What kind of creative person am I? Well, to be honest, I wasn’t really aware that creativity could be broken down into specific kinds. It’s just being creative to me. Maybe I’m just misunderstanding the question, but I’ve been staring at this word document for too long now, so I guess I’ll just explain how my creative process tends to work itself. If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m not one who can just sit themselves down in front of a blank sheet of paper or word document and be struck by creativity lightning. I’ll only end up getting frustrated with myself. Truth be told, some of my best ideas come to me when I’m not even doing something related to my creative work. For example, I could just be sitting in class, my mind wandering while listening to the teacher, when something will pop into my head and I’ll have to scramble to write it down lest I forget. My idea production tends to be a little too sporadic for my tastes, but I’ve got plenty of places from which to draw inspiration.
Over the years many different things have influenced my work, for better or worse, but if I had to narrow it down to three artists or works it would have to be these:
~Sonata Arctica~
One of my biggest sources of inspiration would have to be music. I can listen to almost any kind of music, close my eyes and have my imagination kick into overdrive. I’ll form settings and people to the beats and melodies of the songs in my head. This is especially true for Sonata Arctica. Sonata Arctica is a Finnish power metal band that has recently incorporated more progressive metal elements into their songs. To compare it to a more well known group, primary lyricist, Tony Kakko, has said that he has drawn inspiration from the epic rock ballads of Queen. One of my favorite things about Sonata Arctica’s songs is that they tell a story with both their lyrics and the accompanying music. It tends to so vivid that I can perfectly picture the characters and places in my mind. This can lead to the inspiration to create my own characters and themes in my head for my own works. Another thing is the use of tension and release in their songs. For example, in the above song “Deathaura”, the melody starts out slow and easy, only to jump into the high-tension metal music. Then once that is built up enough, the music then quickly shifts back to a slow and easy sound. Other songs include “My Dream’s But a Drop of Fuel for a Nightmare”, “Black Sheep”, and “Wolf & Raven”.
~Shadow of the Colossus~
I’ve been an avid videogame player for my whole life, but one of my absolute, all time favorites is the game Shadow of the Colossus (2005), by Team Ico for the Playstation 2. Shadow of the Colossus is a game about the protagonist, Wander, striving to bring a girl, Mono, back to life by defeating beasts known simply as the Colossi. What sets this game apart is that there are no dungeons to explore, no other characters, no enemies, no levels, and no items. There is simply the character, armed with a bow and sword, his horse and the 16 colossi he needs to defeat. This game acts as an inspiration to me because of how much the game accomplishes with such a minimal approach to the adventure game style. I especially love the contrast between Wander and the Colossi. When they are called the Colossi, it is no joke. Each colossi, save one, is a towering beast of epic proportions, composed of both inorganic and organic material and the player must scale each of the beasts to find a point, indicated with a glowing blue mark, to kill it. Lumbering and powerful, each colossus is itself like a dungeon or puzzle that needs to be figured out. All the elements of the game, as professed by designer Fumito Ueda, were used to create a sense of the “lonely hero”. I greatly admire Ueda’s design abilities.
~Wen-M~
While I don’t normally draw inspiration from the works of other artists (I don’t want to be a copycat), I can certainly be influenced by their style. One specific artist is Wen-M, a deviant art artist who does work for the tabletop role-playing game Anima: Beyond Fantasy. I’m a big RPG nerd and this sort of stuff has always tickled my fancy. It’s my hope one day to be able to do design work for a fantasy RPG, though more in the videogame area than tabletop. What I really love about Wen-M’s work though, as seen in the spear designs above, is his ability to take objects that are fundamentally simple (see: spear), but make them so very different from one another. I truly envy his detailed artistry in just about all of his works. It’s not just his RPG item art that I admire; he also has a whole gallery of beautifully intricate and detailed monster and character designs. Each artwork sets the character against an appropriate single color backdrop as a way to draw the eye to the character and it works wonderfully. Just seeing his artwork fuels my drive to create my own characters, to aspire to the same level as him. As such, I always check back every once in a while to see if he has put out anything new.
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