Artist Research
Arcane
Arcane: League of Legends, an animated action-adventure series created by Christian Linke and Alex Yee, is Netflix’s highest-rated series and is praised for its animation, story, world building, emotional weight and voice acting. In a typical 3D production, every element from the characters to the background is modelled in three dimensions. On Arcane the backgrounds are digitally painted and the texture on the characters is crafted to get a graphical look that fits with the environment. They also use 2D animation for effects to reinforce the painted look- this is how they end up with something that looks like an illustration. They decided to only do keyframe animation as apposed to motion capture so they could control the acting performance and aesthetic. This creates a good balance between realism and ‘cartoon’ style.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing game developed and published by CD Projekt. The game was developed by using the REDengine 4 by a team of around 500. According to an article from GamesIndustry.biz reporting on CD Projekt Red’s April post-earnings call, the studio had budgeted $316 million for Cyberpunk 2077. It was also in development for roughly 9 years. Unlike Arcane, they did use motion capture, particularly with Keanu Reeves character Johnny Silverhand. CD Projekt used JALI, which is a suite of tools that result in the highest quality of facial performance of characters in video games. It’s automatically generated on a face, based on audio dialogue from voice actors. It does this by getting to the root of what is being expressed by the vocal performance and then puts that on a 3D character.
Comparison
Arcane: League of Legends and Cyberpunk 2077 share a lot of attributes when it comes to their common themes, settings, and character design. However, the overall art tyle is evidently different, with Cyberpunk aiming towards that hyper realistic game look and Arcane combining a ‘cartoony’ look with realistic features. Obviously, Cyberpunk is a game and Arcane is a TV series based off a game, so they are trying to achieve different things, as realism automatically makes a game more immersive. However, Arcane’s art style is so beautiful you can hardly take your eyes off it. They both have similar characters in terms of the steampunk, colourful designs used. From clunky machinery weapons to colourful hair and tattoos, they both create characters that give off a ‘badass’ personality. They also have similar themes which are connoted through their variety of settings. In Arcane there is Piltover, the wealthy city which has a very strong steam punk image. The under city of Zaun is dirty and dangerous and gives off a more cyberpunk, art nouvea and biopunk feel (the mutant body armour helps to create this). Yet both have the threat of technology. The visual identity of Cyberpunk is made up of four distinct eras: Entropism, Kitsch, Neo-Militarism, and Neo-Kitsch. Each is distinct and represents a slightly different way of life. Both Arcane and Cyberpunk display corporate domination and social inequality through their art style. This is something we want to imply within ours.