fabulous secret powers were revealed to me when I held aloft my magic sword and said...
I just got done playing through the Assassin's Creed series. As I was playing the first one, the one set in Medieval Jerusalem, I had the most nagging sense of "I've seen this somewhere before."
I've figured out what it was. Playing Assassin's Creed was like swimming in a Jean Leon Gerome painting:
I can't say for sure whether his paintings played a hand in this game's development, but given the amount of research the team did, I think it's very unlikely that the developers hadn't taken a glance at them. This makes this game my favorite ever made, from an art direction standpoint.
(Assassin's Creed 2 (set in Renaissance Italy) was, in fact, a better game, but I liked the first game better visually - if I had to choose a historical time period to run around in, I would choose Medieval over Renaissance every time. imo, the Crusades > Da Vinci)
An interesting aside - this painting by Jean Leon Gerome single-handedly inspired the movie Gladiator:
Once you begin to realize how inspired artists are by looking at what other artists have done, you can't stop noticing it. A famous example is how directly and admittedly inspired Disney artists were by Alphonse Mucha when making the movie Enchanted:
Disney does this all the time, actually. They've come out and said that their next animated movie, Tangled (based on the Rapunsel story), will be visually based on the Rococo masterpiece The Swing. It comforts me to know how much inspiration artists jack off take from previous works. It's honestly an efficient, easier way to make whatever it is you're making not look like crap.
Other obvious examples:
Team Fortress ----------- Norman Rockwell/J.C. Leyendecker
Batman: The Animated Series ----------- Art Deco (style)
Okami -------------- Sumi-e (style)
Makes me wonder when someone will make an animated movie/game inspired by cubism. Wait, has that already happened?
I've figured out what it was. Playing Assassin's Creed was like swimming in a Jean Leon Gerome painting:
I can't say for sure whether his paintings played a hand in this game's development, but given the amount of research the team did, I think it's very unlikely that the developers hadn't taken a glance at them. This makes this game my favorite ever made, from an art direction standpoint.
(Assassin's Creed 2 (set in Renaissance Italy) was, in fact, a better game, but I liked the first game better visually - if I had to choose a historical time period to run around in, I would choose Medieval over Renaissance every time. imo, the Crusades > Da Vinci)
An interesting aside - this painting by Jean Leon Gerome single-handedly inspired the movie Gladiator:
Once you begin to realize how inspired artists are by looking at what other artists have done, you can't stop noticing it. A famous example is how directly and admittedly inspired Disney artists were by Alphonse Mucha when making the movie Enchanted:
Disney does this all the time, actually. They've come out and said that their next animated movie, Tangled (based on the Rapunsel story), will be visually based on the Rococo masterpiece The Swing. It comforts me to know how much inspiration artists jack off take from previous works. It's honestly an efficient, easier way to make whatever it is you're making not look like crap.
Other obvious examples:
Team Fortress ----------- Norman Rockwell/J.C. Leyendecker
Batman: The Animated Series ----------- Art Deco (style)
Okami -------------- Sumi-e (style)
Makes me wonder when someone will make an animated movie/game inspired by cubism. Wait, has that already happened?