2D Portrait Work Project: Part 1

 

Intro

I decided to do some 2D portrait work after my research particularly for the Research in Context essay. After interviewing some industry practitioners, especially Kevin Manning, I felt as though most of these people's points were to emphasise the fact that in order to be a "successful" artist, 3D or not, most of their advice was to hone and focus on your fundamental art skills. 

This led me to believe that I should focus on this more as well, as when I reflected upon these ideas, I ended up feeling as though this is an area I hadn't focused on or practised in enough. 

So, I made a new learning agreement to explain the 2D work I want to try out. But, with the topic of MA being about art styles within games, this still hasn't changed. I just want to spend some time honing this particular area of my art in order to then (ideally) make all my other skills that come after the "fundamentals" improve too. 


I decided to open up some portrait commissions online. I thought that this would be the best way of motivating myself to varying my work and exploring different styles, since, in my mind: once you've accepted a commission and have received payment, you do have an obligation to complete it. You have an obligation to make your client happy and do whatever they want.

I know that this perhaps sounds a bit bad or forceful, but, I know that I myself work the best when I am under a brief that hasn't been set by me; making my own "brief" with my own standards and goals is something I have always struggled with. I think that having external accountability that makes me feel some amount of "pressure" to do this work is actually quite a good and healthy balance for me. Because of course, you cannot just simply decide to not do a commission after speaking and agreeing with the client, and taking their money... Too much freedom is something that just damages my work, as silly as this sounds. 

Another reason I decided to do these 2D portraits apart from what I just mentioned above is that this is an avenue of art I have always loved doing and have always wanted to do more of, perhaps as a main job, or just on the side. I find it really enjoyable when I get the inspiration to do it. 
I previously thought I wanted to be a character artist before I went onto the Games Design Bachelor's... But all I did were these (quite bad!) portraits digitally of random characters anyway. Essentially, it's just an area of art I want to improve, which I think aligns with the idea of honing your fundamental art skills that the industry practitioners I interviewed said to me to do.

To open these commissions online, I did them fully through an art auction Discord. It's usually used for Minecraft skins for LOTC (which I mentioned in my Pixel Art project post, a DND-like Minecraft roleplay server, for a refresher). Though, a lot of people in this Discord also want to get custom art of their characters too. 
You can set up your own "auction channel" and customise the price target and time, amongst other things. 

In the context of my MA being about different styles, I thought that doing these art commissions would be a good fit to explore this. I decided to not deny anyone of a commission when they bid on my auction, though, I did make sure to mention in my auction's description that they will be painterly but still sketchy and experimental -- basically saying "bid at your own risk". This sounds odd, looking back on it, but I believe that it ensures a definite variety in my work, which is what my MA is about. Getting out the comfort zone. Exploring different types and styles of art. 

Another point that I noticed was reiterated very often when doing work for my Research in Context essay was the importance of knowing your audience. This was particularly prevalent within the lecture series across multiple different lectures even of different specialisms. It's also a point I've seen spoken about a lot in general though, throughout the years and when researching for my MA as a whole. 

In the context of art styles, my topic, it's definitely seen as an objective fact of in order to have a successful "art style", I think the answer to producing that or deciding on that is to establish your audience. Who is going to play this game? If my game is for 7 year old children to play on their Nintendo Switch, am I going to make the art style very gritty, dark, and with horror-aspects? Well... Maybe not at first thought, but that's the point -- consider and know your audience beforehand in order to set up for success. 

Preparation - How do I even know my audience?

I feel like this is an important point to include an answer, to try and prove that I've indeed actually considered and tried to tackle this, after just explaining it to be very crucial as said by industry practitioners. 

So, how do I know how to cater to this group of people in this Discord? Well, thankfully for me, I would say I am in this community too, as in I participate in it. I am not an outsider, which I will admit, does give me an easier time in answering this question. 

This is how I picked my chosen art style, too: Renaissance-esque semi-realism. Since this Discord server is, like I said, for the "LOTC" Minecraft roleplay server, I'm already familiar with the sort of setting and aesthetics. It is mostly medieval with high-fantasy elements, but isn't really set or strict in this too, which allows some freedom in this regard. In game, you are able to view people's character "cards", which gives you information in an out of character sense of the character before you: their name, age, gender, etc. In this same "card", there is also an option to upload additional but optional character art.
This is something I personally just like to take a look at anyway, but upon evaluating this, I can confidently say I feel as though a lot of the art commissions of the community's characters are often trying to emulate old art styles in real life. 

Medieval noble art, Renaissance styles, and just generally "old"-ish styles are embraced and aimed for. This is quite a daunting thing to then read and think you need to perfectly replicate a Renaissance type portrait, but, I just think that the point is to try. To try and get to that point as much as I can, is what my mindset was with this. 

I think that just being able to show that this style is even what you attempted to recreate is a big plus in the first place. I can say that as long as the style isn't overtly anime styled or too cartoony, though, it seems to do pretty well. Or, better, at least. Realistic proportions that aren't too exaggerated or exaggerated at all is more popular. 

So, in my mind, I tried to break down what makes these "Renaissance portraits" what they are, and what this term/art style refers to now in 2024. 

The usual subject matter just tends to be a person looking at the camera with a neutral, default expression. The person is usually quite wealthy looking, dressed nicely for the time, and with accessories usually. I don't think the subject matter itself is quite what makes this art style, an art style, though. 

A lot of the time I feel like, Renaissance art does try to perfectly encapsulate realism as perfectly as possible, but it doesn't always. It has its own style. The faces never seem to look quite as realistic as they would when looking at someone in real life; there is their own twist, their own style, intended or not. This is my own observation anyway, trying to break down this style.  

Another obvious point, I feel, is that these portraits are aged now. There is usually weathering and dust now when we see these images on Google. We don't see how they were originally painted to the naked eye. And all of these things were of course not intended by now; no painter really intended for there to be canvas and paint cracks and for their colours to fade over time, but, it is now definitely a signifier of the style now in 2024. To not include this or try to emulate this I think is to ignore what makes the style now. ...We don't get the original Photoshop file with all the accurate colours and layers. 

Commission #1 

Speedpaint Video (3 Minutes)

With this one being my first one, I felt a bit rusty. I think you can see the struggle I had with her face especially at the beginning. My commissioner explained that she wanted her to not look like a child, moreso like a young adult. But for some reason, I felt like the face I kept drawing just looked way too young. I end up elongating the face and changing some features though, like making the eyes a bit less rounded, and making her have less of a smile which I think worked. 

Still as I was placing the basic black and white shading on her face though, I felt like it was still just too happy, which sounds odd. I then  finally end up changing her eyebrow shape to look a bit more like she's questioning the viewer in a way, I think. 

My commissioner was happy with this whole piece, though, after I had finished it, I felt like it was a bit flat. As in it didn't really have any dynamic lighting. 

For my first commission, these are the references that were provided:

Commission #2 

With this next one, I tried to set out to add the dynamic lighting I thought my previous commission lacked. Though, after I did this, I felt as though it actually took away from the intended Renaissance-esque portrait style. The first commission I think fits in that style way more.

Though, even with this in mind,  I feel like this is one of my commissions from this series that is seen as the "favourite" amongst the community, and myself too.  I think I realised with this that although I intended to try to stick within one set style, I think in reality bending that a bit to fit another description works better for me. It's still Renaissasnce inspired of course, but, now has become its own style. 

Commission #3

For my fourth commission, the client had won my auction and kind of wanted something I thought was immediately out of my skill area. He wanted art of a character that was not really humanoid, and was a lot more monstrous:

[I am Myochii in these messages, the client is JAMES]

Overall, the commissioning process I have found is really informal. I don't mind this at all though, and I think that perhaps being so informal and down to earth might be a bit of my charm in getting people to feel comfortable with me and make the process overall less intimidating. 

I did immediately offer to not go through with the commission based on the fact I didn't think I'd do a good job. But, the client here seemed to really want a piece from me and instead offered a different character of his for me to paint that was more in my skill range:

I decided to go through with this as I felt I'd be able to do it more justice.

Though, this commission has taught me to be more explicit in my auction descriptions. I now make sure to add "Humanoids only - feel free to message me beforehand if you are unsure if I can draw your character or not!"