Dang it. I knew as soon as it turned up here it’d be sold out before I could get the chance to order it… 
Sorry to play the pedant, but I must point out that speed of production has absolutely nothing to do with the artist’s talent. As a painter, I find this idea rather annoying.
Rosalski is great as a painter, no doubt about that. However, as an example of there being negligible difference in skill by means of speed, I give you Rackstraw Downes, who takes entire seasons to create skillfully executed paintings.
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I don’t think this is true. In any other field this is fairly obvious. If we are both building chairs and you build yours twice as fast, I think it’s fair to say you are better at building chairs than I am.
The difference with art is that we don’t have a definable product usually. I can’t look at your painting and mine and say, “I did mine in half the time and it’s just as serviceable as a painting.” That doesn’t make sense.
But if your goal is to produce fantasy artwork for books, board games, concept pieces for videogames, etc., then I imagine speed is probably a skill worth practicing. Being able to execute a vision in a short amount of time is going to be important to your paycheck.
There’s no reason to prefer the work of an artist because they do it in a short amount of time, but someone who is intentionally practicing to get faster is still practicing to be a better artist.
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Yeah, but I can see in the dark and get ballistics figures for up to 2 miles out.
Well, as a painter, I disagree. Speed is CERTAINLY one aspect of talent. Speed doesn’t make you BETTER. That is to say, someone who paints 5 paintings in the time it takes someone to paint only 1 isn’t BETTER, per se. But their ability to paint fast is certainly a talent. Of course ones style, media, and subject matter can also highly influence how fast one can produce art too.
But look at it this way, Stephen King is hugely prolific. So were artists like Prince. Both could do more writing/music than once a year with ease and of above average quality. Someone like George RR Martin works painfully slow. He even has asked King how he writes so fast. Does this mean King is a better writer? Maybe. But if he is a better writer it is mostly due to the quality of his stories. Him and Martin could be equals as far as the quality of work, but King does have natural talent that allows him to be more prolific.
Walter B. Gibson (as Maxwell Grant) wrote 336 of The Shadow pulp novels in the 30s and 40s. Due to the popularity of The Shadow, it was printed twice a month, vs monthly or quarterly like most pulps. He wrote 1,440,000 words in 10 months once. He was highly prolific and wrote at a pace that no one else in his field could match. And he did so while continuing to produce solid work. That, my friend, is talent.
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I hadn’t seen it as practicing specifically to produce more, but it seems self evident that a good way to learn and improve composition, lighting, atmospheric effects, perspective tricks (which I particularly like in Różalski’s work) etc. would be to practice a lot. Quicker therefore means more attempts, and a self-imposed time limit forces one to focus on the essentials
[quote=“knoxblox, post:22, topic:91586”]
Sorry to play the pedant, but I must point out that speed of production has absolutely nothing to do with the artist’s talent.[/quote]
True, but developing skill in the craft is often as important as inherent talent.
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This is a strong point where we disagree. As an example - Thone, Eames, La-Z-Boy, and Ikea all produce chairs on the assembly-line (granted some Ikea must be finished by the consumer). Or you could use Ferrari, Chevrolet, and Smart cars as an example. Does speed necessarily factor into how well the product is built? And no, I am not even taking design into consideration.
Take me as an example. Sadly, that’s exactly the attitude I experience from customers who often are concerned with buying a painting over a work of art. They either try to (unsuccessfully) cajole me into working faster, or move on.
Too many people think you can attribute the same work practices in painting that one may use in preparing a hamburger (not counting raising a cow or growing the vegetables and grains).
Video games as a goal has only come up for Rozalski in the past few years. He’s been painting (and likely speed painting) for years. In his own words…
[quote]There’s no reason to prefer the work of an artist because they do it in a short amount of time, but someone who is intentionally practicing to get faster is still practicing to be a better artist.
[/quote]
Again, I disagree, due to my explanations above. Some great artists work fast, some work slow. I agree it’s interesting that some can work as quickly as they do, but I really don’t think speed should be a grading factor in how good they are. I believe that’s a myth set upon us by the capitalist system to get production artists to produce more.
I’d never suggest that being faster makes your output better. The opposite is true - going faster usually means making the output worse. Being able to go fast and still produce the same quality output is a skill. In art we can’t really say that output is same quality the way we might with a chair of a fixed design or a fast food burger.
Doing things quickly requires it’s own set of skills. To me, doing art quickly is a set of skills related to art, artistic skill if you were. If we limit ourselves completely to judging the works of art themselves then how quickly they were made is irrelevant (unless the time taken to produce it is a sort of performance part of the piece itself).
There’s a guy, Simon Stålenhag, who works in a similar vein, crossing boundaries of time, sci-fi, and reality, has a couple of fantastic looking books out, sells prints–could be a source of something like that, too.
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Covered recently as his art is featured in a tabletop RPG that just finished its kickstarter.
The first painting shown would make a nice christmas card.
Don’t mess with a Krampus.
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Okay. How about licensing 5K (resolution) stills from The Witcher (games 1-4, a couple of side bits) instead of nopetanks in clear skies, is what I’m thinking. Bad Art Takeoff Direction Cues, No Twinkie?
How does the stated practice compare with painting on people in line at the water park (and photographing the result) without much notice?
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They don’t really compare at all, because in the hierarchy of art, painting is at the top, and photography is way down below, just above crafts and folk art. (Just kidding, photographers.)
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I’m told that the game is pretty good, a grab bag of stuff that hangs together to give players the feeling of many options.
This is exactly what I think is happening, and a better reply than I probably could have produced myself.
Yeah, I know: I bought the book, after seeing that!
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