Initial Research for the Contextual and Literature Review
Over the past week I have been doing some research for my Contextual and Literature Review essay. The title of my essay will be "Immersion Through Illustration" and the question I will be looking to answer is, "What methods can create an illustration that immerses and interests the viewer?” with a focus on how this can be done with illustration for games.
Starting out, I read through a book "Interaction of Color" by Josef Albers, whilst reading I made notes throughout that I can reference back to in the literature section f the essay. I also began to read through another book, "Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers" by Marcos Mateu-Mestre, again making notes as I read along.
I will include the notes I have made so far for these books, while not everything here will be useful I wanted to note down anything I found interesting in case I want to reference back. Some of the notes are directly from the books and some of the notes are in my own wording. When referencing in the essay itself I will make sure to distinguish between myself and the authors.
Interaction of Color
The relativity of color
This section describes three pots of water; warm, lukewarm and cold. The experience that you would get from dipping into each of the pots would be different, and depending on the order you would do it you would perceive it differently each time.
In the example given, dipping your hand into the warm water and then the cold water gives a feeling of warm and then cold. But dipping into the lukewarm water after will make the hand dipped in warm water feel cold and the hand dipped in cold water will feel warm.
There is a discrepancy between the physical facts and the physical effect. This is a haptic illusion, similar to this colour can be used to deceive and make us see differently.
Light and hue can be manipulated to create variations in colour, giving a different experience/perception of that colour.
Light Intensity, lightness
This section goers over recognising lighter and darker colours, and how this can be more difficult when various hues are involved. Looking at a grayscale image it is quite easy to recognise the variations in light and dark, all the shades of grey between black and white, but hue can make it a bit more tricky.
Albers goes on to explain in his teaching of this topic, students consistently for years tend to get 60% of there guesses wrong and 40% right when confronted with various swatches of colours and asked to identify the darker one and the lighter one.
Everyone has different preferences for different colours, and it is useful to understand these preferences and aversions for the work we do as artists. And often using colours we ‘hate’ can be helpful in making us appreciate them more.
2 different colours look alike - Subtraction of colour
If three reds are placed on a white background, the first thing noticed is that they are red. But when placed on a red background the differences in hue and light are more obvious. If the background is equal to one of the reds on top, that red will be ‘absorbed’ or ‘subtracted’.
This can also be done with light colours on light background and dark colour on dark backgrounds, the light of the background subtracts in the same way as hue.
So the conclusion of this is that any diversion in colour and hue can be reduced depending on the background of the piece.
Optical mixture - after-image revised /The Bezold Effect
Optical mixture is a type of color illusion where 2 colours or more, perceived at the same time are seen combined, as one new colour. The 2 colours are made invisible and the replaced by a substitute, this is called the optical mixture.
Impressionist painters showcase this well, instead of simply painting green, they will place yellow and blue dots together, so the colours are mixed in our perception, despite being separate colours.
There is a special kind of optical mixture called the Bezold Effect. Wilhelm von Bezold recognised this method when trying to change the colour combinations of his rugs by adding or changing 1 colour only.
Colour juxtaposition - Harmony-quantity
Constellations within a colour system can lead to colour harmony, this is usually the goal with colour combination/juxtaposition.
Colour can be measured by optical wave length, reflected colour from paint and pigment is more difficult to define. When analysed with an electrical spectrograph reflected colour shows all visible wave lengths, meaning, any reflected colours consist of all other colours.
Plates - Notes
After reading through the book and noting things I learnt, I looked through the plates section to see what else I could observe about colour.
The reversed ground plate shows two backgrounds, one yellow and one grey, an X overlays both of them, while the X’s are the same colour they appear different due to the background behind each of the X’s.
Subtraction of colour shows two plates, one grey and one deep green. Within them is two smaller rectangles, one of a yellowish tone in the white and one that is closer to the green. When looking in the centre of the white and green boxes, the two smaller boxes within seem to be a similar if not the same colour. This is because of the subtraction of colour, getting rid of too much light or dark within a colour, making the colours seem the same.
The after-image plate shows two panels, both black and within, one side has just a white box within and another has a white box with 9 yellow circles. After staring at the yellow circles for around 30 seconds to a minute and then glancing to the white box, it creates an after-image.
The optical mixture section/Bezold Effect shows two brick wall designs, one with white behind the bricks and one with black behind the bricks. The bricks with black behind make the red of the bricks look darker even though the colour of the actual bricks hasn’t changed, the opposite effect occurring with the bricks with the light background, making the bricks appear lighter.
Atmosphere
Expression, energy and mood can be more important than the accuracy of a subject. It can be a better way to give a sense of reality to a piece.
Lighting is a useful way to set the scene, it can change the way we perceive what is in front of us, helping to create completely different moods to scenes. Studying reality as what it is rather than what we know can be helpful, as an example, if light is shining on a face from one direction and the rest is cast in shadow, rather than trying to fill the blanks you would show what you can see. As lighting falls in different ways it can tell different stories about the subject.
Long or wide shots can help in establishing where we are, what is in the environment? Medium shots can also help in this but they limit interference with less important elements. Close ups showcase specific subjects with no other distractions, extreme close ups are a more intense version of this.
Using the rule of thirds can help when framing multiple elements in a scene, by placing the elements at the axes or the intersections it can make a piece more well balanced and interesting.
Both psychical lines and ‘linear motives’ can be used to give a different feel to a piece. Curved shapes usually are more subtle and peaceful whereas harsh lines are more dynamic and aggressive. Lines can also direct the viewers attention, shaping parts of the scene to gesture to a certain direction or to for a shape.
Size can be used to make a scene more interesting and dynamic, making certain shapes small and some big, creating a contrast between the two. It can also be used to draw the viewer to what is more important, making that element the larger part of the piece. Perspective is also a useful tool for creating a scene that feels more real.
Screen direction can be used to portray different feelings, as we read left to right, actions going in this direction are familiar and often seen as positive. Whereas the opposite would imply difficulty. Elements in the background of the scene can also follow in these directions to reinforce the feeling.
Purpose
The book goes on to show some examples of different scenes and how tweaking slight elements of what I have noted above about the scenes, they can offer a completely different feel.
Restaurant Scene
Image 1 - There is space between the characters which makes it feel like the conversation is open and positive. Being equally lit it also makes it feel balanced between the two.
Image 2 - Visually heavy elements being in the way does the opposite, and makes the dialogue seem heavy and intense. A dimly lit scene can add to this further.
Image 3 - One character in shadow and one in light can imply that one has good intentions and one does not.
Image 4 - If a character is lit in more contrasting lighting it draws the viewers eye, giving more visual relevance.
Establishing Scene
Image 1 - A single scene can convey multiple messages, the example given shows a soldier up close to the screen, this gives an idea of setting for the world and the upright symmetrical soldier gives an aura that the world is flat, unquestionable and harsh.
Image 2 - The second image shows a group of people talking by a car. The scene is a lot more relaxed in contrast, the smiles of the teenagers are clear in the shot and they are well lit. It creates an open mood, and implies that the viewer is about to be welcomed into the story.
Animating the Scene
Image 1 - In this scene lines of action are used to structure the piece, lines almost like a fan are used to guide where the characters are placed, showing a fluid motion.
Image 2 - The next scene uses one point perspective and a wide-angle lens effect to show motion and height.
Next steps
While this isn't going to be the end of my note taking and reading, now that some of the reading is done I want to get a start on the essay itself, getting a start on formatting and creating the introduction.
In the next blog post I will include my progress so far.
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