Art Style and Working from Precedents
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In this lecture from my Game Prototyping class, I talk about the barriers I see for contextualizing games among the fine arts. I also talk about how to establish and work from an inventive art style and design tricks to help you broaden your influences beyond games and pop culture.
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Art Style and Working from Precedents
- 1. ART STYLE AND WORKING FROM PRECEDENTS Game Prototyping – Kent State University ChristopherTotten
- 4. Dan Silber – portfolio work
- 5. ChristopherTotten - @totter87 http://gameartstudentbullfrog .tumblr.com/
- 9. Hi dad…
- 16. Takeaways An “art history” perspective on game art An overview of possible trends in indie game art Finding opportunities for reaching artists with existing skills Benefits of traditional media knowledge in game analysis and design Open conversation on art production methods ChristopherTotten - @totter87
- 17. GENRE (grouping of media based on form, medium, subject matter, or other organizing criteria)
- 20. genre History painting – Religious, historic, or allegorical topics Portrait painting Genre painting – scenes of everyday life Landscape Animal painting Still life ChristopherTotten - @totter87
- 21. genre History painting – Religious, historic, or allegorical topics ChristopherTotten - @totter87 Karl Bryullov, The Last Day of Pompeii, 1827-1833, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
- 22. Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans, 1849-1850, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France
- 26. Jesse van Dijk, Concept art for Destiny, 2014, Found on Kotaku Australia “Fine Art”
- 27. Left: Andy Park Concept art for God of War III, 2010 Right: Screenshot from God of War III
- 32. Left: Gomez sprite from Fez, 2012 Right: The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer by William Morris’s Kelmscott press, 1896
- 36. ChristopherTotten - @totter87 From: Sh*tty Gamer Takes twitter: @GamerTakes
- 37. ChristopherTotten - @totter87 Cuphead background art by Caitlin Russel
- 38. Theories of game analysisChristopherTotten - @totter87
- 39. SINGLE WORKTHEORY (an approach to studying games that considers them as single, self-contained objects)
- 43. COLLECTED WORKTHEORY (an approach to studying games that considers them as collections of artworks that work together to form an experience)
- 45. Hi dad… I’m proud of you son
- 47. PRECEDENT (studying previous works of art to inform your own)
- 49. Manifold Garden by William Chyr
- 51. Dr. Smalls and the Giant Who Forgot His Name by GP LabZ Jet Set Willy by Matthew Smith
- 52. Learning goals • Game design history • Art direction • Platform analysis • Trend analysis
- 54. DESIGNTHINKING (synthesizing disparate bodies of knowledge into a single product or solution)
- 55. “My favorite thing about being an architect is that if I’m doing, for example, a hospital project, I get to learn about doctors and what they do during their day, and how to make it easier.” ~Matthew Geiss
- 57. Walden by Tracy Fullerton
- 59. Dialect by Elizabeth LePensee and Thorny Games
- 61. Brukel by Bob De Schutter
- 62. “It is the best of what we can do with art all wrapped up into something that becomes greater than its parts.Within games we have illustration, sculpture, musical scoring, narrative, and poetry.” ~ Chris Melissinos, game developer and curator, The Art of Video Games
Editor's Notes
- Today we’re here to talk about STYLE
- And art, and what art is
- Here’s the thing: The best game artists I know have lots of traditional art experience, but those skills are highlighted far less often than technical skills like rendering or proficiency with Photoshop or 3D art software.
- We’ve created a culture where new designers know software but can’t actually draw or use proper proportions.
- I have seen this in the wild…
- And it is terrifying…
- One problem is that our field de-emphasizes game making disciplines descended from the arts in favor of others.
- Even though the assets of games – art, music, level design, and so on – have clear influences from the broader landscape of the arts. A lot of that gets lost though, because we focus too much on the interactivity or the computing power that goes into graphic or audio fidelity.
- The other problem is a translation issue: we conflate skill with programs with artistic knowledge when that’s not the case
- There’s a bias towards software usage and technical art pipelines, and away from studying fine art principles.
- But when a game artist doesn’t know art, bad things can happen.
- So let’s break this pattern and talk about game art as art…
- The question is, what KIND of art is it?
- If we can contextualize game art as art, we can find historical precedents for solving some issues in the field such as lacking traditional art knowledge, lacking precedents for game art, and barriers to the field that currently exist for those without extensive technical training. We can also find opportunities for new art types in games and start an open discussion of trends we see in the field.
- First, let’s talk about the context of game art in art history. To do this we need to understand Genre.
- Today, we think of genres mainly in their literary or film contexts as they relate to the type of information the piece is transmitting or the type of story being told.
- In games, we think about the format of the game: 2D, 3D, First Person, etc.; or the game mechanics – platformer, adventure, role playing and so on.
- Between the 17th and 19th centuries, during the “academic art” period in France, art was strictly organized into a hierarchy of genres. These genres were separated not by style, but by topic of a painting, and had strict rules for how one could create art in each genre.
- Looking particularly at history painting, these were the paintings for which you could use monumental canvas sizes, nudes, and non-static topics. To have any of these elements in genres lower on the hierarchy was considered controversial. You could also only gain exposure as an artist under this tradition if you exhibited in official academy events.
- Gustave Courbet challenged this tradition by painting the funeral of his commoner uncle – a scene traditionally utilized for “genre” paintings – at roughly 24’ x 10’. This painting is indicative of the “realism” movement that celebrated common events with realistically rendered art works.
- Courbet and other artists’ breaking with the hierarchical form opened the doors for artists to explore other subject matter and techniques in painting, resulting in a plethora of styles and even entire art movements – Impressionism, Pointillism, Fauvism, Art Nouveau, Modernism, Cubism, Surrealism, Pop Art, and others.
- So what does all this have to do with video games?
- In modern popular video games, it’s common to depict scenes of epic setting or scale. Many big-industry commercial games, AAA games, utilize exhilaration a means to elicit “fun.” In many ways, they are like the history paintings highly valued by the academy art movement.
- Unlike history paintings, these pieces of art can vary in subject. Some eye-candy or mood-setting pieces of concept art show epic scenes just as The Last Day of Pompeii or the myriad of history paintings derived from the Bible did. Others conceptualize landscapes and close-ups of characters, depending on the production needs of the game.
- Regardless, these works are painted at very high resolutions to photorealistic standards and reinterpreted within games as scenes that best utilize the power of modern consoles while exciting the player.
- As it stands, we also have a limited “academy” scene in terms of how artists get “into the industry.” As an educator, I can observe the reactions of students to a culture of exclusivity in game art: beating themselves up trying to reach the high standards of the industry. Trying to all get into a few popular studios. I think this is a problem that the industry will have to soon address – lots of people studying games but too few jobs to accommodate them.
- Now, I know what you’re thinking…
- What about pixel art Chris?
- In a Digital Games Research Association Conference paper by scholar Jesper Juul titled High Tech, Low Tech Authenticity: The Creation of Independent Style at the Independent Games Festival, Juul explores the art history of winning games at the Independent Games Festival.
- By observing the transition from AAA-like 3D games to retro pixel art, he contends that pixel art has become for many designers, a sort of return to the roots of video game graphics. An effort to recreate the authenticity of the game medium much as the Arts and Crafts movement of the 19th century created hand-made objects as a rebellion against the Industrial Revolution.
- Pixel art also has advantages: not only can it be very beautiful, it can also be accomplished in a very short amount of time. For many it is ideal for game jams and other quick game-making events. It also has a much lower barrier of entry for people who are otherwise “not the artistic type.”
- The downsides of pixel art, however, are that while it was once the sign of being “unique” it’s now EVERYWHERE…
- …and that it is not much different from how games looked decades ago. In many ways, it’s become just another “way video games are supposed to look.”
- It’s not that we need to change pixel art or any of these other styles, it’s that we need to change ourselves and get ourselves out of the mindset that graphical horsepower and photorealism equals quality.
- And especially as developers, we should be finding ways to not only change our attitudes, but use those changes to make inventive connections between games and art.
- So how do we do this? First, let’s talk about some theories of game analysis…
- The first is what I have observed as a dominant attitude that, in my opinion, causes a lot of these problems – Single Work Theory
- In terms of production, single work theory works a lot like Auteur Theory in film, where the director is considered the film’s author. In games, this is where you get a dominant “game designer”
- Without going into too much depth, this concept has been the subject of some ridicule in games even within the last year
- You’ve also heard me say this before, but this is also where my skepticism of the “games as magic wand” approach to serious games comes from: to merely have a game isn’t good enough, we have to focus on the content and way that the game is constructed to aim it towards transformational goals.
- The first is what I have observed as a dominant attitude that, in my opinion, causes a lot of these problems – Single Work Theory
- The first is what I have observed as a dominant attitude that, in my opinion, causes a lot of these problems – Single Work Theory
- So if we can allow ourselves to see games in this way and see individual parts of games has having come from the world beyond games…
- then maybe we can make games influenced by works beyond just other games and pop media.
- In design school, we were taught to use what’s called “precedent”, which is searching for previous works to help guide your own designs. Basically, if someone solved a problem similar to the one you have – a problem of site, construction, style, and so on – then research that previous work to see how you might proceed.
- But again, don’t just use other games as influences in your work, but works outside of games.
- Doing that can help you come up with some really unique things
- Now, those of you who are my students in my Game Prototyping course are wondering – what does this have to do with our project where we have to literally research games from old consoles and mimic their art and gameplay style?
- In the project, you are studying both the graphic limitations of a bygone console and the types of games that were popular on your chosen console in order to come up with a set of design criteria for your own work.
- In the project, you are studying both the graphic limitations of a bygone console and the types of games that were popular on your chosen console in order to come up with a set of design criteria for your own work.
- And according to the parameters I’ve set up for you, at some point you’re going to learn things like 2D game engines and pixel art, but those aren’t really the point – the software just supports these other artistic and design goals.
- That’s a skill called “design thinking”, which is the ability to synthesize disparate bodies of knowledge or bits of information into a single product or solution. “Design Thinking” has been buzzword-ified in recent years, but it’s nonetheless a powerful concept.
- One of my own professors put it this way when he was telling us about the experience of being an architect. If you can synthesize the needs of a project, platform, client, or even just a art movement you think is interesting, you can make games about any work or concept, and that can make your work more unique.
- Such as Abstract art…
- Or transcendentalism…
- Or literature…
- Or the development of language
- Or an old comic strip
- Or your family history…
- And that’s how we can make meaningful and artistically relevant games. It’s not about technical skill, but about a synthesis of artistic forms wrapped in the package we call games. We set artistic goals first, like make a game about the development of language, then work backwards to determine the best set of tools or materials that will help us accomplish our goals. The things that make games come from rich and storied histories, so it’s important to learn how to incorporate them into our works.