore the animations need to look good from every possible angle.
Global Fixes
A film animator’s favorite two words are “paint fix”. This means he doesn’t have to go in and fix that technical glitch. Rather, a 2D artist will touch up the final image later. No matter how many complex elements it takes to get there, the end result of a visual effects pipeline is a series of 2 dimensional images. There are many different opportunities along the pipeline to repair and improve a given shot. Furthermore, specific puppet setups and technical solutions can be applied to individual shots. A game, however, is an interactive experience. If you make a puppet change, it had better work for every animation in every scenario. And of course, there is no such thing as a “paint fix”.
Learning Potential
The film industry has been around a lot longer so there are more “seasoned” veterans around to learn from. However the potential to wear more hats in the games industry opens up a wider spectrum of potential instructors. Both industries can suffer from politics and ego problems.
Budgets
Film work tends to be more expensive than game work. The fact that more money is at stake is often the reason why there tends to be less opportunities for creativity and experimentation. However, the larger budgets in film productions often provide the artists with newer and better tools.Scheduling
Games are very difficult to schedule because they are new, innovative and the work is cumulative.
Scheduling a film FX production is usually much more straightforward. When a shot is done, it’s done.
Size
An average game production team is usually smaller than an average film FX team. This generally supports a more collaborative atmosphere.Films tend to have a wider audience. Most of the general public will recognize your work. Being a game artist will make you a hero to your kids and their friends, but your Grandmother probably won’t think you have a real job.
Job Security
At present time, the games industry seems a bit more stable.
Most game artists are hired into staff positions where they expect to be employed at the same company long after the current production wraps. Many film artists, on the other hand, are “production hires”, where they expect to be looking for work during the final stages of their current project. Many film artists prefer the variety of bouncing around this way.
The Finish Line
A broken film can still be released, even if nothing works. The story elements can be weak, the acting can be horrible, the effects can be less than believable, the music can be inconsistent with the action, etc. It might get panned by the critics or go straight to video but it can still be released. If a game has even a single crash bug, however, it can’t be put on the shelf. It can be very frustrating for an artist to see his work sit and wait for months and months while the technical glitches are addressed. Of course, it can be equally painful for a film artist to pour his heart and soul and the highest level of his aesthetic skills into a production during a year of 14-hour days only to find his work attached to a poor story that gets reamed by the critics and falls out of the theaters after only a few days.
Bottom line
In games the journey is more satisfying, in film, it’s the destination. In games, you have more creative input, more variety in the work, generally less (and more flexible) hours, however, the end product is often very small, with limited detail, low poly-count, lower resolution texture mapping, and is often only seen by 14 year old boys. In film, you’re often pigeon-holed into a single discipline, you have very little if any creative input, the hours can be very long and structured. However, the end product is on a forty-foot screen, and a much wider section of the general public will recognize your work.
And thus ends a long, yet informative article. At least its good to be able to distinguish between the two types. And you know what would also be great after reading such a long and serious article? Eating Rap Snacks. From Japan. Nothing can be cooler.
I especially like my chip bags that have great life lessons. It's like having the Ten Commandments on your Coke can or something. This stuff will make you rethink your life.
And speaking of rethinking my life, I've got some... well, "sad" stuff to announce in my next post. I'm not so sure how many of you would actually care, but well, it matters to me, so I guess you should care. I mean, there are at least a dozen of you who go here, right? That means you care?Shutting up now.
How could you? How could you, Void?! I take you in, I treat you like family, and this... this is how you repay me?! By... by treating me like a lampost?! A dead stump?! A discarded tissue paper with your leavings?!
Anyway, I've been feeling weird lately - partly because I haven't entered anything in Justy Ueki's Robotech Photo Contest (my fault) and because Robot: The Digital Manga just looks so f**king beautiful.
Yes! I know, you damn Void, its another post where I put up a series of really beautiful screenshots! So what?! I like to surround myself with purty looking things! And everytime I go to a comic shop or a high-end bookstore, I see this Robot manga thing, and its priced at 3,000.00 Philippine pesos! Yes! That's far too much! It's murder! Not with the money I'm earning now!
I don't care if it's in Japanse! I'll make the story line up! You see that panel up there? It's about a girl and a guy about to indulge in some S&M!
Gosh. So okay, what the hell is robot manga anyway? Here's Wikipedia again! To solve all my problems.
robot is a series of books containing the art of various Asian artists. The series was created by Range Murata as a way for upcoming artists to get their work published. Volume 1 was released on the October 21, 2004. The series is currently at 8 volumes.
Digital Manga Publishing is responsible for the North American release. The first volume was released August 6th, 2005. Due to recent developments in talks over publishing negotiations breaking down, DMP will not be publishing any future volumes past volume three. Rights to publish at least Volume 4 have been picked up by Udon Entertainment according to amazon.com preorder info.No wonder its overpriced. I might as well buy that highly acclaimed book by Ashley Wood.
"Stunning, dark, exhilarating and disturbing, Murata's collection of contemporary Japanese comic art gives an inside view of the explosive work happening there today." ~ Publishers Weekly
Do I dare believe the hype? Moving on, I also want to ogle at the impossibly, insanely, whatever-adjective-you-can-think-of art by Imperial Boy. An artist whose amazing use of perspective should be admired by all. I don't care why, it should happen.
C'mon, this piece is just oozing with atmosphere, brilliant color palette and unique composition. All the essential elements in digital art today.
Beautiful, eh? Well, shut it. Gaddamnit. I knew I shoulda named this blog 'The Angry Artist'. Oh well. To close out this post, and to open the gates for a full-scale invasion of manhwa and all that other Korean art stuff, I present to you the amazingly disturbing, funny and brilliantly animated Achi-wa Ssipak. A Korean film that kicks Robotech: Shadow Chronicles nuts. Hard. (If you have a thing for that Robotech movie, erm... well, tough luck - I didn't like it)
My search for my manhwa madness has led me to galleries filled with the most beautiful creatures not of this life. Yeah, they ain't real. But hey, who said another post where I post impossibly beautiful creatures is bad? In fact, there's your concept right there - hot women. Sheesh.
Most of this stuff are done by artists such as Victoria Frances, or Hyung Tae Kim, Shunya Yamashita, Ugetsu Hagua and some artist named Shingo.
You might be wondering why put up all these incredibly sexy images (at least for some) Well, it's because I hope to achieve that style. And I know, as an artist, that talking about your inadequacies of your talent does not make you an artist. It makes you a hack. That's why I type this post as a blogger. A blogger, people. So shut it!
I've always admired that manhwa and its version of the traditional 'manga-style' of drawing. There was always something beautiful and artistic about this whole manhwa thing (which I believe covers the art-style as well as its very own version of "manga-ish" books), despite being harshly critiqued as another clone of japan's manga. As far as I know, Manhwa is only beginning (at the time of this writing) to get international recognition, thanks to forward-thinking publishers from other countries.
Still wondering what I'm talking about? Well, Wikipedia describes it pretty well:
Manhwa has been influenced by the dramatic modern history of Korea and resulted in diversity of forms and genre[1], but including a mainstream style similar to manga. Distinctive manhwa can be found in editorial comic strips, artistically-oriented works, and webcomics serials.
Typical characteristics of manhwa:
- the style of character designs - manhwa aimed at teenage girls (which make up the majority of English-translated series) have a distinctively angular style of abstraction which contrasts with the more "cute" and rounded style of their Japanese, Chinese and western equivalents. This is the most obvious difference at a glance, but does not necessarily apply to manhwa aimed at boys or adults.
- The face and eyes are often exaggerated in a cartoon style while the figure is more realistic in proportion. [2]
- the left->to->right direction of the book (still quite obvious, but not very reliable, as some manga and manhua are 'flipped' around to the western way)
- the Korean name of the author/artist - usually double-barreled and with syllables that do not exist in Japanese (usually the most reliable method, the only exceptions being when a culturally-neutral pseudonym is used, or when the artist is of Korean ethnicity but resides in another country such as the USA)
- the untranslated sound effects (not always present) are in hangul, not kana or hanzi.
For now, I will talk about one such Manhwa artist by the name of 'joshclub'. Joshclub's characters have been described as a combination of photographic realism and a soft painterly touch. For some reason, I have found this to be more in common in Manhwa than anime. And there's that weird nose thing they got going on. I dunno, I wish a real manhwa artist would correct me on this.
One thing I can say is that (although I know its wrong to generalize like this) many of the Manhwa artist I've seen have always adopted a more muted color palette, whearas Japan-based artist use more... wild colors?? I don't know. I could be wrong on this, but like you give a flying f**k.
Wow. I think I'll ogle at this guy's art in the near future again. And more manhwa stuff too if you like, Void. What's that? Cat got your tongue? Yeah, I thought so.
With the bulk of gamers still reeling from the marketing beast of the Halo franchise, I find myself wondering if there will still be a market for the whole "genetically-modified supersoldier" thing - whether it be for that one guy people call Master Chief, or a whole platoon of em' like Gears of War. Who cares what the frickin' market thinks. The "genetically-modified supersoldier" genre will never get old.
If you wanted to hear me yak about these steroid-pumped prima donnas, you should check out the rest of this blog. Today, however, I'm going to make this post, about game intros. Yes, you heard me right, Void. I will yak about the coolest science-fiction game intros I have seen in my life.
Some of these videos I will show have made quite an impact on my creative direction now. Some of these games may be bad, while others are classics and I want to share
First up, Homeworld. The first Homeworld.
It's really one of the coolest intros ever, in my opinion, and yet it almost has no whiz-bang action whatsoever. It's the kind of prologue that really immerses you in its 'home-made' universe (no fancy commercial sci-fi license here!) The visual style is clearly inspired by anime, using the whole "Moving Picture Style" with a bunch of 3D elements thrown in for good measure.
The Homeworld sequel continues that tradition with an even deeper and more epic universe. I know, the whole series isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy a good ol' science fiction yarn mixed with religious undertones / mysticism then this series is definitely a treat. And that mothership. Sheer beauty.
Next, Freelancer.
This is a more traditional science fiction story, with many ideas mixed from various science fiction scribes. It's still a good watch, because the developer of this game is none other than Chris Roberts, the guy behind those Wing Commander games - and that atrocious movie. So be my guess if you like your sci-fi chock-full of aliens, galaxies blowing up, and all that hooey.
Now, the Killzone series (one that I have admired for a while...)
Remember my post on the whole CAPO thing, and Helghast stuff? (I can't find it in my own blog, weird...) How I found the idea of incorporating the evil Nazi behavior and design with science fiction sensibilities intriguing? Yeah, here I go again, totally enthralled by this series - which now, more than ever, is blatantly ripping-off World War II on a universal scale. You may not agree these are like, the best sci-fi intros and all that, but I don't care because you won't tell me what you think is a good sci-fi intro anyway, huh, Void? I thought so.
Enjoy these two cutscenes - I've already shown you the trailers earlier in this blog, weren't those nice as well?
Liberation - sort of a typical army/shogo watching over his precious army slaughter millions in his name (another wonderful idea taken by this developer) and its also a goodie, isn't it?
Look forward for more of my "game intro specials" like this in the future! C'mon! They're fun, aren't they? (Do not respond to this rhetorical question, but I suggest you give feedback or constructive ideas, Void)
Twenty-odd years from now, and nobody cares to comment. -MMG
“I approach illustration from the position of an aid to communicate something,” says Daniel. “That something can be more or less abstract.” An object, an idea or an emotion.
- Daniel Dociu
Excerpts from Daniel Docui's interview from ImagineFX. Something any budding artist should take into consideration. That means at least one of the half-dozen of you reading this might want to listen up for once.- As an industrial designer, Daniel is trained to see three-dimensional objects, visual and do crap to em'. This also means working with a project and overseeing its many aspects.
And this brings us to something that Daniel feels very strongly about: diversity. As an art director, it’s crucial to see the big picture. “I strongly believe that diversity is the most important quality in a team… We are a lot more different than we are similar in our ways of thinking.” And Daniel believes this should be a source of strength.
- True style is the result of all those influences that you’ve allowed to simmer over years and years,” he says. You must gather them and “distil all those fumes into something that’s representative of who you are.” The crucial thing is that it should come naturally. Affecting style in the name of cool won’t cut it with Daniel. “I think that is very shallow. I discourage that.
"You should not look for a style of your own just to be different, it should evolve over time as the result of where your true interests are.”
Example: “I’m definitely fascinated by the human figure,” he says. “But you don’t really reinvent anything. It’s just the take or the approach or angle.”
- “I think that what we perceive as talent is simply a person who has found a way to connect point A and point Z in their brain by a very convoluted path that we don’t relate to and can’t understand.”
Real talent, according to Daniel, is “effort, work and sweat.”
He thinks the regular definition is just a convenient shorthand, and backs this up with the observation that, “Talented people don’t use that excuse as much as people who lack it who say ‘I wish I had his talent’.” (Isn't that the point of this blog?? To say that I want to learn this or that?? What do you think, Void?) - However, laziness is beginning to trouble the creative industries. “Good-calibre talent is hard to find,” says Daniel. “It’s really hard to get through the hordes of people who have no business being near a pencil."
- Video games, comic books, animation – all of these are fighting a tide of graphical convergence. “The more unique or ‘far out’ your style, the more you restrict your audience,” Daniel observes.
How many of today’s artists had developed a mature style before they opened their first comic book?
- Somewhere along the line the goal ceased to be individual and became public property. It stopped being about perfecting your own style and became about who could do this style or that style the best. “I hope we are not falling into that trap,” says Daniel, adding, “Everyone says ‘yeah, diversity is good’, but I truly believe it.” Art directors should be guardians of the only weapon we have against uniformity – difference.
FlameDragon poses this question:
One person on gamefaqs a while ago criticized my drawing as not having much life in it, and I found this to be an intriguing critique. How does one make their drawing have "character" and feel alive? I know mine aren't since I was just drawing from photographs but what about in general? And what would I be able to do to get my drawings to have life?
Kev Ferrera provides his point of view:
Photographs capture the surface of things for one static moment. Art captures the artist and life force.
Art exists by itself. You must invest dramatic spirit into your work. You cannot get this from a photograph because a photograph was "drawn" by mechanical means. You must feel emotional as you do art. You can be technical too, but never coldly technical.
Try to get imbalance and tension in your work. Design the smallest items to the figures to the composition as a whole to have dynamic angles, lightning bolt shapes, spirals/helixes, stepping stairs, teetering shapes... have your figures caught in the act of moving, in between one movement and another (thus off balance), have torsional twist not just to the hips, but to every limb, the wrist the neck the shoulders the jaw, etc. Of course the torsional twist does not have to be a violent twist, it can be subtle... but investing your forms with torsional twist at all, will give it life, even in poses that would normally be static.
Think of everything as silhouettes. And think of silhouettes as black ghosts in a disney film. Think how much expression, without words, a black ghost shape can have. Then apply that to every aspect of your art, from the stroke of your brush, to the largest compositional shapes in your pictures.
Give everything character. Don't just render something so it looks like what its supposed to look like. Make everything personal. And your work will become personal. And this will automatically bring life to your work.
Seedling says:
Saying that a drawing "lacks life" is a lousy critique on its own. A helpful critique will tell you something concrete enough that you can actually do something about it without consulting a mystic. Some examples of better critiques would be, “this drawing lacks life because the interesting patterns created by the silhouette of the potted plant are lost against the patterned background” or “this drawing lacks life because the figure is in a stiff frontal pose that doesn’t tell the story as well as it could if he were turning at the waist and reaching dramatically for the McGuffin”.
Yoshitaka Amano, no reason his art is hereCreatix says:
Experience life first. This goes well beyond the idea of "draw from life". Sure, if you can sit in front of live nude models and bring a sketchbook to a park and sketch all you see that works but experiencing it is getting out there and really paying attention. Even if you don't have your sketchbook with you, just observe - constantly. Go to a club, a bar, a restaurant. Sit at a coffee shop. Walk around a mall. Go to places you don't normally go but where you still feel comfortable. Go to a Pet store and watch peoples reactions to the animals. Watch kids at play in a Chuck E Cheese. Hang around some old folks playing chess in a park.
I have to believe that the small details and nuances of life as it goes by is rewarded at some point in your work. Just as people say the key to great communication is to shut up and just listen, sometimes you just want to stop doing and start watching. To watch though you have to be there. Don't sit in front of the tv or at a video game all the time. Don't just look at people in cool photos sitting along the beach. Drive to one and experience it. When you start drawing you will remember those little experiences and they will show in your work.
As far as technical stuff goes, maybe focus on the hands and eyes. Hands show great emotion and are often neglected because they are difficult to nail down. Eyes show great emotion. If you draw something, think of the function behind it. Make it feel lived in and there for a purpose. Sure a gas mask is really cool but does his outfit reflect that? Does he have the marks of some chemical burn? Does his costume show his world is post-apocalyptic? A dude with a huge metal plate over his mouth might look cool and gritty but think about how he would eat? That might lead into other design choices (maybe tubes to absorb materials, etc.). Overall, it will make the piece feel more "real".
Okay, I just added these pretty photos because I like looking at pretty things when I read long paragraphs.
Check out Pixar movies and their behind the scenes stuff where they talk about why they made the choices they made. They do a fabulous job of giving life and emotion into everything - fish, robots, cars, whatever.
Kev Ferrera again:
I would suggest drawing from life a lot. And from your imagination a lot.
Copying over Bridgman's anatomy books will be a great help in the latter.
Maybe experiment and try out some styles of highly varied but all "alive" artists. Like Ralph Steadman, J.C. Leyendecker , Frazetta, Mignola, Djurjevic, Sienkiewicz, NC Wyeth, Fechin, etc.
You can always go back to photography once you find out what kind of things truly interest you visually.
------------------------------
This is not to say that one can't make fantastic drawings and paintings using photo reference. But the fantastic-ness would stem from the artist, not the photo.
To just copy a photo would not bring "the life" that FlameDragon means. (Assuming I have understood him correctly). Life is manifested in art by the will of the artist. If the will is to craft a duplicate of a photograph, the consideration of the artwork as a manifestation of personal force is bound to be neglected.
Chris Benett finally says:
Take a look at some good cartoons of famous people. Absolutely full of life and certainly using reference material but taking huge liberties with where things are that do not relate to the proportions on the ref material at all. When people ask me how I get likeness it is all to do with sensing the internal rythms of the structure - if you get that working then the thing will look right no matter how odd the proportions are. Have a look at Modigliani, El Greco, Giacometti, - stuffs all over the place yet feels 'right' and alive. Nearer to home, look at some of the character designs on here - nobody has the proportions and physiques of these things yet some of them are marvelously alive and 'true'. Look at the characters on 'The Incredibles' - proportions all over the place yet utterly convincing even in the static publicity stuff.
This is even going on in a Rembrandt or a John Jude Palencar, exactly the same principle, only it is a quieter version of it.
Some artists referenced by Kev Ferrera in his posts:
Bill Sienkiewicz, comic artist
At first, Bill Sienkiewicz was an exponent of superhero-comic artists. Then he went deeper into comics. Together with writer Alan Moore, he created 'Big Numbers'. The acclaimed mini-series 'Stray Toasters' he did alone, and it became a big success (re-released by Graphitti Designs). With Frank Miller, he created 'Elektra Assassin', another successful series for which he received the prestigious Yellow Kid Award and the Kirby Award. He also produced the acclaimed artwork for the painted biography, 'Voodoo Child: The Illustrated Legend of Jimi Hendrix', published by Viking Penguin.Bill Sienkiewicz has won many awards, received two Emmy nominations, worked on many successful films, has exhibited all over the world, and has had a major impact on the field of comic books. His latest solo work, 'A River In Egypt', is published by Oni Press. (Lambeik, 2007)
N.C. Wyeth
Newell Convers Wyeth (October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945), known as N.C. Wyeth, was an American artist and illustrator. Born in Needham, Massachusetts, he was the star pupil of Howard Pyle and became one of America's greatest illustrators. (Wikipedia, 2007)Mike Yamada's Silhouette Tip
Everyone has their own way of using this technique to problem solve and to resolve their design. I cannot speak for them, but I can explain my approach to this technique as a design exercise/step. Let me first say that I was trained in industrial design and I first used this way of working to deal with my shortcomings with drawing the figure. By eliminating the constructing of the figure and all the little bits involved in that, it allowed me to focus my attention mostly on the design of the silhouette and to break that down into simple components - gesture, shape vocab, massing, etc. I also found by working in this method, you could work back in with white (either photoshop or real paint) to expand the same shape vocab to interior of the silhouette.
I think one of the most important things to have in mind when using this method of working is to have a distinct purpose in mind when starting your silhouette which can be accomplished by asking youself a series of questions - what proportion is it? is it angular? is it round? is it top heavy? is it bottom heavy? etc. You can also taking this exercise further and add additional values, 1 or 2. This process works extremely well with hard surfaced objects. One thing to consider is to keep what you are designing in a draft view. If you introduce perspective/foreshortening, your brain feels the need to describe form rather than focus on the design of shapes.
Extremely helpful silhouette art tutorial. Check this for a better look.
Many of you may have figured out that I don't use the term "concept" so broadly, I might as well call this site "all kinds of stuff" rather than "Concept Central". (Which is weird since the former name is already the name for John Kricfalusi's own blog)But since I'm running the blog, I don't give a frack. And right now, I want to talk more about... erm... Video game's fascination with making their games uber-sexy, and the who this whole trend to make impossibly sexy women. I mean, what's the deal with that? Is this because of the whole glamorization of the video game industry and its struggle to maintain that it is indeed a juvenile pursuit?? What the heck am I blabbering about??
Wait, let me collect my thoughts. I mean, have sexy video game characters isn't new. You got Chun-Li from the Street Fighter series so yeah, it's been done for a while. But thanks to a certain Ms. Lara Croft, the industry gained a little more ground in a fully polygonal video game babe. A lot of other wannabe videogame babes popped out here and there over the next few years, but none were as memorable or had an impact as these examples... Now, its 2007, and hell, seems almost every game's got a super hot babe gracing the box art cover, or trying to flirt with the video game protagonist, or whatever!
Quantum leaps in processing power and rendering technology has helped fuel this trend to push these virtual vixens out. Now women in gaming don't just look like sexy mannequins, now they're even more life-like, sexy mannequins. And now we have a nice, healthy demand from teenage boys and young adults wanting more of this stuff. Whooooa!Anyway, you might think, the Japanese have been doing this with their videogame characters, but I say the Japanese are irrelevant because they've always been a very... "sexual" society. (As evidenced by their anime and manga alone). I guess it comes with the growing age of most gamers - and society's increasingly liberal attitudes towards this smut (That sounded weird)
So what's the point of this post? Well, basically to ogle at this trend the entire entertainment industry is going through. Sex has always been a big seller of media, and now it has completely invaded my beloved format. Yay! Which then makes me think of the applying it to my own project! You know what that means... Crap.
To round out this really, really weird post (minus all the other weirdness in my other posts), maybe you should watch this old list of video game vixens, and this other video intro for an old Xbox360 game that I have never played, but have admired from the distanced for quite some time. Yeah. Maybe you should do that. What do you think, Void? You wanna give feedback or something? Should I go back to talking about Robotech?*PLEASE NOTE* Playboy don't like their crap being uploaded on Photobucket. Woohoo!
