Artist Style & Analysis Research

Artist Research

Blade Runner's now iconic look and design was crafted by multiple people, and was influenced by a variety of sources. Director Ridley Scott is now known for helping to create the style of science fiction in mainstream films, with Alien, Blade Runner and Prometheus all being directed by him. Ridley Scott has said in interviews that he was inspired by Heavy Metal comic books at the time. Ridley Scott also noted that directing Blade Runner was perhaps the hardest pressed thing that he's ever done in his career as it was a mammoth task to create a world for a film when there isn't much to borrow from. An early visual reference for Blade Runner was Edward Hopper's hauntingly lonely painting "Nighthawks". In this piece of work, the painting depicts a group of nocturnal urban dwellers frozen in silent meditation under the stark florescent light of a sparsely populated all-night diner. It's apparent that this had an impact on the way that Blade Runner's world was constructed just by seeing the atmosphere that the film was going for.

Artist Syd Mead teamed up with Ridley Scott to help translate these references into the studio, which helped create the unique, urban landscape that is seen in the film itself. Syd Mead has said that he used the model of western cities like New York or Chicago that were laid out after the invention of mass transit and automobiles, with grids and linear transport. He felt like the concept for the city should involve an upper city and a lower city. The street level becomes the basement, and decent people just don't want to go there. In his mind, he felt that all the tall buildings have a sky lobby and nobody goes below the 30th floor, and that's the way life would be organised. 

Another artist I researched into is Mary Blair because I feel that she establishes the tone of the picture in a few different ways. Very vibrant, contrasting colours are used with the colour palette leaning more towards the orange/red side of things, which gives the piece a very warm feel. Unrealistic, cartoony facial features are used in a way which gives the piece a very flat, sharp look. Simple shapes are used in combination with the smaller features as a way to provide the tone of what the artist was going for, as it establishes a lot about these characters without anything being said. You can see that the character’s cheeks are red, while the characters are smiling and looking at the viewer, which implies friendliness.

Blair’s style is reminiscent of a style that is very simple and childlike, but at the same time it’s very inviting and charming, with this style being something that draws the audience in. As an example, in this picture there are buildings in the background, yet they are made standard colours and shapes that you would most likely find very easily. The use of these simple colours and shapes easily fit into Josef Alber’s colour theories, where the thought is that colours affect the perception of space within a picture.

These shapes that are very flat and have a lot of layers to their structure are a product of some very sharp, contrasting colours with some shapes that are constructed in a way that they can create the illusion of a building through the use of multiple shapes stacking onto each other. These are relatively simple shapes, but because of the composition of them, they can be put together to create something that’s very jarring.

Artist Work Analysis

Syd Mead – The lead artist for Blade Runner, his artwork is very much reliant on contrasting colours to help create the sci-fi atmosphere that he aims for. His work primarily is visually futuristic, so a lot of the same techniques are applied across a lot of his work I’ve searched online for reference images that I could find from the artist, and I’ve noticed that all of his work is made to look very clean and sterile, even with a lot of different colours being applied at the same time. The scope of his pictures tries to portray the vast open space of the future, with there being a lot of empty space at the back of his pictures to show this.

Matt Rhodes – This is the lead designer for the Mass Effect games, so I thought it would be appropriate for me to look into his work for research considering how many sci-fi influences the Mass Effect series takes to create the look and feel of the games. I found some references online because the concept designer has his own blog that he posts to, and he shares his influences that have went into the pictures which I found very useful. I feel like some of the blog’s helpfulness stems from the fact that you are able to see the original concepts and the progression that comes with that. In these pictures, you’re able to see the style that is applied to both environments and characters, and it really gives you an idea into the insight of what it takes to create the atmosphere of a world.