The Art Of ZazB - Stylization Over Realism

(Via)

ZazB (Guillaume Bonnet) has a really pleasant, style bordering on the more stylized, which has always appealed to me (Personally) a little more than photo realism, because it allows artists more liberty in pushing silhouettes and shapes to achieve interesting new visual language. On a tangent, looking the game industry, we've seen a resurgence in more stylized projects as a departure from titles like Call Of Duty, which have begun to blend together into a yearly photorealistic paste of uninspired rehash.Take Carbine's Wildstar or Valve's stable of highly art directed games like Team Fortress 2, the latter having stood the test of time (Six years and counting) by not trying to stay in the graphics race, instead opting for appealing, simple and timeless.

Stylized when done correctly is bolder, and a huge amount of artists have grasped on to this school of thought, like Guillaume. As an up and coming artist with a style all his own, his work embraces the stylized philosophy resulting in some truly fun, appealing designs which follow concepts typically present in animation: Principles like flow, silhouette, rythm and an even more stringent take on color theory. As a personal opinion that I'm presenting, I'm not trying to say that a more realistic route is necessarily wrong, but doesn't it feel played out this generation? Is it right for the game industry to head towards more dangerously bloated budgets in the pursuit of reaching total photorealism, or is it time for companies to embrace something different? We'd love to hear your thoughts, and check out more of Guillaume's work after the break!