Video Game Inspired Paintings
Posted: June 23rd, 2009 | Author: Will | Filed under: News | Tags: art, Fallout 3, Half-Life 2, impressionism, Team Fortress 2, video games | 2 Comments »Artist James Barnett has created a series of oil paintings based on popular video games, what he calls Fauxvism. The paintings feature virtual locales from Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and Fallout 3 to name a few, amazingly interpreted in the style of Les Fauves. Barnett navigates the game world as an artist would in nature; finding a suitable vista to paint and works from there. Below is a sample of Barnett’s work, the classic Team Fortress 2 map 2Fort.
Barnett created the series as a response to what he saw as “3D games slavishly imitating real life“, something that games like Team Fortress 2 are now shying away from. Personally, I would love to play a game that looked like the stuff Barnett has painted. Where are the video game Matisse and Derain art directors of our time?!
Check out James Barnett’s Offical Site to see his series of video game paintings. Also, if you’re interested in having a favourite virtual landscape put to canvas he also takes commissions.
daaaaayum! this is fckn awesome! Its super innovative and fun. I’d buy something fa sho.
The argument is false. Video games heavily employ hand-painted scenes and characters. It’s more common with 2D games like Braid for obvious reasons, but it’s also common in 3D games, especially if you expand that to include games that take more of an ‘artistic’ approach, rather than a strictly painterly look and feel. I’m thinking of games like Flower, for instance, which has a wonderful feel to it.
Only games that require realism to add shock value to exploding heads are strictly interested in realism per se, particularly as most of them are also science-fiction based thrillers that also require a sense of realism to sell the premise.
Having said that, there does seem to be a growing trend toward people who like to ‘vacation’ in these games – exploring them to find unique vantage points. I also backpacked across Fallout 3 (it’s cheaper and safer than doing the same in the real-world Washington DC area), as did several of my gaming friends.