Task 5: Analysing Concept Art

The image I have chosen to analyse  is a piece of concept art created by Anthony Wright. The image is from an area in the game 'Assassins Creed: Black Flag'. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, or i'll now refer to as AC4 (Assassin's Creed 4) was created by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released world wide for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, on October 29th 2013. This image was published on March 8 2013, unfortunately no information on when the image was created was provided by the website.
(http://www.gamingenthusiast.net/assassins-creed-iv-black-flag-concept-artwork/black_flag-1/)

The target audience for this image is definitely gamers, mainly console gamers. Although I play AC4 on the PC, there is no denying it was created for consoles. In this particular case, the designer of this image is not trying to attract customers, but if the image was created by Ubisoft, a target audience would definitely be potential customers.

Moving on to the image itself, i'd like to first talk about the lighting, you can see the main lighting is the sun coming from behind the clouds in the top right of the image.  The light shines across the water, and the seal, but not on the dock area towards the bottom left of the image, I imagine this is due to the tall tower like building blocking the light from shining on the docks.

The colors used in this image vary, but are generally quite dull, old fashioned colours, such as dark oranges, dark greys,dark blues and browns. The image as a whole doesn't necessarily have a focal point, nothing particular stands out and catches the viewers eye immediately, however I think the sail to the right is a part of the image that stands out, due to it's unique color.

I believe the artist who created this image, was trying to show off the natural beauty of towns from this age, but also show the lifestyle of those who lived in these times.  He uses nature like things, such as trees, birds, natural lighting, and of course the ocean. All these things add to the beauty of the image. Despite this image being concept art from AC4, I think the author is more interested in portraying the architecture and lifestyle aspect of the game, rather than the game itself.

My personal response to this image, is that it's been beautifully created, and it is a really inspiring image. This image inspires me to both develop my ability to create concept art, and my will to play the game itself.

The artist could have well been influenced by more than just AC4, he may well have been influenced by games such as Skyrim, Pirates of the Caribbean, or even games such as World of Warcraft.