I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the ways you can visualize an emotion. Turning feelings into visual representation isn’t exactly a new frontier in art-making… in fact you might say that’s why art exists in the first place. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to explore. When I’m teaching class I always try to root my students in the emotions of the work they want to create. It gives them a unique perspective and a firm foundation to build on.
With Game Not Included I want to concept of visually representing emotions to be omnipresent throughout the site. For every piece you create, there is a root emotion of some kind attached to the work. Emotion tags are how you sort through your portfolio (“world”). But… emotion is a heavy word. People don’t like it. Asking someone to create an artwork from an emotion feels like a clinical exercise, where you need to kick up all your vulnerabilities and dig around until you find something potent enough to draw. It’s a big ask, and yet! Creating a visual representation of an emotional state is *basically* what all concept art is. You need to visualize something that doesn’t exist, and if you do it well, you will make the viewer feel something when they see it. Using emotional shorthand to get the right reaction from your audience is baked into so many aspects of our artistic lives. From symbolism in storytelling or the composition of a painting or the color scheme of an ad at the bus stop, the things around us use emotion to capture our attention.
Learning how to identify and communicate emotions makes us better artists. And while maybe everyone doesn’t want to explore their emotional landscape as directly as “draw what happiness looks like”, pretty much everyone has at least one story they want to tell. And if you want to tell that story in a visual way, having a grasp on emotional nuance can make you a stronger storyteller. If you want to create concept art for the game in your head, getting familiar with your emotions can help you take your artwork to the next level.