Inspiring Things - Team ICO

This post was coming inevitably, as video games are a great motivation and inspiration to me. Team ICO without a doubt pushes video games as an art form. They make games like no other publisher does.

Their first game, ICO (seen in the screenshot above), is an enigmatic tale about a young boy born with horns, exiled from his home land. He must escape the fortress in which he is held, and along the way meets an ethereal and strange girl (Yorda) whom he travels with. And all the while, they are pursued by a powerful sorceress who is for some reason desperate to retrieve the Yorda. The game is heavily puzzle-based, with some instances of combat in between. The puzzles themselves are brilliant, and the mood and art style of the game is unlike any other.

Shadow of the Colossus, Team ICO's second installment, is considered to be a distant prequel to ICO. I thought ICO had great mood, but SoTC is even better.

In SoTC, you are The Wanderer. You must seek out and kill 16 colossi in order to save your girl. The story is not as simple as it seems. Nothing is ever totally explained, but not in a bad way. It's very open to interpretation at the (incredible) ending. Again, Team ICO goes against the convention of a normal action-adventure game. The only enemies in the game are the 16 bosses, and the only living characters are you and your horse, Agro. The feeling of loneliness in this game is communicated amazingly, and the scale of the colossi is conveyed beautifully. The way everything moves is incredibly natural. The animation for Agro is probably the most stunning horse animation I've seen EVER. (And I'm including games on Xbox360/PS3 that have horses in them). The boss fights themselves are (for lack of a better word) epic. The soundtrack is perfect, and suits the game in terms of scale/epicness.

Team ICO's next project is not due to come out until 2012. The Last Guardian will be about a young boy and his relationship with what seems to be a part-dog, part-eagle, part-lion sort of creature. They will work together to overcome obstacles in the game.

I don't know a ton about this game yet. But I have seen the E3 trailer for it, and it looks beautiful. If this game is anything like the first two of Team ICO's productions, this will be a release day purchase for me.

Art Work - WIP Fanart

A work in progress; some linework and a little tablet practice. I'll color it sometime, when I have the patience/courage.

Inspiring Things - Assassin's Creed: Revelations E3 Trailer 2011

This trailer is getting me all kinds of pumped, since I really enjoy the Assassin's Creed series (mostly ACII and AC:Brotherhood). It also gets my creative juices flowing... certain things just make me want to sketch sketch sketch. Also, the song is perfect. Just sayin'.

Inspiring Arists - Marlene Freimanis

Marlene Freimanis aka thegirlinthebigbox on DeviantArt, is a recent discovery of mine. Her style is clean, polished and does great justice to the human form. But it's also at times strange, grotesque and disturbing. Basically, I'm in love.

I also love her use of objects such as chains, jewelry and wood. It adds a lot of grit somehow, when you consider her masterful control in her drawings and paintings.

 The treatment of the white paint in some of her works (such as the one above) takes on such an interesting texture, which she draws back into. It kind of reminds me of sticky marshmallow fluff, in the best way possible.

Art Work - An Overview

Here are some of my past works that I want to share, so that my audience has some idea of what I'm all about.

Hope you all enjoy. As always, tell me what you think.

Introduction

Having completed my thesis work at the University of Cincinnati college of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, I think it's time I started a new blog. I've decided I'm going to start making posts in three categories as follows:

Art work: My artwork. Things I want to share with everyone, things I want feedback on.

Inspiring Artists: Other artists' work. These posts will be about work that inspires me, and I will always give credit where credit is due.

Inspiring Things: Just stuff that inspires me in everyday life. Or other artistic media that inspires me such as a movie, music, or video games.

Let the posting begin!