The Art Bible

Meowster · Wed 14/01/2004 21:45:45

Unusual Art can help a game stand out and provide an interesting element to a game. Can you imagine if Psychonauts used realistic characters? The design of the characters helps show the bizarre, Tim Burton-esqe style of the game. Realistic characters wouldn't be able to show this and might also take away from the tone of the game.

Or if Grim Fandango had used an Anime style, or if Full Throttle had used a Psychonauts-Style, would they be the same game, or if Monkey Island 2 had used Grim Fandango-style 3D rendered backgrounds... They'd be the same game, but would they be the same?

Well, this thread is for you to mention/show us your favourite Art Style or Artist. Maybe if people are looking for inspiration for the artistic style of a game they can flick through here and see what various people like. I'm gonna call it an Art Bible, and if anybody is ever stuck for inspiration they can read this thread and see lots of wildly different art styles, condensed into one useful thread, hopefully.

I'll start.

I admire the art of Tetsuya Nomura, who designed the characters for a lot of Final Fantasy games. My favourite of his designs have to be the characters from FFIX, which looked as though they'd walked straight from a Pixar/Disney movie.

I loved the characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas... they were so bizarre and weird!

I also love Igors art, because it's bizarre and weird, and goddamn beautiful, and is so simple but effective and atmospheric.

Trapezoid · Wed 14/01/2004 21:56:39

I don't know if it's my favorite, but I love the art in animations from Bitter Films. It's so simplistic, yet instantly recognizable and extremely demented.

Oh, also, Steve Purcell's artwork is too damn cool.

LordHart · Wed 14/01/2004 22:01:32

I like the art by the guy who did that Rejected cartoon... just stick figures, but one hell of a funny cartoon.

Meowster · Wed 14/01/2004 23:22:02

Ack, I forgot the ever-awesome BILL TILLER. I admire his backgrounds and use of color so goddamn much it's ceased to amaze me and moved into the realm of INFURIATING me that I can't seem to capture his damn techniques.

TheYak · Wed 14/01/2004 23:25:37

Tim Burton's a nice pick. As far as morbid/cartoony goes, I'm quite fond of Jhonen Vasquez' work. For art in general, Escher & Giger spring to mind as favorites. Space Quest 4 wasn't my favorite of the series but the Giger-esque portions of the game (the place you first arrive at and return to later) were quite nifty.

MrColossal · Thu 15/01/2004 00:06:36

ultimo: Don Hertzfeldt

i love:

http://secretmuseum.matterwave.net/index.html

this guy's art. guy i met from the first and only post i made on the Real Ultimate Power website. His roommate started Real Ultimate Power.

http://www.cafesale.net/bengal/

Bengal is absolutely amazing full stop.

http://sylpher.com/jes

my girlfriend is also absolutely amazing.

http://moviepoopshoot.com/boogaloo/archives.html

This comic art is very very awesome. Sadly the server is slow as shit. Word.

http://plasticflesh.pixelpod.net/

my friend Stieg Retlin is amazing x2.

http://www.beguiling.com/productviewartcatmul.asp?P_NUM=2630

The only sample of art by Ben Catmull that I can find. He's totally rock awesome and I want to be his best friend.

http://www.thislife.org/pages/trax/chriscomic/1.html

Chris Ware, amazing amazing amazing amazing.

http://www.ashleywoodartist.com/praxis2/

Ashley Wood, ditto. And not just cause he has a comic called Automatic Kafka about robots.

David Mack [not any good images of his online] does Kabuki and it's amazing

http://www.celiacalle.com/

Celia Calle, gorgeous

http://www.fareldalrymple.com/

Farel, also gorgeous.

http://www.davidchoe.com/

David Choe, rock.

i'm gonna stop now cause i could do this all day and it's 7pm meaning that it's night time and there is no day in site so i'd have to do this for 12 more hours.

one just has to remember that one is not these artists and that when looking for inspiration one should not get too caught up in the "Oh my god these guys are amazing and I suck tits!"

Trapezoid · Thu 15/01/2004 02:00:40

Gotta mention my sister, Emmy. She's fourteen and rocks more than most of you.
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3886653/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3961858/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3242016/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3903034/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3176327/

She keeps making me proud as hell.

Ryukage · Thu 15/01/2004 02:24:55

Quote from: Lili on Wed 14/01/2004 21:45:45
I admire the art of Tetsuya Nomura, who designed the characters for a lot of Final Fantasy games. My favourite of his designs have to be the characters from FFIX, which looked as though they'd walked straight from a Pixar/Disney movie.

I also love Nomura's character designs, but if I said something looked like it came from a Disney or Pixar movie, I'd mean it as an insult.

I love the artwork in the Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer OAV, but I'm not sure it'd be appropriate for an adventure game. Same artist did the Fatal Fury anime as well, I believe.

I'm not particularly fond of the character art, but Cartoon Network's Justice League series has gorgeous backgrounds.

Meowster · Thu 15/01/2004 12:16:34

QuoteI also love Nomura's character designs, but if I said something looked like it came from a Disney or Pixar movie, I'd mean it as an insult.

Not Disney OR Pixar, Disney AND Pixar. There's a huge, huge difference.

TheYak · Thu 15/01/2004 12:27:21

Quote from: Trapezoid on Thu 15/01/2004 02:00:40
Gotta mention my sister, Emmy. She's fourteen and rocks more than most of you.

I probably count as most of you. Checked it out and she's got some real talent. Professional-quality coloring/cartooning and she's young yet. I'm too old and crotchety to grow as an artist.

(I secretly suspect that Trap's parents used genetic-manipulation to obtain offspring and are starting their own army of wunderkind)

Nacho · Thu 15/01/2004 12:36:16

Quote from: Trapezoid on Thu 15/01/2004 02:00:40
Gotta mention my sister, Emmy. She's fourteen and rocks more than most of you.
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3886653/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3961858/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3242016/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3903034/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/3176327/

She keeps making me proud as hell.

Awesome... lucky me that I decided to take a look to the pics before posting "more talanted than most of us!???!1! SUCKER!1!"

Now IÂ´ll have to swallow my words... :'(

Trapezoid, tell youÂ´re sister that she has (at least) two admirers in this community...

Pessi · Thu 15/01/2004 16:28:39

Actually, Farlander, she's a better person than most of us. For a while I thought she was better at drawing. Phew! Seriously - great stuff, Trapezoid's sister!

Eric: Really great artists there! Many of which I haven't seen earlier. Thanks!

I personally like Craig Mullins' work over any other (that I've yet seen).

http://www.goodbrush.com/

Here's another one I'd suggest. Very, very good but not as good as Mullins.

http://hpx1.free.fr/

Here are some pieces from the masters like William Bouguereau. UNBELIEVABLE stuff.

http://www.artrenewal.com/

Shattered Sponge · Thu 15/01/2004 18:01:08

Quote from: Lili on Thu 15/01/2004 12:16:34
QuoteI also love Nomura's character designs, but if I said something looked like it came from a Disney or Pixar movie, I'd mean it as an insult.

Not Disney OR Pixar, Disney AND Pixar. There's a huge, huge difference.

You said 'Pixar/Disney', which tends to indicate an either/or. So he wins.

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of Yoshitaka Amano, who did character designs for the first six games in the series, and remains 'Image Illustrator' (I don't quite know what that means, either; just what mobygames credits him as) for the rest of the series.

He started doing character designs for anime back in 1967 at the age of 15; he's probably most well-known in that field for doing Vampire Hunter D's designs, but his best work (IMO) was on a film called Angel's Egg (if you ever get a chance to see this film, do; I had to get a really low quality copy off of kazaa, with the sound gradually getting further out of sync with the video as the film went on, but I was still transfixed by it). There's a pretty good AE fansite here: http://www.spiteyourface.com/angelsegg/ which includes some pretty good screencaps.

Amano's website, www.amanosworld.com, includes galleries and a bio, and is in English.

Nacho · Thu 15/01/2004 23:59:29

Quote from: Ryukage on Thu 15/01/2004 02:24:55
Quote
I also love Nomura's character designs, but if I said something looked like it came from a Disney or Pixar movie, I'd mean it as an insult.

Lovely... Nomura is a genious because you like him, but to get something similar to what Pixar does in an insult...

Las Naranjas · Fri 16/01/2004 00:14:20

There's also a difference between the two, in that Disney makes technically brilliant films which are nonetheless nauseating and no longer experience the success they once did.
Pixar makes technically brilliant films which have some merit and thus recieve success.

And the former has discovered it's more profitable to merely distribute the films of the latter [much to the horror of the older hands within the company] and choose to interpret box office receipts as people only wishing to see CGI films rather than people not wishing to see crap films.

And now that Pixar's 5 film contract is up, I wouldn't be surprised if they no longer deal with Disney, especially since they don't need the brandname and with their record could easily gain lucrative deals with other distributors.

Bluke4x4 · Fri 16/01/2004 02:17:48

Favorite artists:

Gary Larson (Far Side)
Bill Charbonneau (Voices in my Hand)
Mark Parisi(Off the Mark)
Derrick Fish (Dandy and Co.)
Eggie (Abby)
Jhonen Vasquez (SQUEE, JTHM, Invader ZIM)
Tim Burton (You know who he is!)
Jarrod (Forgot his last name... He's my cousin. But he can draw an awesome dragon as easy as picking your nose and has a gnome statue collection. Beat that!)