Creativity, the talent myth and craft

People often compliment my work and say stuff such as 'you're so talented, I could never paint this/I could never understand all this 3D stuff'. It's nice to be complimented on my work, but it's the fact that they seem to think they are incapable of it that perplexes me. People can be born talented, yeah, they just have a natural understanding of something, but it's not like it's something only they can then do. Art is just like every other 'talent' in the world; anyone can pick up a pencil, focus, and become an artist with enough dedication, whether they were born with an instinct to paint or not. People who aren't hindered in any way that would otherwise complicate what they want to do (say, wanting to ride a bike when you're a paraplegic) that can't become good at something are people who simply don't try enough, and I myself am evidence of this. I wanted to learn guitar when I was Thirteen and had a pretty big passion for it. Seven years on and I still play frequently, and is probably more of a hobby than gaming to me. Along the road I wanted to learn drums and keyboard too, gave these a go, but eventually gave up because I wasn't motivated enough. Not because I physically or mentally couldn't do it, but because I couldn't get past those first hurdles of separating bass and rhythm in drumming, having my hands work independently of one another when playing keyboard. I nearly gave up guitar at one point, but I didn't and I stuck with it through sheer determination. If you do something long enough, and acknowledge your mistakes you will eventually get better at it, even without studying into it too much. I have never once tried to properly understand music theory, but I can still play a few improvised licks and riffs simply because I surround myself in music 90% of the time, I even fall asleep with my headphones on every other night.


                                              vs


These two sketches don't prove who's more 'talented', they prove which artist has spent more time on getting better.

My opinion is that talent isn't some magical gift that some people have and others don't. It's something that some people have, and others can work towards if they so wish. To wrap up talent, I would agree being born with some quirky bodily function is a 'talent' such as people that can roll their tongue or whatever it is, but for stuff like painting, music, sports, even being extremely good at something like accounting isn't really a 'talent', it's a passion, people don't tend to be really good at those things if they don't enjoy them.

Moving onto creativity, I think it was Picasso that wisely said 'Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal'. Creativity, much like talent, is highly subjective and open hugely to interpretation and opinion. Sometimes something extremely creative doesn't always equal something that everyone will enjoy. Take Marcel Duchamp for example. He Re-purposed a urinal and called it a work of art, it was highly controversial and rejected, yet it still had a admirers in the art world for it being highly creative.

The world of art has always been a place for conflict and controversy, and always will be, as artists and appreciators of art will continue to agree and disagree over what can be considered ‘art’. In the end it’s entirely a matter of opinion, and what a piece of art means to an individual is truly what defines it as a work of art. For hundreds of years fine art dominated the art scene with multiple movements, such as impressionism, surrealism, pop art and realism filling art galleries across the world. But in the last 30 years, a new art movement has been trying to make itself heard and secure its rightful place on a gallery wall – lowbrow art. Lowbrow is almost exactly what it sounds like, an art movement created to oppose current highbrow art, works from artists such as Mercedes Helnwein and Jenny Saville, as well as older pieces such as Renoir and Constable.

Creativity is always something that is evolving, and it's a wonder that new idea's are popping up in the world of art and beyond where people are saying 'I can't believe I didn't think of that' or 'that's not creative, they've just stolen old ideas'. Coming up with something completely new and original is hard, and often the result of pure chance, which is followed by a lot of research and development.



When I finished my War of the Worlds concept, I was pleased with it as I felt I had gone with an unconventionally styled design that fit the brief, but didn't look like everyone else's designs. I had used reference and inspiration such as insects, organs and skeletal bodies for it, but after I posted it up, someone noted the face resembled Micky Mouse. I love his design, but it hadn't even crossed my mind when making my creature. Even when you don't intend to steal someone else's idea, it still can subcontiously happen.That's not to say everything is stagnant and boring now though. Especially in the games industry. Every now and then you get that breath of fresh air from that one company that decided to take a bold leap with a new IP, and it paid off. This game would've been pitched as a very vague idea by one person in the company, and as a team, the creative directors would work together to finalize the concept, then work with their team to expand these ideas. The creativity isn't limited to one person; everyone's sharing the same creative vision, but that's not to say everyone will come out with identical ideas. The beauty of it is that you come out with hundreds of ideas formed by very different minds, all working under the same pitch, and this is what would make the game so unique. Take Halo for example. Bungie were its creators, they conceptualized everything about it, but now it's handled by 343i, and yet, it still mostly feels, looks and sounds like Halo. These people at 343i knew what made Halo iconic and they worked from it to create new, fresh ideas that didn't completely break the lore and settings already established. Mirror's Edge was another game that took everyone by surprise. It was made by Dice. The company that have done basically nothing but the Battlefield series, and yet here was this incredibly different and invigorating game that broke so many established conventions, a true example of creative vision leading creative and talented passionate individuals towards a unified goal.



Personally, I feel I'm loosening up and becoming more creative, just letting ideas creep up on me when I least suspect it. Back when I was around 5 or so, I would be drawing things from my head all the time, and never what was around me. Nowadays it seems to have reversed. I remember designing 40 or so monsters, then fusing them into 20, then 10 and so on until I had one ultimate monster drawn down that was an amalgamation of all these other monsters I had drawn. Now, I find it hard to think up 10 massively different creatures. Towards the end of the year though I just kind of let go, and ran with wherever my mind took me, especially with the war of the worlds project. In which I listened to the HG Wells broadcast about 5 times over, just constantly listening and out of nowhere drawing several new tripod concepts each time. Hopefully I'll be able to continue these loose sketches over summer to really develop my ability to churn out idea after idea.