This blog will go over 4 important elements in which I'll be analyzing on the artist: Nick Gindraux The 4 elements: - Practice
- Environment
- Tone
- Application
To give some background on the artist; Nick Gindraux. He has worked on concept art for the Star Wars series; Mandalorian, Uncharted 4, and The Last of Us. He does indie artworks of his own outside of that too. He has his own portfolio via Artstation:
https://www.artstation.com/ngindraux His works are diverse and work in plenty of forms. Nick Gindraux is a vast open-minded concept artist who had done TV series, video game concepts, and independent arts.
I will be going over 2 pieces of their artwork/illustrations. With that being said, let's analyze the illustrations.
The Mandalorian - Ice Planet by Nick Gindraux
The Ice Planet is a fictional imagined world from one of the most popular Sci-Fi hit series; Star Wars. Much like the Star Wars series, every place is an imagined world of its own. This illustration is wonderful, atmospheric, and is the bare bones of life. You see the Mandalorian exploring the ice planet. As we can see for contents in this illustration include domes (or what could appear to be igloos.) a rough walkway, light posts. As we the environment is very barebones and doesn't provide us much which follows in the sense of snow/ice environments much to that in real life. This creates a good reference in contrast to what ice environments are in real life.
As we see the darker tones, blue and grey colors this is very effective and puts emphasis on the world. Whilst the majority of the artwork seems to be darker and dim we can see in the middle left there's some light. This could mean there's hope within this cold, dark place. Light colors are seen as positive, natural, and bright.
In the artist's vision, this sense of immersion brings us in a cold, wet, desolate and deprived area. As one would walkthrough, you could feel the sense of isolation and sympathy for those that live in the Ice Planet.
For the rule of thirds, we see that Mandalorian is in the middle giving focus and attention to the Mandalorian himself. Imagine if we were in the Mandalorian's vision. We could see that the whole composition itself would bring focus to the light, clouds, and architecture. Making the whole scene of the ice planet incredibly immersive!
How could this work as a game level? First of all, this could be a game level where you play as the Mandalorian and explore and find resources, people or it could be some kind of bounty hunting or treasure missions. This world would work out as an open-world game with role-playing game elements. Having quests/missions to gain exp, resources, rewards, etc. Personally would see this as the best fit for a Mandalorian Star Wars game. After all, Star Wars games have been a thing in the past much like the Knights of the Old Republic games and the most recent installment: Jedi Fallen Order.
So for the main five hues that are used for this illustration here were the results from extract theme:
Color wheel:
These hue results tell us that the hues used for the concept of art reflect each other like some kind of mirror. On the one side, we have the first three hues and on the other side, we have the last two hues. If a mirror was placed diagonally in the middle, the meaning for the hues complements and reflect upon each other. Most of the hues used here are cold which complements and reinforces the 'Ice Planet' name quite well. The majority of the colors have a negative influence on them however there is a small focus (in the middle left side of the rule of thirds) of positive color with the light contrasting the dark clouds themselves.
Uncharted 4 - Antananarivo Wide by Nick Gindraux
This illustration is a concept art based on the video game; Uncharted 4.
Environment: Antananarivo is based on a real-life city in the capital of Madagascar although, in Uncharted's case, it's in a video game and is concept art. Therefore, this gets a pass despite not being a full-on the imagined world for what is in comparison to the ice planet from Mandalorian.
Anatananarivo's whole environment surrounding it is incredibly vast, wide, and shows great variation. Furthermore, the composition itself has so much variation to it from the sea to the hills and then the architecture. The shadows are mostly revolved onto the foreground and then further in the concept, we see that it gets brighter.
What we feel from this concept is an adventure. As we embark in Antananarivo, we go explore the city. Then venture through towards the seaside. For all I know we might be escaping or venturing down towards the seaside to grab a boat and sail off. For our characters, there is Nathan Drake on the top left occupied on a tall building overlooking Antananarivo. Whereas the people in the bottom middle are down in the village, this could tell us these are residents of Antananarivo. The artist provides us this information in composition as to what characters are placed were into the composition. We have Nathan Drake who is an adventurer. Exploring through places, finding treasures, encountering foes or enemies that may oppose him or are after the treasures that drake seeks for. This would explain why Nathan Drake himself is on top of the tall building. Regarding tones, hues, brightness, and contrast. It is natural, it may look dim in some places and darker in other places but that's because the shadows themselves complement the natural lighting of Antananarivo.
So for the main five hues that are used for this illustration here were the results from extract theme:
Color wheel:
These hue results tell us that the hues used for the concept of art are mixed in the sense of hot and cold. 3/5ths of the hues used are cold and 2/5ths of the hues used are hot so naturally speaking I'd say this is a warm composition.
Because Uncharted is already a video game, the Antananarivo level is basically all fleshed out and established as a video game level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MEpYiS2aOI Antananarivo's level is centered around a car chase, Nathan and Sullivan are escaping from the enemies in-game and they after Nathan himself. Whilst escaping Nathan goes through very dangerous, non-driven areas in the game such as the plaza, walkways, and even construction sites. The starting point is from the top of Antananarivo then they go all the way through to the outskirts of the city.
Conclusion: Comparing both of the images is like day and night. Whilst they are based on different mediums of entertainment, there's this kind of contrast that compliments the differences in a vast manner. Uncharted is a video game series Star Wars Mandalorian is a sci-fi TV series. Antananarivo is based on a real-life area. Whereas Mandalorian's ice planet is fictional.
With that out of the way, I took one of the concept arts and made my own edit of the Ice Planet concept art. Adding block colors and snowflakes. Rather than just plain block colors, I added pieces of detail such as snowflakes and lighting.
Before we get into the block colors edit I made another version beforehand with colours edits.
Personally, this first edit isn't good for me. I feel that comparing this to my block colors edit makes my block color edit a good piece of work. In the first edit, I wanted to give some alternate colors and lighting.
That being said, here is my block color edit:
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