Project 1: Artist Reference

 

Jamie Hewlett is one of my biggest inspirations in terms of artistic style. Primarily for his focus on character development and the colour palette in which he experiments with. His particular style is quite cartoon like for the use of cell shading techniques. I have always admired different ways cell shading is achieved and wanted to use this style for my own concepts. I also like the way Hewlett focuses on character development within his concepts. For example, Gorillaz, a popular series of work he produced shows how his characters change depending on the environments that they're presented with. I admire this focus because it makes each character develop a personality, and stay in tune with whatever world they appear in. I really like this because it is similar to my game design idea, where Zork changes into different characters depending on the genre or theme he imagines himself within. Like hewlett, depending on the theme within the story of 'Gorillaz', the characters adapt to that change accordingly. This technique adds not only personality to the characters, but makes them coherent to the world around them.

Another artist that caught my attention was Murakami.  A very popular Japanese artist who's primary focus is with the use of pattern and colour.  I really admire the colour palette amongst all of Kami's work, because it really adds personality to a piece. For example, the image above has repetition of flowers, bright colours and every extreme expressions. This image literally screams excitement and 'cute' simply by the attention to pattern and colour. Considering I want to use a cell shaded method within my concepts, I was really taken to make my drawings a similar vibrancy. The reason for this is because I want the worlds of Zork to feel a little imaginary, to replicate the thoughts within Zork's mind. If it was too realistic, it wouldn't match up to his personality and interests.