For this project we are given the task of creating an environment for a fighting game that will reflect a location given to us, for instance we were given North America and I will be looking into Ottawa and Detroit for the time being. For this task we also have to make sure that we create a stylized environment and appeal to the target audience of young children, around 7. I will be looking at different art styles that can be used within our environments.
Cel Shading
Cel Shading is the process of making something that is 3D appear flat by using less detail in the shading, using one block colour instead using a shading gradient. This is used within comic books and more recently some big games. These games include The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, Borderlands 1/2/pre-sequal, Jet Set Radio, Street Fighter and many more.
The art style itself looks very cartoony while at the same time can be used to create a gritty setting and is good for any situation. Along with this producing the art is not to difficult because you don’t have to worry about the different shades and making sure that it looks realistic. When looking at environments in this art style it is important to look at how I could replicate the art and make it look good along with this, a good environment to look at would be Wind Waker.
Looking at this I can clearly see that they have used one point perspective and the actual shading used within the environment is very basic yet effective. While I will not be able to create anything of the same quality of this I can still take inspiration and see how the shading was done and how the painting was done to replicate into my own work.
Cartoon Art Styles
A good thing to look at along with the shading process is a verity of different art styles used within graphic novels and comics. I stumbled across an interesting image where an artist had drawn 10 cartoon characters in 10 different styles.
This is very interesting and might help me with my own work when looking at how to transfer a more realistic looking prop into a more cartoon style, it will also help to look into the most popular comics and cartoons around the age that we are targeting and transition the props that we draw into those sorts of art styles.
Western Cartoons
When we are looking at more of the western cartoon art I am talking more general about comic book art such as Batman and Spiderman. The first thing that I noticed about the art style is that the shading used is very different that that of other cartoons in the sense it uses cross hatching and is done with ink. The next thing is that there is a lack of detail given to the characters and they use a lot of hard edges.
The next thing I noticed was the exaggerations in the faces, for instance in the picture below is is clear that they want us to focus on the Joker and his shit eating grin to provoke Batman. The smile is so ridiculous and large that when put into proportion it doesn’t look right. It’s this sort of exaggeration that takes away the realism and gives it the cartoon style.
Manga Art
Manga art is very different than that of the western style, they tend to put less detail into the faces and shading focusing on key features rather than the whole face. The eyes and hair are usually the main focus of the face and the clothes are usually have a lot of detail put into them. The actual art style is very minimalist putting very little emphasis on the nose or mouth and rather bringing out key features.
The same goes for buildings. In the image below you can see that a lot of detail was put into the buildings at the front but as you fade off into the distance they become vague and are just the shapes of the building rather than the having any real detail. This is sort of focusing on what the reader is looking at more, you don’t really notice that the tops of the buildings are blank and you focus more on the center of the image and whats on the same level as the characters.
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