Artistic Styles

Artistic Styles

In the gaming industry, many games use different artistic styles. The artistic styles which are used the most are photorealism, cell shading, exaggeration and abstract. These are the four artistic styles which are going to be thoroughly explained.

Photo-Realism

Photo realism is where the artist is attempting to make the game look realistic, almost like a real photograph. Photo realistic artists aim to reproduce an image with accurate detail. They aim to make the objects, background, characters and foreground to look as real as possible. Most first person shooters use this style in their games. Photo-realistic games attempt to catch the emotion on the faces of their characters so that we as the gamers or viewers are able to define the emotions of which the character is currently feeling. Light and shadows are used immensely throughout photo-realistic games, without brilliant light and shading, the game wouldn’t look as realistic as they would like it to be.
A great example of photo-realism would be Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies. There is a zombie DLC that they have created which uses the characters Sarah Michelle Gellar, Robert Englund, Danny Trejo and Micheal Rooker. The characters they have used in this zombie DLC are actors in real life. They have attempted to make them look as realistic as possible. Beneath is an example of what the characters looked like in the game on the left and a photo of them in real life on the right. We are able to link the pair of them together as they have quite a few similar characteristics.
Exaggeration

Exaggeration is a game style which is used in games such as final fantasy.  Exaggeration styled games manage to convey emotion better than the photo-realistic games. In various exaggerated games, they may have exaggerated eyes for example which makes it easy for us to see the emotion in their eyes. A lot of RPG games use the exaggerated art style as this make the characters more desirable to play as them. Weapons, physicality and objects are usually exaggerated the most in games. Anime/Manga games are most commonly known to use the exaggerated style. A few games in which use the exaggerated artistic style are the new Pokémon series from Generation 4 to the 6 and the animal crossing series. Both of these games have characters in which have exaggerated eyes and proportions of the body. 




Cel-Shaded


Cel- shaded games are the opposite of the photorealism style. Cell shaded games use bright colours which relates to the style which is used in comic books. These sort of games which use the cel-shaded artistic style are very effective and they stand out. A cel-shaded game example would be The Legend of Zelda:  The Wind Waker.  The colours in this game are very bright and it gives a very childish comic feel which makes the game look like younger children can play the game as it looks safe and friendly.  Borderlands is also another game in which uses the Cel-shaded art style. 


Abstraction 

Abstract styled games usually consist of games which use geometric shapes and lines. The abstract artistic style is used in games in which aren’t meant to resemble anything at all. The abstract games are meant to be very unrealistic and other people may look at these games from many different perspectives. A game which uses the abstract style is The Unfinished Swan. What the players have to do is throw paint to reveal the world around them. The player used black paint on a white background.  Hyphon is an abstract game where you have to make your way through the shapes without touching any of the walls and obsticles."For a work to be considered abstract, it should not represent anything real or derived from real life, even in a heavily stylized way. Thus the concept does not necessarily include games with exaggerated visuals like Guacamelee, visually minimal games like VVVVVV, and games that depict unreal creatures or worlds like The Neverhood."


http://www.giantbomb.com/abstract-art-style/3015-1558/



Retro

The retro artistic style works with a limited amount of colours. The colours which are chosen for the game usually determine the mood and feel of the game. The retro artistic style works with pixelated characters and objects. A classic example of a retro game is Pac Man, all the characters in this game are pixelated. This game is abstract too as Pac Man lacks physical features. Retro games are 8-bit games.