As the seasons changed, the bulb began to stir, pushing forth red tulips that stood tall and proud, rekindling an old love that had been thought lost. The tulips, stood as a reminder that no matter how long it takes, love will always find a way to bloom anew.
Created in January 2023 using Houdini, Substance Designer, Adobe Photoshop, and Octane Render.
Working on a loustat 3D print also. Still a big wip (also kinda wanna rework the shape of the podest, otherwise it looks a bit like a bidet).
Happy with the drapery though. I always loved them in art or sculptures, like mucha or bernini. Def want to work more with cloth drapery for my sculptures.
Once they print well I‘ll sell them for those who‘re interested.
if you don't mind me asking, what are your artstyle inspirations?
Not at all!!
Shigenori Soejima and his team (the artists behind persona 3-5) are a huge inspiration. The instinctive look of the black shading, facial structure, and use of gesture really stand out to me.
Hungry Clicker's deceptively candid-looking poses, quick but gorgeous painting style and incredible use of reflected light live in my head rent free! I have all his books! His reflected light inspired me to incorporate that into the black shading to artificially create more depth in a 2D style, and spaces for colour
Kuvshinov Ilya's spectacular understanding of anatomy, colour, and how to make a face look cute as hell really helped me nail making a character look appealing. I also often use their idea to add a soft glow to the black lineart. Recommend studying him a lot
Alphonse Mucha was a master of composition and pioneered the Art Nouveau movement. A legend. His beautiful use of composition, pattern, bold lines combined with photorealistic elements, carefully chosen areas to supply immense detail, is fascinating and I'm trying hard to learn from that. I think combining elements from this with solid black shading could be gorgeous. You also see very little use of perspective in his work.
Helloclonion, to me, is a genius. Their use of black is beyond anything I've ever seen. Just a pure master. The black shading does not look invasive, and there is an element to it that makes it a little more 3D-looking than others, perhaps the use of IRL models. The way they translate real shadows to blackness is something I can't yet comprehend but man, I study their work all the time!! I also got very inspired to use vastly different hues as rim light from them.
Media that's inspired my art a lot are 90s anime (Interstella 5555 is my fave), Steven Universe, Sonic, Crash Bandicoot 2, Ghost Trick, Persona (ofc).
My art looks like this right now:
Hope this is the kind of depth you were looking for, haha. There have been and will be far more than just these inspirations of course, but right now it's very strongly these five!!
As a Cultural Heritage major, it was inevitable for me to notice the huge Art Nouveau and Art Déco influence in Penacony.
The most evident example is Robin's poster:
It is reminiscent of artworks by Alfons Mucha (1860-1939), who often drew illustrations for advertisment, for example Bière de la meuse (1897), created to sell beer. Robin's poster is also an ad, which serves to promote the singer and her next performance for the Charmony Festival.
We can see the detail of the hair: in both illustrations it is observable how the ends of the hair curve in almost a decorative manner. In addition, both the figures are accentuated by the use of a thicker countour line.
Next, I wanted to point out the overall architecture of Penacony (particularly the architecture in Golden Hour).
Let's start by saying that Art Nouveau has its basis on a movement called Arts & Crafts, invented by William Morris (1834-1896). Morris wanted everyone to be able to own beautiful and durable objects (somewhat going against the values of the Industrial Revolution) and so Arts & Crafts was born. Therefore, Art Nouveau is mostly known for its decorations, architectures, jewels, furniture, vases, lamps etc. Art Déco can be considered an off-spring of Art Nouveau, as it spread in the 1920s and became the style to go in the USA in the 30s. The main difference between the two is that: Art Nouveau is more graceful, "spring-like" and utilises more sinuous lines (in fact, Mucha is Art Nouveau), while Art Déco is more geometric and is characterised by stronger colors.
For instance, the grand theatre in Penacony and the other structures/objects in the following pictures can all be considered Art Nouveau, let's compare them with real life examples of Art Nouveau:
And these can be considered Art Déco:
To conclude, I love how Penacony was created, both on the stylistic aspect and the gaming mechanisms aspect (like, the 3d rooms are so cool). I just wanted to write about the fascinating artistic references in Star Rail, it's just a natural consequence of the fact that I am majoring in Cultural Heritage I suppose.