Hi,

I would like to discuss a question that is bugging me for some time:

How can a great artist create ugly work?

Let me explain. In my team I have a great art director who can create
really pretty work, ranging from models, textures to concept drawings.

But sometimes (e.g. 10% of cases) even he is able to send me a work
that's just ugly, for example geometry without details looking like from 10
years ago, or very flat textures without dirt or any details on it.

Do you have an experience with this? Or is it just a subjective point of view?

BTW, I observed similar "behavior" on other team members too... no just
artists, it can be writer, musician, sound designer... in 90% they create great
work, but sometimes it's just weird.

I want to discuss it here first, anonymously, and only then talk with my team.

Thanks.

mhh. Lack of motivation, pressure, distraction, writer's block, etc.
I think it is a problem any artist has at least experienced once.

Sometimes you're just in the flow and creating art seems to take no work at all.
Other times you are really trying hard but nothing comes out...

just my 2 cents.

Nothing is perfect with human beings and all things in nature, you can never to expect a great work all the time, like Madhed said there's a lot there's a lot of data that can influence the work.

But what about if he thinks his work is pretty even though I think it isn't? So it's not only
that he makes ugly job... he also thinks it's pretty.

I know art perception is subjective, but somethings are fairly universal.

I believe that art either works or doesn't. Since an artist has no way of knowing whether an idea will work ahead of time, there will inevitably be failed experiments.

I'm sure if you think hard enough, you can think of at least one game company that produces gold 90% of the time, and make crap the rest. For me, that's Arc System Works, who made Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, two very good 2D fighters, and Battle Fantasia, a boring, dull 2D fighter.

And of course, your artist thinks his failed experiments are pretty. Even when i program a game and it's no fun at all, when i play it, i still see the original concept which i love. Even when it doesn't work, i still see the beauty in the parts that do, while everyone else is distracted by the parts that don't. It's hard to explain, but a parent always feels proud of his/her creation and it shouldn't be any other way.

All creative people turn out some percentage of work that fails, this is what an art director, music director, or whatever is for - to not approve problem pieces and to tactfully explain why a piece doesn't accomplish the goal and needs to be changed.

My response is usually TIME. AD's generally have a ton of things going on. If you have multiple projects going on concurrently, IMHO production work is a waste of time for an AD. He may not have the time to make every model great if he is doing production, too.

In my experience, AD's aren't usually responsible for a lot of production work (let's face it, that's why we have multiple leads and a ton of artists), so maybe the skill-set gets rusty. Most of time, the AD isn't the guy who can do everything better than anyone else, he's the guy that can tie it all together.

Or he just had a bad day or block. Some days the creative juices aren't flowing.

Maybe he is thinking the textures are placeholder and can be cleaned up later. Sometimes that happens, but leaving that unchecked is a dangerous trend when feature-creep piles up.

Art isn't like flipping burgers or putting widget A into widget B.... it is different every single time (visual, music, writting, whatever).

Drawing you have to be aware and try to use sooooooooo many different variables (lighting, contrast, color, positive and negative space, balance, anatomy, edges, texture... and much more). At the same time, you have to do it differently. You can't simply use what used for you yesterday (or, well, everything ends up looking the same).

What you see in an artists portfolio isn't what he / she does each time he /she sits down. It is the best of the best that has been done.

Often what you see is only the "stuff that works". But what you rarely see are the piles of rejects they have as they tried to work out that good stuff (or, often, instead of piles or rejects they just keep going back and fixing all the stuff that was wrong with the piece, revision after revision).

The thing is, those rejects are actually pretty useful. I sometimes end up drawing a HORRIBLE creature... but... actually like one or two of the ideas I had. So, the next one, I take those good parts and move the idea forward (without that crappy reject, the final wouldn't have been as good).

Basically, art is problem solving. It is never a case of "here is the solution". It is always a process of working towards figuring out that solution (from sketching, silhouettes, color tests, references, blocking in, adjusting....).

Oh, and sometimes, what "makes a piece work" isn't about what is really the important part (like the CREATURE in a creature concept). Sometimes it is just a matter of a different color or just adding in a better background :|

Andddd sometimes, when looking at a picture for a while, you stop "seeing" it. You miss completely obvious things or think something works when it is crappy. Which is why it is sometimes a good idea to go take a break now and then When schedule doesn't give you that break, well, you just have to keep going and miss the obvious (hopefully someone with more time catches it :|