Week 1 - Lab Tasks

 1. Which games inspire you? 

• The Last of Us Series by Naughty Dog Games (Santa Monica, CA, USA)
  
• 'The Last of us' (2013) is set in a post apocalyptic America, the year 2033. It follows Joel, a man dealing with the death of his daughter as he is tasked with smuggling the potential cure for mankind, 14-year-old Ellie, across the US.
• 'The Last of us: Left Behind' (2014) is set in the same universe as the first. It bounces between a time three weeks prior to the first game and during a time jump in the middle of the first game, filling in the gap in time where we don't see the characters. It is set in a shopping Mall somewhere just outside of Boston. 
• 'The Last of Us: Part 2' (2020) is set four years after the first game. It follows a 19-Year-Old Ellie, who is now the playable character, as she navigates grief, anger, and a journey towards forgiveness. It is set in Wyoming, Seattle, and California.

• Uncharted Series by Naughty Dog Games (Santa Monica, CA, USA)
• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (2007) is set primarily in Panama, but also in an Amazon Rainforest and an unnamed Island off the coast of South America. It is an adventure game, heavily using exploration as a gameplay mechanic. 
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009) was the first in the series to use multiple locations. It is set in Tibet, Istanbul, Borneo, and Nepal. It is highly regarded as the best in the series and both expanded and improved upon on the first game's exploration mechanics.
• Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (2011) was yet again very branching with its setting. It goes through inner City London, the deep forests where you explore a French Chateau, a brief stint as young Nathan in Colombia, a castle in Yemen, a sinking ship, and the Rub' Al Khali desert (which for its time was hailed as having groundbreaking sand physics)
• Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (2016) is the final main Uncharted game. It explores a Panamanian jail, an Italian estate, a Scottish Cathedral Ruin, several Madagascan locations, and Islands off the coast of Africa. New Orleans and Boston were also used as inspiration for Libertalia, a pirate city hidden in the deep recesses of an uninhabitated island.

• Spyro The Dragon (1998 - 2000 / 2018) originally by Insomniac Games (Burbank, CA, USA) and later 'reignited' by Toys for Bob (Novato, CA, USA)
  
•  The entire trilogy is set around hub worlds that house smaller, off-shot levels that vary in theme and setting. The main mechanic is collecting items to increase the player's score to unlock more challenging levels and finally the bonus '120% completion' level.

• Crash Bandicoot (1996 - 1998 / 2018 / 2020) Originally released by Naughty Dog, later remastered by Vicarious Visions (NY, USA), with the 4th installment being made by Toys For Bob 
• Similarly to Spyro The Dragon, the later crash games focused on a branching hub world in which the player could choose which level they wanted to explore. The first, and the fourth, however are very linear, with levels being laid out in a specific order of completion. It is set in different time zones, and environments (a middle-age villiage, a space ship, prehistoric, Japanese temples, Mardi Gras, etc.)

• Life is Strange (2015) by DontNod Entertainment (Paris, France)
  
• Life is Strange Season 1 is set in the Coastal town of Arcadia bay (based on real-world Tillamook Bay) in October 2013. It is confirmed to be loosely inspired by the TV show Twin Peaks (1990), particularly the character of  Rachel, a missing girl that the player needs to solve the disappearence of. Heavily story focused.
  

• Life is Strange: Before The Storm (2017) by Deck Nine Games (Westminster, CO, USA)
• Set in the same town as Season 1, only three years before the beginning of Episode 1 (2010). It follows Chloe Price, the Deuteragonistof Season 1, as she deals with grief, love, and a newly formed friendship with the missing person of season 1, Rachel. Heavily story focused.
  

• Life is Strange: True Colors (2021) by Deck Nine Games
• True Colors follows Alex Chen, the protagonist, as she moves to the town of Haven Springs, Colorado; a fictional town based on various towns scattered around Colorado. One character from Before The Storm appears as a love interest. The story is heavily focused on emotions and how we deal with / feel them. 

• Tell Me Why (2020) by Dontnod Entertainment 
• A story set in 2015 in the fictional town of Delos Crossing, Alaska, (Inspired by Hoonah, Chicagof Island, Alaska). It's a Supernatural Whodunnit that deals with Native culture (Tlingit) and is heavily focused on the story of the main protagonists, Tyler and Alyson Ronan. It follows them as they find out the mystery behind their mother's past and her death, and also deals heavily with themes of grief and guilt. It's worth noting that it also features the first Trans-male playable character in a video game in the form of Tyler, who transitioned as a child. As such it deals with themes of Transphobia, and even delves into conversion therapy / camps. As a transgender man, myself, this game is one of my main inspirations due to how moved I was while playing -- the main goal in my prospective future career being to give players the same feeling I got while playing Tell Me Why: the feeling of awe, and of being seen in a medium I love.
  

•  The Walking Dead (2012 - 2019) by Telltale Games
• A post-apocalyptic Point-and-Click series of Episodic games developed in association with Skybound and Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead follows the story of Clementine, who is eight years old in Season 1 but is seventeen by the time the series finishes, as she navigates growing up in a Zombie apocalypse. She deals with grief, guilt, PTSD, and even adoptive motherhood (a definite reference to Season 1, where she is the one who is 'adopted' and raised by a man named Lee). It is set in the USA, based in different locations every season.

 

 Which studios inspire you?

• Naughty Dog
• Their art style has evolved since the days of Crash Bandicoot, but is now very much so rooted in extremely detailed realism. They are always at the forefront of game development, and their art is always impeccable, pushing each generation of console to the absolute limit with how detailed their games have become. The Last of Us: Part II, for example, even goes so far as to assign their enemy NPCs names that are then cried out by their allies when they are defeated. The environments are lush, packed with organic greenery and fungi to show how the world has once again been reclaimed by nature. Another detail I liked - as someone who loves weaponry and hero asset development - is how each weapon is deconstructed with every upgrade.
  They were also reportedly working on characters that consisted of 1M polys. However true this is, is all down to speculation.
  

 

•  Telltale Games
• Telltale are known for their Cel-shaded, Comic Book art style, and use it to really bring their source content to life. They focus on story as opposed to gameplay (disregardng The Final Season of The Walking Dead, which became a Third-Person Action-Adventure game), with heavy emphasis on decision making and branching narratives, almost like a 'choose your own adventure' book. 

• DontNod Entertainment and DeckNine Games
• As they both worked on the same game and as such the content i've seen from them are in the same style, I am grouping the two together. They center around story games, using semi-realistic, painted artsyle to give the divide between the harrowing content of the game (Life is Strange as a series is known for it's big, game-changing decisions and hard topics) and reality, allowing the player to crate the differentiation between themselves and the Playable Character / In-Game-Setting. 

• Toys For Bob
• Very much so grounded in cartoon-y, stylized games. Their characters are larger than life, bright, colourful, yet so detailed that even characters such as Crash Bandicoot -- a character who has been described as 'one big Pec' (Caddicarus, 2020) -- has dynamic, fully rendered fur. They're also known for taking characters from older games and redesigning them to better fit a modern audience, with some of the work they did for Spyro Reignited (the first game, as 2 and 3 were outsourced) being some of the best character design I have seen to date. Each world, each character, and each realm has it's own theme that mesh well with one another. I always say that Reignited is how my brain percieved the game to look when I was a child playing it on PS1 for the first time. 

 Which artists inspire you?

• Noelle 'ND' Stevenson
• Noelle Stevenson (who goes by 'ND' at the time of writing this, so as such I'll be referring to them in this way from here onwards) is a cartoonist and animation producer most known for their work on the Nimona (2012 - 2014)  and LumberJanes (2014 - 2020) comics, along with the She-Ra reboot, 'She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018 - 2020). Their art is very simplistic and sketchy, but extremely expressive, with a heavy focus on diverse characters (race, gender identity, sexuality, body type, etc.). They use a mix of digital and traditional 2Dmediums .
  
• Nimona Web Comic - https://xoxocomics.com/comic/nimona/issue-tpb/88653
•  ND Stevenson on Diversity in TV - https://slate.com/culture/2021/03/noelle-stevenson-she-ra-reboot.html

•  Radford Sechrist
• Radford 'Rad' Sechrist is a storyboard artist known for his work on Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts (2020). He worked on other films such as Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), Turbo (2013), and How To Train Your Dragon 2 (2014). His style is described as 'Anarchic', and is reminiscient of anime / manga, with use of harsh angles and flat colouring. His animation also focuses on movement in time with music, with the soundtrack of Kipo being one of the best I've heard in a TV show in a long time. He uses mostly traditional 2D mediums.
  
• Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts Soundtrack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjtzAKN7Uag
  

• Claudia Leonardi
• Claudial Leonardi is a Comic artist responsible for the coloration and linework in the Life is Strange Comic Series (2018 - 2022). It was her first professional work, and remains her only one to this day. Her artstye is clean, yet still very cartoony, utiliing almost blocky lines and flat colour to convey the themes of the comic and story. She also mainly uses Digital 2D art mediums.  
• l.claudia.8.7 (Instagram) - https://www.instagram.com/l.claudia.8.7/?hl=en

• Josiah 'Jazza' Brooks
• Jazza Brooks is an animator - turned - artist who broadcasts free content on Youtube similar to the TV Series Art Attack (1990 - 2007). His art is always fun, focusing on enjoying what you make as opposed to getting a perfect finish or a polished product, and quite often this produces some decent work. He uses multiple mediums, and operates in a cartoon style, but is able to branch off into other styles if need be. His ability to roll with developments is what inspires me about his work, not his style itself.

4. What sort of art style do you prefer to work in?

As an artist, I would say I am definitely leaning towards realism as opposed to stylized work. I enjoy modelling details and getting the high-to-low poly bake just right using trial and error, as i think of it as a puzzle I need to solve in order to get the best quality outcome that I can. 

5. Do you consider yourself a character artist, environment artist or generalist?

Generally, I consider myself a Prop Artist; specialising in weaponry, high-quality assets, and the occasional vehicle (something I found I enjoyed in semester one of second year at university. 

I attempted character design and art, but it neither inspired me nor interested me -- most of my attempts go no further than absolutely necessary. The software frustrated me, and I feel I will need to look into it more in my own time to get to grips with it (i am aware it's industry standard to be fluent in Zbrush, so I will need to learn it)

 

 6. What are your main sources of inspiration?

To keep it concise, my main source of inspiration is the media I consume on a daily basis. I may find a particularly cool weapon in a show, an interesting design on a wall in a video game, or a vehicle from a movie. Everything I love, I try to make an asset inspired by or directly from it. 

Our environment creates us, and the same can be said as far as my artistic development is concerned.