Artist Development References

 Following up from the previous meeting, I gathered up a collection of artists from Artstation to use as reference for what I wanted to do - in general, environmental art, and, more specifically, stylized environmental art.  Here are the results from my information gathering:

https://www.artstation.com/patrickmann/collections/1627650

Nigel Goh - https://www.artstation.com/nigelgoh

I really liked the rounded, bubbly shapes that Goh was using for his pieces.  He has a really distinct, hyper-stylized aesthetic that I enjoyed, where the colors are super bright and everything in the scene almost looks like it's made out of balloons.  Really seems like a good thing to reference for things further along the stylization scale.

Brent Critchfield - https://www.artstation.com/brentcritchfield

I really liked all of the detail that Critchfield put into his environments - there's a lot of really interesting stuff going on all over the place in the examples he's got up there.  As someone who's thinking of doing environmental art for a career, that sort of thing seems like the high water mark for what I'm doing.  Plus, the visual style is just neat, too - the way he does his models reminds me a lot of the Orb style, and the use of overarching colors in a scene is neat, too.

Josef Griffiths - https://www.artstation.com/josefgriffiths

On the opposite end of hyper-stylized stuff like Goh's work, I also grabbed inspiration from Griffiths' environmental work.  The stylization in this stuff is very slight, and it overall more leans towards realism.  I thought it would be best to have something like this for a frame of reference - something a little more grounded that I could use as a jumping off point for doing crazier stuff.  In any case, I do like Griffiths' work on it's own - it's nice, solid, efficient environmental stuff, and he's doing neat things with lighting.

Tim Burroughs - https://www.artstation.com/tim_burroughs

I really liked how Burroughs created really clean-looking, cohesive environments.  Everything about the assets he made are very crisp and tightly designed, making the most of what he had.  The stuff on display is still highly detailed, but in a away that doesn't take away from the stylization, and really helps the environment to come together.

Bart de Vries -  https://www.artstation.com/bartndv\

I think the work of de Vries might be some of my favorite of all of the art on display here.  He has these really detailed, highly exaggerated environments on display that really do some fun things with stylization.  There's really no straight lines on display, which I think really helps to make some interesting shapes in the environment. 

Haibo Wu - https://www.artstation.com/bobeye

Wu's work was also something that drew my eye because it had a similarity to the Orb style.  I enjoyed how well the art worked for how low-poly it was, effectively hiding the low poly count through detailed textures and modeling tricks.  That is really something I aim for - being efficient with the poly count is a good way that I, as an artist, can help make sure the game runs smoothly, so I'm always interested in seeing ways I can do more with less.

Bodom - https://www.artstation.com/bodom_tss

Bodom was doing some really interesting stuff with how hyper-stylized the work on display was.  The Might & Magic tributes are a key example of this - the colors are flat and exaggerated, and the shapes themselves are very simple and low res.  And yet, the whole arrangement comes out looking fantastic in the end, which I think is neat.  Bodom's work is on the pretty far end of stylized, which I feel like is a good reference to have at hand.

Marta Ribeiro - https://www.artstation.com/martaribeiro

Marta's art drew me in with some of the interesting indoors environments she made, particularly the "Melodramatica" one, which is stylized in a really neat way.  She seems to have a talent for adapting her stylized art to a variety of different aesthetics, which I think is neat.  Also, the "Overgrown Church" I added to my reference board is a really neat setup, with how modular is.

Loóna - https://www.artstation.com/loonaapp

The small, self-contained scenes made by the Loóna team were really appealing to me because, despite all of them being mostly man-made objects, they had some really interesting flowing shapes to them.  It's a really neat exaggerated style that makes even solid objects look almost fluid and organic, which I think would be a pretty cool way to stylize a scene.  Also, I really liked the use of bright, flat colors they had, too.

Pejman Aghei - https://www.artstation.com/pejman

The thing that drew me to  Aghei's art was some of the interesting stonework and statuary he did - they really strike a good balance between keeping the simple stylized shapes preserved, while still having good surface detail, and it all reminded me quite a bit of Orb's style.  That said, the piece of his I chose was the mushrooms, which I think was just my affinity for the shape of mushrooms.  They're fun to model.