It's All About the Story

Have you ever hit a plateau in your art? Everything you do just makes it incrementally but not THAT much better? 

I've seen and experienced it so many times...

What I want you to consider in this article is that Skill is only one part of the equation.

The part I want you to think about now is something you may not have thought much about before.

In fact, it's easy for us to forget this. After all, we have to be so focused on developing the skills and the techniques while we're learning all the software and making sure we understand all of the hardcore artistic concepts we need to understand, right?  That stuff is hard enough.

But this one thing can change your art if you do it.

What is this one thing?

Tell a Story.

That's it. Just tell a story with everything you do.

One of my students, Johannes, recently discovered the power of story.

In the image below, you'll see the work that he's done on his model for the last few months.

Beautiful, wonderful work.

But it wasn't where he wanted it to be. Something was missing.

So another month of work goes by and all the changes are small. The look of the skin gets better. The look of the clothing gets better.

But it's still missing something.

This week, after Johannes listened to my interview with Alejandro Rodriguez, something clicked.

Alejandro kept saying that he wanted to know the story behind the work before he hired somebody. He wanted to have a sense that they weren't just a mouse jockey, but that they would be a valuable member of the team.

The Art Team.

So Johannes went back to work and, in one week, completely revolutionized his models. Two of them. Check out the results below.

Here they are side by side so you can see the transition better!

To me, this is an amazing transformation.

The most important element of this, though, is that Johannes did not learn any new skills during this one week. He simply looked at his model in a different way.

So my question for you is:

How are you boxing yourself and your art in today?

Are you focusing on the technical and missing the power of Storytelling?

Is there a project that you could start on right away if you just allowed yourself to?

Much love,
Ryan

PS. Want to be part of a community of artists where we get weekly interviews with amazing industry luminaries? Sign up for the Game Artist 360 course.

Learn more about Jóhannes Ágúst here: https://www.artstation.com/joi