Topic Exploration: Art Styles

Introduction

As I got further into this 3 week project, my ideas for what I wanted to focus on within the MA developed too. My current idea has changed quite a bit from my first one, being the topic of Accessibility within games, and now the topic of Art Styles.

As I researched during the latter part of these last few weeks, I came to the realisation that I'd like to focus on art styles within games as a topic. I've always had a love for art history in general, and discussions of modern technology and developments within game art is something that sparks a lot of joy within me and I have always been passionate about learning more on this subject.

A particular field within this topic I'd like to focus on, at least at the moment or firstly, is the Art Nouveau style - one I can confidently say is one of my absolute favourites. 
I've noticed particularly within games that this style is not portrayed much, and yet, what can be seen as its counter-part - Art Deco - appears quite often in games, especially architecture or environments.

I believe I would like to explore deeper into these differences, compare why some styles are used more frequently and how in games, and perhaps in my practise; experiment and apply to games such lesser-used styles. 

Project Outcome

For the first 3 week project, I decided I wanted to explore the idea of creating assets of the same nature but exploring their differences in a different art style. I chose to design five different street lamps in five opposing styles; art deco, 'Tim Burton', art nouveau, Aztec, and futuristic. 

Reflecting upon this practise, I found it quite interesting and useful to analyse and break down what makes or breaks certain things, like a simple street lamp, and looking at how far a design could be stylisistically pushed while still remaining seen as "fuctional". It made me ponder about visual communication within prop design, and I realised this is something I'd like to explore further within the MA as a whole.

I decided to do a simple prop like a lamp post because a lot of games have things like this. The simplistic nature also allows me to explore the extents of what could still actually counts as a lamp post, too.

Design Process

#1 - Art Deco Lamp-Post

Starting off, I took major inspiration from Genshin Impact's newest region; Fontaine. This whole region is based on what seems to be France, and also the Art Deco movement. I saw this small light source in-game and this is what sparked my initial idea of doing the same prop but in different art styles. This is the only one in my concept art that is not 100% my design - I wanted to instead imagine what this asset could be like if it were a full lamp-post, and build up from that. 

#2 - Tim Burton Style Lamp-Post

For the second design, I wanted to try something that was a bit more contrasting to the first one. I was looking at Tim Burton's art style and noticed a lot of the winding, spiral shapes, and tried to incorporate this element into the design. I firstly thought this lamp-post should have a normal, straight base, but I later on ended up changing it to have that sort of split in the middle where it goes off to one side. Perhaps this addition is one that is not particularly rooted in the real world - perhaps it wouldn't make structural sense -  but, an area I wish to delve deeper into during my MA research is the fine line between realism and stylisation.  

In comparison to the art nouveau lamp next, the Tim Burton one still has a lot of rounded, spiralling shapes. Yet, quite obviously doesn't fall under the typical 'art nouveau' style or label. I'd like to research deeper into this as a whole, too - the underlying differences between what determines an art style.

#3 - Art Nouveau Lamp-Post

This design is probably my favourite and the one I had the most fun with. Art nouveau is one of my favourite styles, with Alphonse Mucha being one of my favourite artists. My main inspiration for this were these art nouveau floral lamps I found online (at the top left of the references in the above collage image). Florals are used in 99% percent of art nouveau drawings and so it seemed only obvious to include such in the lamp post design.

From there, I decided to use frequent art nouveau spiral patterns within the lamp design. Adding the spirals was pretty straight forward, given that they're just spirals, really. The main challenge was figuring out the amount to add while keeping in mind the general composition of the lamp post design as to ensure it didn't feel lop-sided, too top heavy, too bottom heavy, etc. 

While I was still experimenting with the Tim Burton style lamp post, one of the versions of my sketches had this cool duo interlinking base. I instantly thought that this was very art nouveau, and decided to save that design for the next lamp post instead of the Tim Burton one. 

#4 - Aztec Lamp-Post

For the fourth design, I wanted to explore a bit out of the conventional idea of a lamp post. I tried to break down what one was in my head, and came to the conclusion that it is just a source of light, and that's the sole intended purpose. 

With that in mind, I created an Aztec themed design that kept within the generally tall silhouette, but played around with the actual light source - this time being a few candles embedded within carved stone. 

I don't know much about the Aztec art style, so I stayed away from stylising it too much, and instead gathered references from real-life. I found that it was quite hard to trust works from other artists online that claimed their art was Aztec if I didn't know what went into the style as a whole. 

As I wanted to reference realism more than stylised art here, I ended up coming across this Aztec stone lion head and chose to make that my main focal point. 

#5 - Futuristic Lamp-Post

I'm not too keen on this one. I think it functions fine for the intention of a lamp post - it certainly provides a lot of light - but in general, I'm just not a fan of the futuristic, Cyberpunk-y style. I just don't find a lot of joy in hyper-realistic styles that intend to predict what our architecture or world would be like in X hundred years.

Knowing this, this is a point that I'd like to research more into to perhaps change or understand my views.