ART ERE-DIRECTION

So. Where do I start? This is my first post obviously, and any man/Jay leno/sentient-brocolli worth his/her salt ALWAYS has the notion to point that out. Isn't that kind of strange? How everyone draws attention to that? People who write novels don't say "Well this is my first novel everyone, hope you like it... One day Jennifer got a call from..." And so on and so forth.

Anyways. Blogging is weird. Bloggers are weird. This is my first foray into the trenches, so be gentle with me (if you must).

SO. Art direction, what is it? Who is it? I suppose the hyper-generalist would point out the fact that he's pointing out the fact that normal people who start blogs or write things about a subject always begin with a definition of what they're writing. I'm not going to do that I guess. I'm pretty much going to display what I define as art direction in the best sense that I can.











As you can see in the images above, that art direction can go any number of ways.

There is color, there is texture, there is an innumerable amount of factors to consider when it comes to determining how a game will look, sound, and feel. I plan to apply my limited experience driving art direction in the games I've worked on to help glean this information in a more scriptually digestible way. Google is now telling me I just made up the word scriptually... whatever.

No but really, I plan on covering wider sweeping genres, as well as specific games themselves. Games which are considered "art games," and those which some may consider "artless".

What you can expect to see in any given game-art review:


Overall game experience: I will give my over view of why I decided to pick the game up. If it appealed to me because it sounded interesting from a story perspective, or if the game play mechanics caught my attention. I won't go too in depth here as I don't intend to rate games based on their mechanics or game play, merely their artistic merit and if they are nice to look at. Which isn't to say I'm going to slap a sticker on it and say "GOOD GRAPHICS A+". Any art student worth his/her salt knows that just because some one is capable of adding scads of detail to a picture does not denote godlike artistic ability.



Character and Environment Art: These sections somewhat speak for themselves and will be judged on a separate basis. They stand as two of the major production branches of the artistic pipeline and I think they each deserve analysis in their own right as they are both unique and contribute in a very special way to the feel of a game.

Sound: I'm not a musician, but I think anyone with a cd collection can be a music critic. I love music ALMOST as much as I love art, and I intend to pick apart the nuances of most soundtracks for the games I play. I'm extremely fond of the quality audio material we see coming out in both triple A and indie titles today so I'm super excited to report on this artistic branch of games as well.

Final words: This will be a recap of the style and impression the game left on me. I will cover important themes and things to keep in mind while playing, as well as any quirks or tidbits I caught during play which I will suggest you keep an eye out for.

As well as this, I will possibly post my thoughts on any concept work, or art direction news which emerges as we go. I'm not sure, this is just as much an adventure for you as it is for me!

Whatever I'm covering, I hope you guys enjoy my articles and give me plenty of feedback on what you think.

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