Game Art Piece Analysis through Traditional Principles

The piece I chose to analyse was this restaurant interior by the artists Arseniy Chebynkin and Pavel Galicki, which was originally developed for use as a background in a visual novel game called "Love, Money, Rock'nRoll". You can view the artstation post for this image here:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OmqaZJ

"Restaurant Interior Sunset Version" by Arseniy Chebynkin and Pavel Galicki

Shape Language:

The overall atmosphere of this piece is that of calm and welcome through shape language. Most of the objects in this room are square, or feature rounded shapes such as the bottles and the lamps. The squares give a strong sense of structure and stability to the scene, while the rounded circular objects give a sense of ease and comfort. It also helps to separate the objects in the scene from the furniture, as all the immovable structural objects feature this square shape while the hand held objects like plates, bottles and even the spoons are very rounded. The only exception is the lamps, however these are technically interactable objects for the characters as it is assumed you can turn them on and off.

Composition:

The composition of the piece is very square, enforced through the arrangement of the lamps and the tables and even the shape of the window at the back. This helps make the location feel very stable and dependable, which in the context of the restaurant makes the location more welcoming to visit. There are no moving elements in the scene, so this helps enforce the feeling of peace.

When looking at this piece from the perspective of the rule of thirds, the structure of the room begins to support the lines. the lines of the ceiling and the arrangement of the tables and lamps support these lines. The lamps sit along the top third line, and the tables sit below the bottom third line. The whole composition looks like it has been somewhat split into three parts: The tables, the open area, and the structure ceiling. The tables on the left with the lamps automatically seem more important because of their proximity to the focal points and because of the automatic reading of left to right, so the front of the table reads first then the rest of the room follows back as the perspective of the table is followed. These thirds also impact pathways, where it is inferred that the path the player takes is in the gap between the tables along this right hand vertical. 

Rule of Thirds Example

Symbolism:

This piece is fairly simple in terms of symbolism and focusses mostly on readable forms over abstract meaning. There are some elements such as the lamps which have forms reminiscent of foods like mushrooms or bao buns, which pushes the restaurant theme of the scene more. The patterns and Japanese text on the walls also push the cultural recognition of the scene, showing explicitly that it is a Japanese restaurant. There are smaller elements too such as the lucky cat and decorative vases on the corner shelf which push that it has some modern design elements, but it still stays traditional.

Colour Aesthetics:

The main colour in this scene is the bright yellow/orange of the light, accented by the brown of the wood and the pale off-white of the walls. The scene is meant to show the time of day through this light colour (as indicated by the title) and it helps convey this warmth and low light angle with obvious light beams through the scene. The yellow in the orange promotes a sense of happiness, optimism and comfort, being a great link to the sunlight. If the colour used for this orange was more red, the scene may look more angry or hostile, as if it was a area that could be easily in danger. The red would also give the scene more energy, which since there is no indication of a person in the scene it would give a sense of discomfort as to where that energy should be coming from.

To contrast this warmth, areas of depth (ie. the areas closest to the kitchen at the back) are given this cold, artificial blue light, as if to indicate that this area of the piece is meant to be a more sanitary, clean, artificial area than the welcoming, warm social space at the front of the restaurant. The blues used on the patterned accents are not true opposite blues either, they lean towards the warmer, green blues than a traditional royal blue as to not make the contrast so extreme that it looks separate to the building. 

This combination of colours works really well since these colours are complementary, and the imbalance of these colours in favour of the orange means that this piece doesn't look conflicted or uncomfortable to look at. 

The wood in the scene acts as a great intermediary material to do this with, as by association wood has this warmth and comfort to it being a natural material. The colour of this wood is different depending on where in the scene it is, with the ceiling supports being a much colder colour than the wood closest to the camera in the light. 

The saturation of the colours is also very carefully controlled, as the wood and the wall plaster are left desaturated in contrast the tables being hit with the strongest light. The lamps are also areas of high contrast to show the surface properties best, as they appear to be a glazed, shiny material in contrast to the wood which is a very rough, textured surface.

References:

Chebynkin, A. and Galicki, P., 2021. Restaurant Interior Sunset Version. [image] Available at: <https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OmqaZJ> [Accessed 8 November 2021].