With the upcoming presentations due I took inspiration from the WW2 papers I had read in an earlier book and designed a back ground image for my slides. This will also be used in a few weeks on my design document to give my research and authentic interesting look. This is the process I followed.
This book was a great help to me. As I mentioned in my learning agreement I would be taking a brief look into the Special Forces within the period my game is set. This book offered me those visuals that i needed, since my main character will be designed to be an infiltrator.
In particular I was looking at special weaponry and items of clothing that could be used within the game. As I have said from the beginning, the aim of this research document is to get as much visual research and knowledge as possible before I begin to develop and hone down my own designs. Giving me that knowledge will allow me to create believable designs in FMPA2.
Here are a few of the images from the book that I found of particular interest and significance to my project. As you can see there is a decent amount of detail contained within the pages, and all of the items are ladled to help understand how they work and there function.
It was the image on this page in particular, that play a key rolled in one of my ideas.
The little identification card at the top of the page displays all sorts of forged information about the person, designed to help aid the disguising of their actual role with the allies. It made me think how i could possibly plan to present some of my work, in the form of a sort of Secret mission brief. Life for instance, pictures of targets for the player to investigate and blueprint designs of the rooms so they may navigate. All contained on some rustic looking, rough paper bound into a Mission file.
This is a program that is new to me and I hope in future to have a look into it. I wish to primarily focus on using Corel painter for this project as learning two new suits might be a tad too much work. This doesn’t mean to say in my personal time I will be able to keep so disciplined as to not experiment.
When browsing some of the potential talent among the art community on one of the popular sites Deviant art, I discovered this fellow. Borislav Mitkov, a Bulgarian digital artist with a strong personal style within his work is currently working for UbiSoft.
It is particularly his ‘Speed paints’ that interest me most, the quick, thick application of line is so technically placed. It is amazing how manages to contain so much with so little. These are the images that caught my attention initially and are my possible favourites.
You may have already noticed some continuity with my previous posts but I can’t stress the important this is to me, and finding the correct style in which to work to my best ability, and to the strengths of my work. I’m always looking for new techniques and methods of working, and Borislav has enlightened me on one of these.
He primarily uses Painter and ArtRage to produce his work. Both of these, unlike Photoshop are more suited to a more natural approach to producing works, featuring brush strokes and canvas options. Photoshop is more of a manipulation program that doubles as a painting program, where as these have been developed to imitate, and for the sole purpose of painting.
Recently I have been having a look around for more artists to take inspiration from for this project, through some extensive searching I came across Paul W Ruiz. A contemporary artist, his oil painting of the human figure I found interesting.
Following on from my previous research, it was the mysterious dark look to the work that I found particularly attractive, combined with the grain achieved from the think paint being drawn across the textured surface of the canvas. It added a rustic look to the work, tying in with the points I made about the illustrative work I looked at before. Making the work look rougher, dated and aged, rather than pristine and clean (new). Here are a few examples of my favourite pieces.
Untitled Man 2007 oil on linen
Saltimbanque 2008 oil on linen
El Desconocido 2008 oil on linen
Ausencia May 2008 oil on linen
The surrounding theme of this research is the fact that I want my work to look dated, I want the game to look like you’re playing in the period it is set, rather than modern and sleek. What better way to achieve than this through the artistic style. When I look at old war photos, they have an element of eeriness about them. Not only because you know what happened during the war but the way they are presented, often in greyscale from odd angles, and in a poor grainy quality. Rarely do you see a pristine colour photograph of everyone ready for the camera and smiling.
Here is a little more work from Ronald Volstad, a WW2 illustrator who is mostly known for the work he has done for a range of Osprey military history books. He pays a lot of attention to detail in order to generate these impressive images, quite in contrast to some of the artist’s I have seen. Though these are final, published products so it isn’t any wonder why he puts care into it.
The style is quiet a reflection of the era, and the colour schemes are quite true to the originals. Since computers were not so widely used it would have been illustrators who made the bulk of the imagery in books these sorts of books. So when you look at them now they feel even more dated, maybe an effect I would like to achieve in my work.
Pior is a French born artist, currently working for Blizzard entertainment. I stumbled across is page when browsing through other concept artists and was intrigued by his style to paint in particular. The way he lays down colour in a very think fashion especially when combine with dark and light extremes if find very appealing. Here are a few examples of what I mean.
It is almost as if he has used Oil paint, though in digital format. A style I certainly would like to reflect in my upcoming work also, even if it is only for a small series of images.
I may have a look into some oil/acrylics painters and see what I can learn from their work on characters, how they apply colour to shape the skin and contours of the clothing.
Here i have a found an image reminiscent of my previous work on silhouettes, you can see how the blocky designs are almost still silhouettes with very basic detailing and no colour.
Developed by Platinum Games, Madworld is a game of sheer destruction. Focusing primarily on aesthetics here, the game offers Graphic Novel style visuals with a Film Noir like colour scheme. The visuals themes are stark black and white, splashed with action words and tremendous amounts of bright red blood. The contrast between the blood and the environment only aids to make the fights look even more brutal, leaving rivers of blood running over all your surroundings.
I believe this to be more at the extreme end of the style and possible more Cartoonish that I would like to include in my designs, though it is important for me to look at both ends of the spectrum to be able to gauge where I what mine to sit. The style is still undoubtedly eye catching, and someone unique I am confined to say. As I have said before, without pushing the boundaries it is hard to develop original content these days with the sheer amount of games that have been produced over the years.
Developed by Platinum Games, Madworld is a game of sheer destruction. Focusing primarily on aesthetics here, the game offers Graphic Novel style visuals with a Film Noir like colour scheme. The visuals themes are stark black and white, splashed with action words and tremendous amounts of bright red blood. The contrast between the blood and the environment only aids to make the fights look even more brutal, leaving rivers of blood running over all your surroundings.
Despite my dislike for the amount of gore I still think that looking at mad world has offered me benefits, it is interesting to see how they have created fully lit environments using only black and white, something I imagine would be very difficult. Also, I like how they have managed to create texture and material effects using the same methods.
Here are a couple of style ideas I have picked out. The first being an image of the character from Saboteur in a low angle shot, strongly contrasted background to show the silhouette. It was obtained from the concept section on their website.
This second is a video teaser for a new game release Battlefield Bad Company 2. The visual style of the game itself is not like this at all but this video depicts a very interesting method. One I have encountered before, it takes multiple animations that move on separate planes, to create 3D effect.
Film noir was a phrase originally coiled by Nino Frank in 1946, a French film critique “who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films”. The term literally means “black film”. Not only because black and white was more commonly used but because it reflected the mood and underlying themes of the pictures.
Wikipedia has a surprising amount of documentation on the topic
The most important point is that, relatively speaking film noir is not a genre. It is more so the mood in which the film or clip is portrayed through use of camera and visual tone. “Film noirs tended to use low-key lighting schemes producing stark light/dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning.”
The dark tones of colour used are not the only thing that draws me to this visual style, but more significantly my interest is focused upon the masterful camera work. Traditionally the use of Dutch angles, low-angle shots, and wide-angle lenses or widely used.
Dutch Angle
A Dutch angle is achieved by tilting the camera off to the side so that the shot is composed with the horizon at an angle to the bottom of the frame
Low Angle
A low-angle shot is a shot from a camera positioned low on the vertical axis, often at knee height looking up.
Wide Angle
A wide angle shot will have a tendency to exaggerate perspective. Another characteristic are that “devices of disorientation relatively common in film noir include shots of people reflected in one or more mirrors, shots through curved or frosted glass or other distorting objects”
Mirror effect
Shadows
I hope this sort of work can help influence my own, the use of shadow and light are very important in my work and this seems an appropriate parallel. Adding mood, tension and sometimes fear to the scenes will prove challenging and feel that looking at these sort of delivery methods if can achieve the best results along with a unique style.
As I mention in the previous post, Saboteur bears some resemblance to film noir, even being shot in Paris helped me come to this conclusion. A couple of other films that also share this sort of style of the top of my head are Sin City, and Resistance, linking in with the style that I found to be aesthetically pleasing within the game.
I’m not so familiar with the Film Noir style but I will have a look into it more and add a post with more technical information.
“Enter the seedy world of a saboteur living in a stylized 1940s Paris, where the women are sexy, the missions are epic, and the revenge is satisfying.” img
Due to be released soon, Pandemics ‘Saboteur’ offers the player a chance to dive into Nazi occupied Paris taking up the role of an Irish racing mechanic called Sean Devlin, seeking revenge on a Nazi officer that has destroyed his life. The game entails in a host of different espionage type missions with the help of the French Resistance and British intelligence. Set in the 1940’s the look and feel of the game is very strong to the time period, and the cultural styles show through. Similar to that of say Hitman or Assassins Creed the play style has been developed to encompass a sand box style of progression.
I bumped into this game news when browsing some of the profile websites and once I had viewed a few of the images I decided it would be great to have a look into for this project.
The idea has links to what I am doing, firstly the infiltration style of play and also the more importantly the taboo subject of which they have included in the theme of Hitler and the German Rich. How have they addressed this issue in comparison to me?
Here are a few images from the game, the visual style of the game I personally find brilliant, it’s something that has had a strong appeal to me. It could be something to attempt to emulate in my own design, incorporating muted/no colour with splashes of action colour to lift them out of the screen.
In way I think that the Grey scale and Red actually help to build a 3d Image as the eye is draw to key points rather than the image as a whole, much in the same way 3d works.
It certainly adds atmosphere to the scenes in the game, it is strange because some uses full colour and others use the noir style. Come to think of it it’s similar to what I have seen in graphic novels and feature film. For example Sin City and The Resistance, the art noir like style. I shall have to practice some drawing similar to this later in the term to get a better gauge on it.
With regard to the taboos, game gets away with using this subject of women and Nazi killing because you as the player has reason to be doing it, it not just mindless. With my game the principle is very similar, so the reassurance that taking risks to aid originality with cause can be profitable.
