I just saw a post by Fantasio (German artist and illustrator) with impressions on Exotique 5 book and some thoughts on art community/market. While I agree with his points I’ve found some things are missing. Art is a VERY subjective thing. Your success as a commercial artist highly depends on market trends, what sells and what doesn’t. Sometimes I see lame artwork that founds it’s way to covers and promoted like hell. Why it’s happen? Well, when you step into a business, forget about art (i.e. creativity, freedom of expression, quality etc.), there is no room for that. You can draw simple color dots or cut abstract holes in paper – as long as it sells, why bother?
To succeed you’ve to analyze the market and do your best to ride it’s trends overwise you’ll paint for years and get nothing in return.
New Final Fantasy XIV in-game and cgi footage have been revealed at kotaku! The video quality isn’t that perfect but imaginary does. Can’t wait for HD version!
Another thing that sparks my attention was a debut trailer for Settlers: Paths to a Kingdom. The legendary Settlers returns to PC in 2010. I remember playing it many years ago and enjoying the green hills and medieval music motifs playing at background. The debut trailer is very and very interesting in terms of creativity. Who knows, maybe somewhere in the future classic table top based games (like Warhammer) would be played like that?
Make sure to check the developer diary with Fumito Ueda, creator of The Last Guardian and experience new bits of footage from his epic adventure.
And if you’re in the creative mood, there are some nice threads goin’ on at ConceptArt.Org. First, check the massive art dump by Marko Djurdjevic with tons of artwork from Marvel universe. This dude is insane you know. But Guild Wars 2 guys are still goin’ crazy with loads and loads of conceptual art. If you’re a fan or prefer hard copies don’t miss their new artbook featuring all that stuff!
Wakkawa a.k.a. Jace Wallace got some nice chicks in his thread. There are some nudies so be warned!
Ooops! Almost forgot! Sergey Kondratovich throw a ton of stuff from Magesty 2 and other projects. Your mouse would suffer, I promise!
ps. In conclusion, you could experience JFBuckner’s MEMORIES SANCTUS Chapt.1 online manga and get some sleep. Cheers guys!
Hey guys, 3D Total is calling for submissions for their brand new installment of Digital Art Masters book series. I’ve been lucky enough to be included in 4th volume and it was a great experience. If you aren’t familiar, the book is a compilation of working techniques, tips and thoughts from many creative talents around the globe. The content quality is really high, thanks to 3D Total team standards.
Submission details for volume 5 are posted on 3D Total website or you can download the instructions in PDF version. The deadline is set to November 30th 2009, 11:59PM GMT.
Don’t miss the new trailer from Funcom’s upcoming MMO The Secret World. The CGI cinematic is amazing with mystic feel and very good cinematography so it’s a great continuation of the first trailer. Looks like Digic Pictures did a great job once again! If you’re unfamiliar with these Hungarian guys, well this splash below would speak for themselves.
You can see the trailer from Norwegian website Dagbladet.no or try a direct link (.flv, ~7.7 Mb).
Right, Massive Black crew has just dropped the motherload of professional art on ConceptArt.Org. If you are looking for concept art or illustration services or want some serious inspiration, here is the link.
Make sure to check out the official studio website at www.massiveblack.com that got a recent revamp with lots and lots of new stuff. MB has established quite a trend in outsoursing art for entertainment industry so if you’re in the same boat you have to keep an eye on these bad boys!
Ow and if you’re into abstract art don’t miss Andrew Jones thread with recent updates on The Art of Beauty from live online presentation and other events. Internet is a truly cool thing.
Recently I’ve stumbled onto topic on cgc forums on developing original IP online in public. I believe it was inspired by the recent deal with Disney acquiring Marvel. If you look at the entertainment industry you’ll see how heavily it rely on various IPs. So why not to develop a new world from scratch openly in public [that was the message of the thread]?
The first issue that pop-ups immideately is copyright and possible idea/concept theft. The hard truth is that most of ideas has zero value until implemented. It’s a long, very long road between rough idea and finished product you can hold in your hands or enjoy other way. A lot of people fall into this trap thinking of their ideas as game-changers and thus highly securing them. You will be amazed how your precious concepts, business plans or ideas would be smashed down. I remember I was sending unpublished dark elf ladies designs to appropriate toy doll company and their response was a cold-shower for me. Literally it was like, go f*ck your elfs. By the way, it was Yona, a character from Steam Fantasy project. I’ve got the same experience with my fellow buddies in game development when I proposed a new business model and game pitch that costs me a few months of designing and writing. So basically you learn that world around you isn’t that friendly to your ideas.
Next, how ’bout moving online and share your treasures with the rest of the world? Hell, it’s scary! What if people wouldn’t like your work? What if you’ll be ignored? What if…? A lot of fear right? This fear is a sort of inner buffer that prevents you from external communication. It’s both good and bad thing. It’s good because it buffers you from wasting time on various online resources. And it’s bad because you can possibly miss something or someone. Personally I prefer to talk about my projects but not too much, so it won’t generate much noise yet someone could see it.
You can read more on this topic by following the thread but basically everything leads to one question – what benefits you can get from this IP developing model?
The mystic project codenamed Fortress developed by GRIN was actually a Final Fantasy game (or maybe, based on FF setting). Creators of Bionic Commando, Sweden developer is out of business now with more than 250 employee lost their jobs. I saw a big art dump at Kotaku with sketches and concepts from Fortress and some of the pieces are quite recent (July 2009). ConceptArt.Org website also have an art dump thread with ex-employee posting stuff from GRIN’s projects, including Bionic Commando and Fortress.
Two guys Martin Bergquist and Tony Holmsten started their own freelance illustration/design business presenting a portfolio with Fortress stuff as well. I’ve seen some art dumps at deviantart (arcipello, tonyholmsten) and such things are quite common when big company collapse.
Well losing jobs isn’t that great and I feel sorry for the guys. At the same time I think it’s naturally following from the fact that lots of videogame developers doing the same things. How many times you were fighting against the SWAT guys in futuristic settings? To survive on market and attract players you need something fresh and different.
Make sure to check out awesome (that’s right, awesome) concept art posted on Project Offset website. Many moons ago these guys shocked game developers around the world with amazing real-time engine demo. I’ve been following that project for years and after twists and turns the guys finally landed at Intel. They are still developing the game and polishing the Offset technology at the same time.
What was cool about that project is it’s visual design approach. The technology is moving very fast but design could be timeless. Project Offset offers you heroic fantasy adventure in a vast, exotic world forged with magic and sorcery. Some of the locations actually reminds me of the things I’ve imagined while reading Conan novels by Robert Howard.
If you’re a techy geek then visit the technology section and see all the possibilities and features of Offset engine. For artistic folks, well concept art section and especially environments would definetely put you on fire.
Don’t miss Khang’s Video Blog – Part. 1! Khang Lee is a conceptual artist who has started to visualize Project Offset from the beginning. Now holding an Art Director position he’s still responsible for Project Offset look and feel.
There are also some sort of competition is going on. If you’re familiar with 3D and in-game models creation techniques then you can submit your model(s) to the guys and pray for the best. Looks like talent hunt but someone may be interested anyway.
I’m not goin’ to talk how female characters are dominating the videogame worlds and all that fluff. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with looking at beautiful women. But what do I see is a difference between Western(European) and Asian approaches. They both using female body features as attractors but the results are so different.
Take a look at Jill Nabato, a character from the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII game:
Where is your attention focus? Glasses, face or something else…?
The same works for in-game models though they have more technical restrictions (poly count etc.). Few days ago I was amazed to see this:
TERA is one of my favourite Korean MMO’s speaking of visuals (frankly I don’t play games), and it’s great to see some good character design and modeling work. I strongly recommend you to check the official website for more cool stuff from TERA.
And it’s off topic, but how do you feel about zombies? Read more…
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