The Good And The Bad

I don’t think I could have left this much closer to the last minute.

What makes art good or bad…?

It’s hard to determine an exact set of rules to govern the judgement of any type of art due to how subjective art is. What one person says is bad another considers good.

However it can be easier to determine what is good and bad when you look at what the aim of the piece or pieces in question. For example if the aim is to produce a picture or 3D model that is as close to an exact replica of a real physical object, person or scene then you’ve instantly got some criteria to make comparisons with and the closer to the real thing the picture or model is the better it is. You can check the shape, colour, perspective and scale and tell where a lot of the good and bad points lie. There are still problems, the chosen composition may appear good or bad depending on who is viewing the work for example but it does make things easier.

Once you start deviating from or modifying reality the potential for contradicting views increase as it’s harder to say whether or not the piece in question looks the way it should as it’s harder to find things to compare the subject matter to.

Then there’s the issue of stylisation where you can take even real life things and although you may still know what subject matter they represent they are more than likely not made to be a 100% accurate representation. This can still potentially look good but it’s more subjective than it would be otherwise. Even if there was a set style that the piece had to be made in at the end of the day the viewer may or may not like the style.

In the end the biggest factor that determines whether a picture or model is good or bad is the artist’s skill. Their ability to convey there idea in a manner that represents their subject matter in a way that is as close to what the artist is trying show as possible while being pleasing to the eye in terms of subject, composition and rendering.

As game artists it should be easier to grade most of our art as opposed to a fine artist as the majority of our work is at least based on real life objects and forms so objectivity is by no means out of reach if not necessarily easy to achieve. However I’d think we are also being marked on originality which throws in a few potential hazards with our experiences being different to our tutors (something original to me may be a near exact copy of something I’ve never seen but my tutors have).

And now I’ve run out of words (not that I’m entirely sure the ones I’ve written so far even make sense) and I’ve barely written 400 of them….

How can you grade good and bad art…?

• Is the composition good?
• Is it rendered well?
• Is the method of creation good/appropriate?
• Is the perspective correct?
• How long did it take? (appropriate length of time being determined by complexity and method of creation)
• Does it look feasible? (in the world/environment/reality that the subject is intended)
• Is the subject’s construction suitable? (3D models)
• Has the artist got his/her vision across well?
• Are the proportions correct?
• Is it original enough?

I’d imagine there are probably other criteria on which things should be marked but I can’t think of them at the moment. I’d also imagine that some of the ones I’ve mentioned would be far more difficult to grade than others.

I think that’s it, for now at least (not that I have much time to do more). I’m not sure I’m really literate enough to get my points across but hopefully I’ve succeeded if only partially.

Bye. See you at the grading.