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Lord Donovan's Influence Map

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I said I'd do one of these, and though it may take a while, I always eventually do the things I say I'll do. And describe that follow through in the least eloquent way possible.

As a general note, My priority here was to pick subjects that I believe are currently actively influencing me first and foremost, not just things that I like. (Though, of course, there is a lot of overlap between the two criteria.) So for example, you might think it's odd this has nothing Nintendo-related, since I'm a lifelong Nintendo fanboy and all. Now certainly, I do like good ol' Mario style drawings, but really, I don't think I've actually drawn anything Mario style for like, a decade aside from specifically Mario-based fan art. Mario games would have been all over the place when I was in like, sixth grade and drew Mario game stuff all the time. Now, Mario style isn't a factor in my general work nearly as much. Or Zelda games, sure, they are the closest thing there is to my ideal gameplay, but the art direction was never what I considered the high point of them at best, and in the worst case is what I'd call their biggest flaws. And as for Pokemon, including it would just be redundant because though I really like the style, plenty of other things beat it to the cute monsters and cute girls punch and/or did those things better. On a similar note, I really admire classic cartoons like Disney movies, old Looney Tunes, etc, for their expressive full animation and well drawn volumes. But other things I included appeal to me on similar grounds and with an overall style I like even more. So though I have a lot of respect and admiration for good ol' US animation, that's why it didn't quite get a spot.

Now then, on to long-winded explanations, roughly left to right, top to bottom. I'll name specific artists when possible, but in some cases, the specific artist isn't the point, or I just don't know the name of the exact relevant artist.

Takehito Harada: This guy is basically THE reason I care about Nippon Ichi games. (Though they could fix that if they just made something besides strategy RPGs for once. I would kill for Zelda style gameplay in the Disgaea setting. Or a more standard RPG would be good too. Basically anything with large-scale world exploration instead of just a handful of small grid maps. But I digress.) Takehito Harada's digital coloring style is still the coloring style I would most like to replicate, and he probably gets the highest average character design score of anyone ever in my opinion. There's almost nothing about his style I don't like. The worst thing I can say is that I don't like his more recent style quite as much as his Disgaea 1 style, why does the cast of Disgaea 4 have such freaky thin legs.

Final Fantasy IX: Limitations of pre-rendered PS1 CG backgrounds aside, FFIX has pretty much my favorite environment design of any game ever, it is the standard I aspire to. But more than that, I also really like the character design style. Not so much the in-game depictions, but the way they were drawn in development art in the FFIX art book. I guess the point is I really like everything about FFIX's art but the final product filtered through the limitations of first-generation 3D, or those over-detailed tarted up promo art CG renders. Or the in-game pre-rendered FMVs. It's all really good up to the point 3D graphics are involved. In many ways the development art for FFIX has the same appeal to me as other great Square games like final Fantasy Tactics or even Vagrant Story. There's probably one or more artists involved across those various projects, but unfortunately, I don't know the name(s), so in this case, FFIX stands in for that apparently now lost old Square style in general.

Darkstalkers: This game gets bigger than a 3x3 square because it is the game that was my golden ray of light, angelic choir moment of inspiration. It's the point I went from generally enjoying game art to permanently redefining my standard for what awesome is. And in particular, it is the work of the god among men I only cryptically know under the alias CRMK, that truly blew me away. For example, the sample I used, which is the greatest piece of promo art for any game ever. But the influence of the art for the first two Darkstalkers games isn't just limited to youthful inspiration, I still, to this day, flip through my very well worn Night Warriors strategy guide I bought entirely for the art for inspiration. I wouldn't call every Darkstalker design a winner, for example I really couldn't care less about Victor, or any of the characters new to Darkstalkers 3, but the good stuff is practically perfect in my eyes. The volumes, the anatomy, the ideal amount of detail, the dynamic design shapes, the excellent real media color application of that promo art, I can't heap enough praise on it. Takehito Harada's Disgaea work is the thing that's come the closest to replicating that old Darkstalkers appeal since then, and that even includes beating out Darkstalkers 3. On a related note to wanting to figure out that Disgaea digital coloring style, I consider that a step toward finding a digital equivalent to that old gouache (or maybe acrylic) Darkstalkers art. And if anybody's got any tips on that, they'd be much appreciated.

Castlevania: Really, what I most like about the Castlevania series is the in-game art direction, but it's hard to find a picture that says that. The closest thing to that spirit is the very nice promo art for Order of Ecclesia, which is the source of that Dracula pic. Much like Darkstalkers, Castlevania made an impression on me for showing that dark spooky subject matter with monsters can sill be colorful, wacky, and non-ugly. (Stupid Lord of Shadows grumble grumble...) Video games were pretty much the only source of precedent for the validity of dark without ugly back then. Castlevania monsters may die by exploding into flaming blood at times, but they do it an a cool flashy way, not a grimdark gory way. Even decaying undead stuff like that giant zombie ram that shows up in various games are more bad-ass cool than gross. Also, it's a great series for that gothic cathedral look I love.

Secret of Mana: This is more specific than most, the Pure Land is the precise source of my continuing love for the specific combo of verdant greenery and white stone, as well as seeing dark forests as a happy place. Plus, it wowed me with cute monsters like rabbites well before Pokemon. A lot of it may look dated now, but the feel those beautiful colorful 16-bit backgrounds evoked in me is something I still try to recreate. I'm just sad that almost no Mana game has had that same feel since then, Brownie Brown's light frilly style did not do the series justice, and it doesn't help that it's Squeenix's experimental test subject at best now. Give me a triple-A 3D Mana games as close to the style of SoM as possible, and do it now! I want it to be like the people who made that game had instead done the same thing on today's hardware. Heroes of Mana mostly nailed the art direction, now just give a sequel the right gameplay and a big budget.

Tetsuya Nomura: I have kind of a love-hate relationship with this guy, in that I LOATHE his even slightly more realistic stuff like Advent Children or FFX. But I absolutely love his work when he isn't keeping it remotely real, like the original FFVII style, Kingdom hearts, Dissidia, etc. I like the way the volumes are always well-realized, but he still keeps the linework sharp, as well as his overall design style. His good stuff is the third of my top three sources of insiration when I'm feeling frustrated in drawing. I chose that FFVII Aerith pic specifically because she remains the best character I think he has ever designed and my waifu.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Aside from contemporary Japanese game art, I love the Classical art. And if I have to pick one Classical artist who wowed me the most, it's him. The Baroque period is the best ever, that's where they hadn't yet lost the ridiculously high levels of technical skill the High Renaissance was known for, but had loosened up a bit. Call me crazy, but the visceral quality of the subject matter, the decadent, one might even say flashy subject matter, it strikes me as cool in the same was as Darkstalkers. It's all so focused on grabbing your attention first, realism second. Thank goodness for that Papal mandate for art to be emotionally involving and direct. Aside from admiring everything, I really like how he put physical representations of light in his sculptures, and in keeping with that I like to employ the dark and light themes in my work, in more literal ways than just the lighting. Plus, I want to design things equally focused on awing the viewer above anything else.

Aqua: The point here isn't really Aqua, or Kingdom Hearts, but that smooth texture shading. That soft shading the KH series used for its models blew me away and has been something I have used in every texture since then. Sure, plenty of other games do it, but I still think those KH textures do it best. Also, I like how otherwise clean they are. With too many other game textures, if it isn't rusty, dirty, oily, grimy, pitted, or ripped, the texture isn't done yet. And yeah, that detail sure has its place. But I also like that simple and clean look. You don't see LIFELIKE TEXTURE in Classical art and that stuff is pretty much the best ever, right? Form and shading is what's most important.

Stephen Colbert: He's not really an art influence, I just think he's really cool. And I enjoy his style of making the right point for the wrong reasons, or just plain being unabashedly wrong. His show is a great source of being unreasonable for the right reasons. Plus, I would love to have a platform through which to tell millions of people my opinions every day.

Tite Kubo: Nothing against Jetcape-15 there, but the real point is that I really like Tite's linework. And I couldn't find a good manga scan of Captain Ukitake. (He's so dreeeaaammy.) It always has a good feeling of volume and the frequent hard edges are nice, in many ways he has the same appeal as Nomura, the main difference is the design style. It's unfortunate Bleach overall fell into Shonen Decay HARD and his more recent style made everyone way too dang thin and freaky, but that early-ish Bleach stuff is style a style I look to for advice.

Breath of Fire 2: This is another hit in the vein of old RPGs that showed me the way of bright, colorful, wacky designs for use in fantasy settings instead of say, what you saw on the cover of a Dragonlance novel. The unique influence to this day may be a bit dubious, but the influence is strong as far as setting me on that overall design path. Once again, it was an influence for showing me that cool stuff like fighting and killing monsters could have a visual style I liked too. And someday I hope to get my own technically naked catgirl in a game. Really, practically everything by Capcom back then was an influence. Not so much now at all, though. What happened Capcom, you used to be cool.

Tatsurou Iwamoto: Probably better referred to as the artist behind most of the Ace Attorney games. (But not Edgeworth's game, and it's worse off for it. Poor Edgeworth.) Mostly, I admire that this guy can draw a really good face, with a consistent, unique structure, at any angle and with any expression. No sameface and onepose for him, and that's a level of skill I strive to. The animation in the AA series may be limited, but it's all gold. I also really admire his digital coloring style, like Takehito Harada's work, it's neither too clean and flat nor too messy and I would like to know more about his process.

Caravaggio: Although he's one of my favorite painters of the overall Classical era, and I like his painting of St Gerome a lot, this example is more a stand-in for the influence of Classical paintings in general. As noted before, I think that period did realism right, focusing on idealized representations and not going overboard with less than ideal details. The focus was on form, composition, and lighting, which I too am all about, I'm just not nearly as good as them or quite as dedicated to realism. Likely the most consistent influence is lighting, since basically everything I do that's a finished illustration has clearly defined lighting. Also, for whatever reason, the light source in classical art is always coming from the left, and I too depict lighting from the left by default.

Well, that's it, and if you read all this, I salute you. It was even longer than I expected. Since I tend to complain about art I dislike a lot, I thought this was a good time to make it painfully clear, in excruciating detail, what kind of art I like. Overall, I really do think I have at least as much art love as art hate, even if the love applies to less things. It took a while to do, but filling out this influence map really was worth the effort, it helped remind me what matters to my art and what I hope to achieve. I'd recommend that anyone who hasn't yet done one does, especially if you've maybe been feeling lost in your aesthetic goals.
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ArmarnaDelany's avatar
Omg... love the bit with Colbert. :)