State of the Art: pt2

It’s been a busy period for course work recently, mainly because I’m making up for a lazy January but also because of the group project and deadlines coming up.  Well, on top of all that I’m getting a bit sick of concept art, I have been looking at more and more digital art to help me stay enthusiastic, and has helped me to stay interested… somewhat.

Facebook is actually pretty good to get stuff shoved in your face without tracking it down – Just like some sites (ie cghub, deviantart, concept art world) and they will post loads of images, doing their best to promote the artist and the site… It’s a mutual back scratch.  A good example is the artist Anthony Jones – he is heavily active on facebook and a comment from him can boost interest from his fans and people that follow, in turn he often gets “editor’s pick” on CGHub – This helps cg get more attention from followers he has already and adds more that will see him through cghub.  In a way it is similar to cry dev – I never really visited their site until I knew people getting a mention on it, it’s the networking circle of life.

Anthony Jones - a popular digital artist

I have been making “artist” folder for my favourite artist’s websites… I have fifty so far.  From what I have seen I like the more natural looking and “painterly” art.  The content is unfortunately beyond cliché’d now – Assasins don’t all wear hoods and have emo tendencies.  I have been trying to understand what it is that appeals to others – Not just with the content, but also with the compositions, mark making and realism.  I have noticed artists have niches, the aforementioned Anthony Jones has a knack for recreating nice and realistic surface material properties – using highlights subtle/over the top bouncing colour to bring his work to life. An essential skill I think for a good digi-artist would be combining this with accurate tones – which he also does really well.  I’m not too sure if I like all this, but the art is good and the artist shows methods and broadcasts live.

I’m a bit of a cynical guy, but the concept thing is little cliché’d… over the top lighting – everything is always lit as if in a studio.  Which annoys me with films even now – the camera angles and scenery are all VFX and films end up looking wrong.  

 

Gary Oldman - just a Jack wannabie.  Notice the background - this is about as big as the set seemed throughout

Today I watched The Book of Eli, which is a decent film I would say… apart from the VFX, the camera angles were too static on the long shots, everything seemed cramped right up to you even though it was supposedly a vast wasteland.  Sometimes you can just feel the blue screens.  There is a lot of turmoil in the VFX industry and I think they can go fuck themselves – what happened to the special effects, sets and props, location filming & bringing wealth & interest to other places… puppets & decent animation?  I also watched I Am Legend the other day (to maybe help with our group project theme) and the one thing that ruined that was the VFX.  It’s no longer being used because it is needed (Terminator 2) it’s being used because it is cheap and easy.  Most of the time the work is out-sourced and the employees don’t get any credit and don’t really care about the work.

Ang Lee caused some controversy at the Oscars this year and ruffled some feathers