Creativity - The game artist

I sometimes feel that on this course I cant be as creative as I want to be in my projects. But if I do get a job in the creative industries how much creative freedom will I actually have?

Seeing as on this course our goal is to earn a career as a game artist; we've had a few people talk to us about what working as a game artist is like. When Ben Mathis gave a lecture he talked about his experience working as a game artist as well as his own personal projects. He commented on how the work he did as a game artist was very controlled and he had very little creative freedom when it came to designing assets for the games he would work on. All the design decisions are made by the art director so if an artist designs a character and the director believes it doent fit well in the game it will be scrapped or the artist will be asked to alter it. This constant critiquing from the art director could be tiring for a game artist, in fact Ben Mathis said he would often come home after work and redo something he had designed that day how he would have made it if it was his own game.

Ben Mathis said he though rather than having an art director it would be better to just have a team of artists working together to come up with ideas and making decisions as a group. This would allow the artists to be much more creative and would make their jobs a lot more satisfying, but would this benefit the game? Having an art director surely helps to maintain a certain level of quality and consistensy throughout the look of the game. An art director is able to look at the game as a whole and see how well certain bits fit in. The art director is responsible for all the art that goes into a game. Their job is to ensure that all art within the game matches the artistic style and quality standard that they have set, and they also help to organize the team and help make sure the project is completed on time.

Because of the constraints of time and money; creativity of the game artist is tightly controlled. But I imagine this is true of other parts of the game production process. How creative is the music composer allowed to be? I suppose it all depends on the game director and the type of game that is being made. The least creative type of game I can think of would be a game based on a film. All the character designs, landscapes, music, storyline is already there in the film so there is very little creativity needed in the design process and I suppose thats how developers manage to get those games out so quickly. And games that allow the most creativity are the the more ambitious games that usually come from bigger developers that have more time and money to spend on the design process.

Creativity - creative industries

Creativity; the use of inventivness, original ideas and resourcefulness is the most important factor in creating a high quality and enjoyable video game. It is as important in the games industry as it is in any other industry that incorporates art and design.

In the music industry creativity is highly important if an artist wants to be recognised. A unique original sound will be noticed by a record company. Creativity in writing would be expressed through original stories rather than a book documenting factual stuff. But a book about the events of the first world war for example could be told in different ways by different authors. One could approach it in a straight forward way while the other could approach it in a more creative original way. But each book would differ slightly depending on who it was written by.

Films are similar to games in that you see far less creative films than standard films. Studios will be more inclined to spend money on a safe film they know the audience will like rather than risk losing money on a more original creative film that people arent used to. The director will obviously determine how creative and original the film is and a more experienced and established director will likely have more creative freedom. And like games a film will require more creativity based on the genre, whether its a science fiction film or a documentary.

Another industry where creativity is important is advertising. A lot of adverts you see on television or on billboards are incredibly creative. This I expect is due to companies wanting their adverts to stand out and attract as much attention as possible. That and the massive amount of money that is spent on them means that adverts have a high level of creativity.

In the creative industries the extent to which creativity is used and how it is utilized may differ from one industry to another but its importance is undeniable.

Creativity - teaching creativity

I think it is very difficult to teach creativity. Either someone has the ability to be creative or they don't. One can be encouraged to use their creativity to their full potential. When I was at school my art teachers never seemed to teach me to be creative as such, they helped me to develop my skills at drawing and painting etc. but never helped me to come up with ideas. The one thing I was taught to do the most was a lot of research. I was told to look at artists, movements and just about anything for inspiration. We always moaned about it at the time and wondered why why we had to spend so much time looking at other peoples work rather than concentrating on coming up with our own ideas. Looking at other artists work gives you an understanding of what has been done in the past and what has worked and what hasn't. You can look at a piece of art and see what makes it good and use it to push your ideas further. Whenever I came to a stop during a project I found that doing a bit of research helps to fill my mind with more ideas and progress further. You are not necessarily using other peoples ideas but getting inspiration from them.

Also compiling a lot of visual research like photographs, reference books, magazines is really useful for when you are designing something. Whether you are designing a character or an object, you can take inspiration from pretty much anywhere so the more research you have the better.

Someone cant necessarily be taught to be creative but should be encouraged to be resourceful and broad minded when approaching their work.

Creativity - creative people

Creativity can be a way of expressing your personality through you work. If you are confident and extraverted then this can be reflected in your work. My artwork tends to be pretty safe and due to my reserved nature. My friend Caz who is a drama student has a very bubbly, confident personality. Give her a blank sheet of paper and she'll fill every inch of it with fantastic expressive doodles of stars, butterflies, flowers and words she likes. Her drawings may not be as informed as a true artists but they demonstrate how your own personality can affect you work.

Does your creativity reflect your personality or can your personality be affected by how creative you are? The latter has been something I've come to believe over the last couple of years. A friend from Leicester University commented on how how friendly students from DMU are compared to students at her uni. The reason that was suggested was that DMU courses tend to be on the more creative side - art and design, media, drama etc., and art students are generally more laid back and open minded. I first noticed this a couple of years ago when I was studying at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth. In my first week there I was struck immediately by how friendly everyone was. Bournemouth University is located just accross the road from the Arts Institute and I used to go there at lunchtimes to buy food from their shop. I always found the students there slightly different in the way they socialize and talk to eachother, and I felt a little intimidated by them at times. I'm not trying to suggest that more creative people are nicer than less creative people, but there definitely is a difference in their personality.

If creativity is something that comes naturally how easily can it be taught?

Creativity - what is creativity?

Creativity is the use of ones imagination, inventivness, and resourcefulness to create original ideas usually in the production of art. Creativity is not something that can be taught in schools or in higher education for that matter, it is entirely driven by one persons ideas and and their desire to create something unique and imaginitive.

But does something creative have to be an original idea? Something that no one else has thought of before you? Looking at my own designs and ideas I wonder if there is someone else in the world who has had exactly the same idea before me and been more successful with it. Does that mean my idea lacks purpose? I think my clock character design is really cool and I'm really pleased with it but I keep thinking its such a simple idea that there must be at least one person out there who has had exactly the same idea. And if thats the case does it mean i wasn't creative enough when i came to design it? My organic character design on the other hand is far more original and incorporates many different ideas from my own unique research, and therefore it is unlikely that someone else has already designed it. When looking at both designs though I think they are both equally good even though one could be argued is more creative than the other.

So how important is creativity if a good design can be made by basing it on other peoples ideas? If I was asked to design a mobile phone I would be basing my design on ideas already in existence. I suppose some art requires more creativity than others, but an exceptional piece of art that commands attention and recognition needs to be creative and highly original. But how does this apply to different areas of the creative industries? How important is creativity when designing art for video games?

Year 2 - Term 1

So far the second year has been more enjoyable than the first year. My 3d modeling has had to improve pretty quickly because of the difficulty of making a character model. My character designs have also improved massively compared to the rubbish one I did last year.

For my organic character design I chose fruit as a starting point. I went down to somerfield and bought a load of different fruit then cut them all up, took photos then left them in a tub to go moldy. I brainstormed several different ideas based on all the different shapes and patterns on the fruit. My final design is a creature that has characteristics of fruit like peeling skin.

For my mechanical character design I chose clocks as a starting point and my research led me to look at clock towers and gothic architecture. My design ended up being a sort of walking clock tower.

As far as the self portrait is concerned I've done 4 versions. The first one I did in a day without any reference photos and turned out suprisingly well for a first attempt at a character model. The second one didn't amout to much. The third one I've spent a rediculously long amount of time on. Being a massive perfectionist I'll spend a whole day working on the nose and it'll end up looking only slightly better than it did before. I really do take a very very long time doing things sometimes. When Ben Mathis was demonstrating how to start a model I was doing another version of mine along with him. I had the legs torso done in like half an hour and it looked pretty good so that helped me speed up a bit.

And as far as the blogs are concerned I've so far done none. I sort of been putting them off because ive been worrying more on the 3d modeling and character design. I thought i could do them once I got my other work out the way but it hasn't really been ideal. I'll definitely try and get going with them more frequently next term.