Behind the Strokes
Have you
ever enjoyed a movie even more after
watching the behind the scenes footage?
Especially today when the lines of reality and CGI can be almost
indiscernible, a look into the making of a feature can give us a greater
appreciation for the final product…and sometimes it has the reverse effect:
sometimes the making of the film was actually a lot more interesting than the
film itself. In choosing concept art as
a medium of specificity, I have explored how this same “behind the scenes”
principle can be applied to still art.
I
considered first doing a time lapse of the project, but that would be
exemplifying time manipulation in film: not focus on the artistic process
itself. Every painting I have ever done
has an appendage of doodles and sketch-ups to go along with it. Many times I hate the finished product (as is
the case with the two projects I posted for this assignment). I don’t like the lines here, the colors,
there, etc. The sketch pages however, are almost always entertaining to look
at. It gives a visual artist’s statement
as it were to the process behind the creation.
After
several paintings, I found that the concepts had a life of their own, and I
almost never hated the steps to getting to the final destination: it’s raw and
natural, and almost indelible since flaws are an intentional part of the piece.
The idea of celebrating trivial flaws is key here. I was very displeased with the final project
of the Legend of Zelda triforce: I just couldn’t get the paints right, the
shapes simple yet detailed enough, the light reflections that I wanted too: it
just felt like a failed project.
And in some
ways, it is.
Thanks to
the concept page, I can now look back and see step by step what I was doing and
where I went wrong. I’m already planning
on tackling the project once again in the future, and I will definitely have
the original concept page by my side…as well as create an entirely new one to
learn from.
No artist’s
statement, time lapse, or other medium could display so adequately an insight
into the creator’s mental process as the concept pages do themselves. And this way, the strokes and sketches can act
as building blocks to help with future projects and provide inspiration not
only on original ideas, but help eliminate more trial and error time from the
next project.
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