Traditional art practice: Contextual task (Week 1)

For this weeks' contextual task, I wanted to analyse artist Al Crutchley, who has worked on Overwatch concepts.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nEQx2r

This is a piece of work he made for Paris on the original overwatch.

The top images of line art have varying line weight, in some places, mark making has been utilised to inform the shapes and form of materials. for example, straight and horizontal lines have been used on the roof to inform the use of roof tiles. Additionally, around the windows, there are also lines which inform the idea of plaster, because it contains 'brick looking shapes' and shapes that could inform a hole where the plaster has eroded.

The booth (Middle left) lighting has been informed on this piece, for example, the top of the object is illuminated from above, you can see this by the shadow underneath. Colour has informed this piece to show materials and lighting, the darker green represents shadows whereas the lighter green informs highlights.

Furthermore, material callouts has been used for the main bit of the booth, where the greyscale represents metal which also has lighting properties, like that of the reflected blue light to also help indicate this is in fact a metal material.

The street lights also maintain this artistic choice of informed line work. the 2nd and 3rd street light have a thicker line at the base, this could be to indicate that this inner bel is the bit in shadow, this can also be used in context with all the other thicker lines on the objects.

At the bottom of the page, the bottom left pot has lighting properties. The darker (warm) grey inside and within the intruded edges represent that this is where lighting is not being caught due to it not facing the sun or light source.

The atmosphere this creates is quite muted, overwatch generally is quite a saturated game. So these colours were probably chosen in order to keep the objective of the game flowing, as to not get distracted by them.

The lights used is white, as pure light is white, but the blue glow around it represents the emissive properties, blue itself is quite a cool colour, along with the metal, this palette is a stark contrast to the warmer green/grey the booth is also coloured with.

Overall, there is a more elegant style to the work, there are a lot of curves and less hard edges (unless it's impractical to have like on the lamp post bases) The pots for example have a lot of curvature and round shape language.

In summary, the general line work is representative of its light properties, thicker lines represents darker areas within shadow and lighter ones that are thinner or blended more with the colour represents light or detail on the model.

Furthermore, line work has been used to exemplify detail that maybe couldn't achieved with colour, as concept art is quick idea generation. An example of this would be under the panel of the stall which says 'jeudi' maybe these are panels that could be opened?

This is a painting of the futuristic Paris map from Overwatch.

The style radiates art deco and has a lot of harmonising shape language, in the case of the lamp posts, you can see how the concepts could correlate to the concepts as previously mentioned in the post.

Furthermore, you can see the obvious colour contrast between purple and yellow, then the off-tone hue with reds/pinks and blues in the foreground. It gives is a royal vibe in the overall scene which helps push the composition.

A clear sense of scale also helps push the composition, the 3 point perspective gives the viewer a sense of awe.

Example of the perspective in the piece