Aesthetics
Hey guys,
I was just wondering the other day, what is aesthetics. Received a critics on my portfolio, saying and I quote "lacking aesthetics".
Confusion, what is aesthetics and are there some rules?
I was just wondering the other day, what is aesthetics. Received a critics on my portfolio, saying and I quote "lacking aesthetics".
Confusion, what is aesthetics and are there some rules?
Replies
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oK8UTRgvJU[/ame]
While with aesthetics, it's supposed to be what you see on traditional paintings for example. Colors, composition, motive, lighting...basically, just that it's pleasing to the eye. Like, even if model of pictures technically doesn't look too impressive, those things above make it still look very pretty.
That's how i see it.
Or to maybe put it in another way, i think good aesthetics would mean that it gives you some sort of emotions when you look at it, like this pic:
http://www.artstation.com/artwork/bloodborne-fanart
It doesn't feel blank and boring, it gives you certain emotion, i'd say that's a good sign of good aesthetics. If you look at some picture and don't really feel much, i'd say aesthetics is one of the things you might wanna check out.
But that's just me really. :P
And yet again, for instance I thought Divinity 2 looked good and Fallout 3 was bleak. But that's just my personal opinion...
notman thanks for the comments
I really liked that picture.
Are there any general rules on aesthetics, maybe a book or some sort of resource?
I think that would be nice.
In my conclusions there are 2 things that makes an artist.
1 is technical skills, how well you know your tools, and what you can do with them
2 is your Eye for aesthetics (as I call it)
It appears that different people have different tendencies. Some are shaped to be better with technical knowledge, and some are naturally good with aesthetics.
Since it is life, and not a game, some poeple have both and some have none and
all in between. But this is just a initial thing and all needs to be developed.
I knew how to perfectly use photoshop in like the 9th grade to a very high level,
that did not make me a good artist however, as I lacked artistic vision. Your eye for aesthetics tells you how a shape is going, how proportions need to be, which colors to use, how things look and what makes them look good. Its that what makes
art. Anyone can use a pencil. Your brain tells you what is right and what is wrong,
and if your brain dosnt have the experience it will take bad things for correct,
so even if you can model any shape in your tool, your brain dosnt know how the shape
needs to look exactly.
Important is that you can learn technical skills by digging through tutorials and
lots of practice and experimentation. The eye for aesthetics does grow more over time
however, it is harder to learn. What is important is observation. You will see many things from other artists and real life that will drastically influence your work, not in style, but in quality. Your brain does recognize those patterns and they all
get saved, and you grow with it.
If you want to work on that part, then make sure you are constantly looking at other peoples work and real life. (aside of lots of practice ofc)
And dont limit yourself to looking at 3d art, you will learn so much from all varied things, even if you dont understand it consciously.
Look up some art fundamentals on ctrl.paint as colors and proportions and composition can be broken down to science basically. Sites like behance or abduzeedo are great for mixed art.
Damn i really have to have an opinion on everything, do I >.>
I did think alot about this however
What I struggle with is to understand why this work is, say, aesthetic and why. Or maybe it isn't aesthetic at all and why?
Like you said: if your brain dosnt have the experience it will take bad things for correct
It might be worth looking into design theory for any visual medium, a lot of aspects you can break down into components, and once you learn each foundation your eye for aesthetics should be helped along hugely. Getting this information specific to digital 3D art might be difficult, since digital 3D art is still kind of the baby of the visual media family; but you can take it from almost anything and apply it. I personally learned quite a bit from looking into product design and advertisement, along with web design.
That's just something to think about, though, and I'd suggest sticking to foundation studies for now. Look into the classic art foundations like composition, the golden ratio, color theory, form, texture etc. Might help a little.
They can definitely be learned, so it'll be a good start.
But uh, I digress... I'm actually posting because the WIP/"coming soon" link on your site is broken. Sent me to http://alexenv.co.uk/index.php, which is a 404 on my end. I'd also remind you to remove your oldest/weakest stuff from your portfolio regularly.
Good luck working past this, man.
I'm going to say beauty instead of aesthetic for now.
If you're looking for a checklist that's not going to happen. That's not how beauty works. It really is an almost intangible quality.
We can go on about technical solutions and how to model things correctly easily because those things have set rules (almost, there's always a myriad of techniques for everything) whereas there's no such thing for beauty.
The closest you can come to reading up on it is probably reading about composition and color theory. More often it's about developing a feel for it which is gained through experience. But do read some about composition, which I think is huge when it comes to environments.
This is why we can find beauty in very abstract paintings, it's just something that "speaks" to you. And some people unfortunately don't have the eye for it. I can't say 100% certain it can or can't be trained.
THAT BEING SAID
There's also some quite straightforward tips one could give for a lot of your work that are straight up "fixes". I'd say that part is about craftsmanship and an understanding of what you're trying to present.
This might sound harsh, but a lot of your work looks quite naive and referenced from games rather than real life. I don't know if this is true, but it's a feeling I got.
It's like learning anatomy from looking at already stylized cartoons. Your foundations will be screwed up.
It's not an abstract concept like others are saying; I took courses on it in high school and college. There actually are rules and definitions for what things are needed to make art look good.
Like the balance of an image, the strength of a silhouette, or the complimenting of colors.
Not sure if I get the problem 100% but now I have a starting point.
http://youtu.be/UX2PzNHwabE
Thanks for sharing that, interesting presentation