Videogame in Art

Intention

Famous pieces of art was always a material of parody and modification. I am trying to somehow integrate great historical or famous arts with famous video games (mostly Overwatch or Legend Of Zelda) extending the idea of mash-up. My intention is to make this look something people might want to buy if they were in a form of real painting. Also I think this will be a semi advertisement on the game, which will eventually enrich the game company, and in conclusion, had made money only that that money was not given to me.

Context

I was inspired by Marcel Duchamp's LHOOQ, which is a piece that Duchamp made out of Mona Lisa by putting a mustache under her nose. Substituting game characters or settings but stealing the artistic atmosphere will be a similar process and approach with Duchamp.

Process

I will try to use Photoshop to substitute the characters in artwork, but if it does not fits the criteria or the picture needs too much modification might draw some parts myself. Using clip studio.

Product

I will create a digital art where traditional/ what we call art today with changed contents. The technology I will involve includes photo editing.

Context

Mona-Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci between 1503 and 1506. It is well known as a classic art by many people. The piece is also well known as her enigmatic facial expression. The oil touch that Leonardo used created the soft edges of the paint and smooth flow of colors.

Overwatch is the game developed by Blizzard. Recently it is a great trend in the pc gaming. Zenyatta, one of the game character with a mysterious mask on him. He is an omnic monk who wanders the world in search of spiritual enlightenment.

I was inspired by the street art video we watched in class. The notion of appropriation and vandalism, the remix of modern and tradition was able to create great art that captured my mind. Also the rebellious nature of street art seemed to blend well to my statement.

Statement

I have created this work by looking at consumerism as a movement of the crowd who are trying to be in the trend. People try so hard to present themselves to be elegant and full of knowledge. As seen in the Banksy and Mr.Brainwash video, when street art was a hype, so many collectors tried to buy and gather different street art. Even Mr.Brainwash’s low quality mass production was thought as an art that contains great meaning.

Therefore, I wanted to argue that anything could be art, including video game. Some people completely leave video games out of the box when thinking about art, but since anything including Mr.Brainwash’s piece of paint can be art in the world of consumerism, video game which always brings hype can definitely counted as art.

All of these thought processes guided my way through constructing the idea and actually completing the picture. I wanted to argue that video game is an art.

Process

First, I tried out several phenomenal games. Some other games I had in mind was the Legend of Zelda and Undertale. However, the Legend of Zelda was a game that was continued from the start of video game. Therefore, it was too traditional to my taste. Undertale was a recent game that gained fame, so was more likely to the topic of collaboration of current time and the old time. But It was weighted more to the comic world, so I chose Overwatch which was recent and had figures that could easily mixed with 1500s painting.

I tried to incorporate the style that Leonardo da Vinci used to paint Mona-Lisa, but had hard time duplicating it with digital medium.

Product

The product is a digital painting with Zenyatta in the place of Mona-Lisa in Leonardo’s painting. The tool I used was photoshop, where I could easily change the texture of the painting. I drew a sketch on top of Leonardo’s art work by using another layer, so that I could draw Zenyatta with similar posture to Mona-Lisa.

After the sketch I tried to color the figure somehow like oil painting. However, I couldn’t figure out a way to completely success the task since oil painting leaves mark that could only be made because it is oil painting, such as cracks of the paint. I tried to use healing brush to duplicate the cracks but was not as easy. I used a very small brush to make the work less digital.

Critique

Overall I am very happy with my art. I haven’t released the art online yet, but I hope many people will like it because either it is funny or the genre is so popular nowadays. If people like the work, I think it kind of proves that people likes to be in the trend. Also my statement, anything can be art will also be seen in those activity.

One thing I am not satisfied is that I couldn’t nail the detail of the character himself nor the shadow and the light used by Leonardo. I figured it was a very hard thing to become an artist. Sometimes I got frustrated because I couldn’t draw as I imagined. Also, I was not confident with the idea of replacing Mona-Lisa to a game character will represent what I really want to talk about.

However after finishing it I think it might be interpreted in the way I thought if someone overthink about the piece. Right now I would be happy if people can laugh when they see this parody.

Personal Reflection

It was very hard work to finish the whole thing. This was a style that I never tried, and a character I never tried to draw. But I think at least I learned something from working like that. Also I didn’t really realize that I could insert my argument into a paint I draw. In addition, it is my first time to document what my argument is and justify my statement. So definitely I learned something from this project. I think I would be more keen to other people’s idea when looking into their art since they must have some kind of intention when creating such art.