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Archive for October, 2009

The Diary of Arthur Dunwich Carter

Friday, October 30th, 2009

To ensure that your hunger for Glyph creativity remains satiated, we have decided to launch a “Sketch of the Week” section on our blog – and what better way to kick things of than with a Glyphic Evolutions Halloween special…

Last October, Nelli and I decided to take a short trip to the Natal Midlands – a creative retreat – and well deserved, we thought, so close to the years end. Nelli himself was hoping to find some inspiration in the lore and traditional artworks of the area’s indigenous people. We found accommodation at a small, somewhat isolated guesthouse, which had at one point in time been part of an old British fort. Nelli discovered something interesting beneath a loose floorboard in the guesthouse – it was a diary, close to a hundred years old. On the cover, in an aged and immaculate script, were the words “Diary of Arthur Dunwich Carter”…

The diary details what must surely be a hoax – perhaps something engineered by the locals to frighten tourists. Regardless, Nelli decided to do an illustration of those lurking, creeping things which supposedly haunt the forest surrounding the fort. If you wish to read it, we have recorded a short extract from the diary, which involves Mr. Carter’s trip to the Natal. Regardless of what you make of the diary, Fort Nottingham has now been converted into a small museum, and should you ever visit it, you will find on display a set of macabre statutes, remarkably similar to those mentioned by Mr. Carter…

October 26, 1912

This morning, received a letter from an old friend of mine, Oliver Derby. No sooner had I read it that I found myself sitting on this train to Natal. Derby and I had seen a great deal of service together during the war – he saved my hide in the Transvaal once, when some boer sniper was kind enough to put a bullet in my shoulder. Turns out the old boy remained in his Majesty’s service, and found himself commissioned to some obscure fort in the Natal Midlands – Fort Nottingham it’s called. Apparently he’s been having some trouble with cattle raids in the area. Everyone believes a group of local outlaws to be responsible, Derby tells me, but he seems to think there’s something more sinister afoot. The old boy wasn’t too clear on the details, but something seems to have shaken him – no small task, considering the man did not so much as bat an eyelid at Talana Hill. Still, he knows I’m a terror with a loaded Enfield in my hands, and all things considered, I felt I owed it to him when he asked me for my help in the matter.

October 27, 1912

Arrived at Fort Nottingham today, after spending a rather uncomfortable night on one of the station benches. Didn’t have much time to talk to Derby before turning in for the evening – will discuss the matter with him tomorrow morning. Turns out he isn’t the only one who’s spooked – he couldn’t get a single driver to take me to the fort after sunset. Regardless, it’s a good day’s journey to the fort from Balgowan station, so I had time to question my driver, a Zulu by descent, on this forlorn and densely wooded part of the Natal. The man was not forthcoming with information… but he alluded to absurd tales of arcane rites and ancient curses; of cannibalism and long forgotten wars; and of some lurking, creeping thing; some primaeval nightgaunt stirred from its impossibly long torpor…

October 28, 1912

I can almost understand Oliver’s state, seeing Fort Nottingham in daylight. There is something unsettling about this aged cyclopean fort, and the surrounding forest, so thick that not even sunlight can penetrate its old and aching boughs. I think that his nerves have too long been worked by the isolation of this place. The nearest town is over a days drive away, and there is a contingent of only twenty men here, intended to control what was once rampant cattle theft on the surrounding farms. Derby tells me that a few weeks ago, farmers began reporting a new wave of thefts – only this time, whatever was taking the poor beasts would leave behind one or two bodies, hideously mauled and mutilated. At first, he believed it to be Langabelele’s bandits trying to intimidate the farmers, but on questioning, all of the locals expressed their belief that the bandits were innocent – they stole cattle for food, and certainly would not senselessly butcher them. Soon after that, people began disappearing; first the farmer’s children, then the farmers themselves. Derby’s men, out on patrol, reported seeing things in the forest. The old boy sounded as though he was trying to convince himself more than me, when he assured me that his men, somewhat unnerved at the disappearances, had simply seen monkeys in the darkness of the trees.

October 29, 1912

Restless night. Feverish dreams of malformed, gibbering things lurking in the forest. Could have sworn there was someone outside my window. One of Derby’s men deserted today, and another seems to have been attacked while on patrol last night. All that was found of him was his rifle, which had recently been discharged. Something curious about the deserter – chap by the name of Baker – we found a number of small wooden carvings in his trunk. The things were positively vile – made from some dark and scarred wood, and about three feet in height, crouching on their haunches as they were, with large, preposterous eyes and hungry teeth framed in grotesque mouths, and bellies pregnant with unnamed evils of the netherworld. According to the boy’s diary, he had recently been to Madagascar while on leave, visiting his father who owns a small machine shop in Antananarivo. There, the boy came across a merchant selling the things; said they were some sort of antiquated graveyard wards. The boy bought the lot of them, hoping to resell them for double the price once back in South Africa. The diary then spirals into madness – from what I can make of the boys progressively illegible handwriting, he seemed to think the bloody carvings were somehow responsible for the disappearances. Nothing more than the ramblings of a young soldier who lost his nerve. Tonight, I will join Derby’s patrol, and hopefully put an end to whatever man or beast is behind all this.

October 30, 1912

Something is not right here. My mind is blighted by a nameless doom that has come to haunt this wooded hell. Found Baker’s body last night… what was left of it. Some years ago I saw the remains of a man who had been killed by a lion in Rhodesia – it was nothing compared to the torn and eviscerated horror which met us in that damned forest. And there were… things… howling and chittering in the oppressive blackness, things I could only catch fleeting glimpses of… too dark to make out anything more than that. Another man lost on patrol, right from under our noses, and two more gone this morning. Deserted or worse. No human could have done that to Baker – yet, the despair within my soul tells me that he was not killed by something entirely animal. The men are at breaking point. Suggested to Derby we call off tonight’s patrol – he was only too happy to agree. Will all sleep in the barracks tonight – for security and to prevent more desertions. Buried Baker, and sent runners to surrounding farms – no one is to go out after sunset.

October 31, 1912

Not much time to write. Something got into the stables last night… God… the slaughter… trail leads into the forest. Derby, myself, and the remaining men preparing to follow it to the fiends responsible for this butchery – in the blessed daylight – not that one can tell the difference in that abysmal forest…

Must be close to midnight. Derby’s dead, and most of his men. We found the things hours into the forest… their lair was a charnel house. Guns were useless. Only their eyes… luminous in the darkness. Three of us made it back to the fort… barricaded in the soldiers quarters… can hear the blasted things outside… damn their infernal chittering! At the windows now… not much time left… finally I can see the creatures clearly in this lamplight and… God… THE EYES, THE TEETH! Baker’s carvings! The fool doomed us all! If you find this… by all that is holy… DESTROY THE CARVI…

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Our Revamped Digital Studio

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

Office furniture apocalypse as we get ready to move everything out of the digital studio for the new floors to be laid.

If you look very carefully beneath the corner desk, you can see Andy, almost one with the shadows, honing his ninja skills.

Legend has it that there is a long dead samurai buried beneath our digital studio, and that his spirit is the source of our inspiration. His tomb is said to contain the riches of his countless conquests. We started digging to find it, but then Andy told us to knock it off because these guys needed to screed the floor. Guess we’ll never know now…

The new flooring has been completed, and we begin to move back in.

Almost done. All that remains is to restack the book shelf and redeploy the toy miniatures.

A photo taken just after the previous one, only now you can see the ectoplasmic ‘smoke’ of an undead illustrator, his restless soul having been attracted to our good vibrations and brand new digital studio… or just cigarette smoke. You decide.

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A few pics of our painting studio…

Friday, October 9th, 2009

One of Riki’s private commissions – an epic landscape triptych

A number of artworks in various stages of completion.


 
Keeping the canvasses flat so that the oil washes pool and naturally settle into pre-existing textures – old school is cool.


 
Andy and Halo working on a corporate art piece. As usual, Halo is not pulling her weight. (Andy’s Great Danes somehow follow him everywhere!)


 
A few hours later, Andy is still at it and Halo is still sleeping on the job…

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Of Art, Boxing, and German Philosophy II.

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Last week, I spoke about how art and design should be accessible to everyone, and I used the brilliant analogy of art as game-playing by Hans Georg Gadamer to illustrate my point (Read it here). While this week’s blog post is a continuation of that article, I intend it to be far more light hearted and not so laden with the antics of old grey philosophers. This article is intended to be a tribute to and a discussion of something that just about everyone in the contemporary world is familiar with – computer game art.

But first, a brief recap: Gadamer believed that interpreting art is like playing a game. When you play a game (to use my previous example, boxing) you enter into the ‘world’ of that game. Without the game, the players would have nothing to play, and without players, the game would not exist as there would be no one to render the game manifest – the game and the players are contingent upon one another for existence. Also, when you enter into the game world, you must abide by the rules and parameters of that game, however, you still bring your own personal nuances with you. Thus, you play the game according to the rules, but you interpret those rules in your own terms, and there is plenty of space to get creative.

Interpreting artwork, says Gadamer, is exactly the same thing. Let’s assume that an artist creates a painting. This painting is actually a world or a reality constructed by the artist. When we view this artwork, we enter into that reality. While the artist has set the rules for that reality, we still get to interpret it in our own terms. And best of all, the artist needs the viewers to interpret his artwork just as much as the viewers need the artwork to interpret it. Both viewer and artwork are contingent upon one another, and more than likely, the viewers award the artwork with greater, more varied meaning, and the artwork leaves the viewers with a slightly expanded perspective on life. So if you believed that you needed a PhD in fine art to enjoy an artwork, think again. Artists need you just as much as you need them, and regardless of you knowledge of art, you are completely entitled to like what you like!

Now that the technicalities are behind us, let’s consider this concept in terms of computer game art. Had Gadamer ever been exposed to the likes of Halo, Grand Theft Auto, or one of my personal, albeit older favourites, Fallout, I am sure that the sun in his happy Hermeneutic world would have shone a little brighter at how the modern world had made his theory manifest.

Something which both Andy and Rikki have always been impressed by is the fact that a computer game artist creates a look and feel for entire worlds (both physical and philosophical). While most of us are familiar with developing an identity and then applying it to, say, some business cards, a website, and maybe a letterhead (a challenging enough task in itself), computer game artists develop identities on steroids. They breathe life into the worlds in which games take place, so that once you pick up a controller or sit behind a keyboard, you might as well be a flesh and blood person (or alien, vampire, mutant, etc.) truly occupying whichever fantastic world it is that your game of choice takes place in.

I think that once you truly consider game art, you cannot help but to be overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of what professional game artists accomplish. Every object you come across in a game world has been developed so as to be acceptable in that world. It conforms to a look & feel of epic proportions, to ensure that you never feel as though anything is out of place, and the world which you are playing within is truly believable. This applies to everything from the textures on walls, sound effects, weaponry, and character dialog, to what the protagonist looks like, what the characters wear, and background music, all brought together to form one massive, coherent universe.

The ways in which computer game art parallels Gadamer’s ‘art as game-playing’ theory is startling on a theoretical level. When Gadamer said that interpreting art is like playing a game, this could not have been truer than when considered in terms of computer games. Only, instead of calmly approaching an artwork and gently stepping inside of the world it represents, to ponder its significance and allow ourselves to become slightly more cultured by what the artwork suggests, computer game art thrusts us, guns blazing (literally), into the skin of some alliance soldier destined for greatness during World War 2, in command of space-aged armies that fight across entire galaxies, or even into the badass leather jacket of the Chosen One in post-apocalyptic America, where we, as gamers, get to make what we will of all these imaginative worlds presented to us.

On an artistic level, however, computer game art is a true demonstration of the talent and skill of the artists. As I said in my previous article, there is no higher measure of the value and meaning of an artwork than that artworks ability to engage with just about anyone. And as far as computer games go, you would be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t find at least a few games relatively enjoyable. It is true that most people do not consciously reflect on the costume design or the lighting of the games they are playing, but the fact that we become so completely lost in the worlds of these games is testament enough to the fact we do not only appreciate and enjoy the artwork behind the game, but we understand it as well.

Finally, apart from the philosophical implications of what I have said and the talent of the artists in question, game art should be recognised for at least one other thing – it has, quite unintentionally, rendered art far more accessible, meaningful, and downright fun for more people across more backgrounds than most major artworks throughout history.

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