I wanted to look at art from games i enjoy that have a fantasy aesthetic, something i want to be able to draw myself. I decided to look at art from FFXIV, one of my favourite games, FFXVI, which isn't yet out, and Genshin Impact, a game that I enjoy the visual look and feel of as well as the music despite not liking the story of the game.
They all have a fantasy feel, with the Final Fantasy art being much higher detail compared to the Genshin art.
I'm not sure on what piece I want to make an art board on just yet.
I have decided to analyze the Lakeland art from FFXIV.
I'm not 100% certain on who the artist for this piece is, but I believe it to be Kazuya Takahashi.
They've made a number of pieces for the game Final Fantasy XIV.
Practice:
Kazuya Takahashi is a concept artist that has worked at Square Enix on character and landscape art for Final Fantasy XIV since 2.0, A Realm Reborn, when the game got revamped after the failure that was the original FFXIV. He's also been with the series since FF9.
Examples of his work:
He's not only a landscape artist but also a character artist and main illustrator for some games. He has a wide range of talents.
Environment:
Each of his pieces for FFXIV have different atmospheres and personality to them. Looking specifically at his landscape pieces, he is able to create a wide variety of moods, with the Limsa Lominsa piece showing a city on the water that has a painted look to it and a bright colour scheme, to the LakeLand piece having a more oppressive and lonely atmosphere about it.
Looking at the Lakeland piece more closely, you can see ruins in the bottom right that show a civilization that has potentially been lost, with the nature around the image having taken back it's land.
The bright sky looks sinister in comparison to the purple fauna below, with the green glow on the horizon being a direct contrast to the purple of nature, almost like it can't live alongside it. The dark grey clouds surronding the opening in the sky add to the heavy atmosphere of the scene, with the "god rays" piercing the heavens almost looking like an attack or a portal through which something will descend from. Additionally, there is a sense of motion in the piece that points towards the middle of the lake under the sky.
Tone:
The world within this scene feels isolated and lonely, with a heavy and oppessive atmosphere, something the creators of the game themselves said they were aiming to achieve with this zone meaning Kazuya-san has convied exactly what they wanted.
The contrast between the violet trees and the green glow of the horizon creates an opressive atmosphere, with the dark grey clouds further enforcing this feeling.
Theres a slight complimentary colour palette being used for this piece to highlight the different areas. The difference between the purple trees to the sky helps to highlight the muted green glow on the horizon.
Application:
This art, as mentioned above, was most likely made after many design choices were made for this zone. I think this because of a documentary i watched that talks about the making of this zone. In this documentary they speak of making many design choices when it comes to this zone and the other zones within the expansion this art was made for. Specifically, due to story reasons this zone is a reflection of a different zone, but not exactly the same. To achieve this sense of similarity they decided to take parts of that old zone to make up this new one, specifically the colour violet which appeared within that old zone as a unique weather called gloom (pictured below).
I feel the idea for this zone was executed perfectly within the finished product. Unfortunately, i've gotten later into the game where this oppressive weather, called "everlasting light", has been removed so i can't get a picture of it. However, when i first entered this zone I was filled with dread and felt so helpless looking at it while also being in awe at its beauty. The weather was so heavy that it made you feel helpless and alone.
I now want to take the techniques deployed by Kazuya-san and make my own piece, either a section of his work redrawn or something original in his style. First i want to take a closer look at how he has drawn some areas to see how he may have gone about creating his pieces.
The foreground has much darker colours compared to the middleground and background, this helps to break them up. I can tell here that Kazuya-san has thought about sense of motion while making this section of the piece, with the stairs pointing towards the lake and the rocks on the right looking in the same direction.
Looking at the trees, I'd like to say he has used some form of water colour brush to give the effect on the leaves.
Thinking about how he would have built up this section, he probably started with a blockout of tones for the background, middleground and foreground. Then from there he may have used some textures to give him a better sense of what he was doing or instead starting to break away at the sections and build upon them to make them have more of a form, thinking about the trees and the rocks. After that he may do some more texturing before he starts to think of more detail and then begin on colour.
I think I'll try to make this section and then if i feel like it make my own piece in the style when i have a better understanding.
Process:
Block out the layers (FG,MG,BG)
Build them up
Texture
Colour
Shadow
Highlights
Bouncelight
I've done what i can in the time i have, trying to do anymore is making my brain rot when i could be doing something i enjoy or something that actually improves my skills, not this.
