Value, Entry 3.

For my third and final value entry, I want to look at a piece of concept art from the game Batman: Arkham City. It's a personal favorite game of mine, both for its immersive atmosphere and its stunning visuals.

Here we can see a couple of interesting approaches to the use of value as a descriptive device. initially, of course, we can see that physical details of the scene are described entirely in dark shades. Our key focal point of course being batman himself. He stands silhouetted by a lighter background, with a tiny amount of bounce light on the semi glossy material of his cowl. He's very much embodying his mantle of 'dark knight' in this scene, and this of course is important when conveying the mood of not only the setting and environment, but the character himself, as well.

We can also see various buildings and features like chimneys dotted around, each placed to be explored by the viewer as they digest the scene.

In tandem with these dark shades, we can see the artist has used light tints of colour to create the 'atmosphere' of the scene. rather than use dark negative space (as Degas did in my previous post), it is evident that despite being a night time scene, the expected value system has been flipped on its head, the night sky described in murky orange light pollution.

This leads in to the other interesting use of value here, the almost emissive glows found in the air. The artist is using tints to express atmospheric effects like rain and smog. This is excellent for building the muggy, murky scene we can see and a thematic placement to describe the nature of the city itself. Gotham being a notoriously crime infested city of polluted morals. Dotted about, we can see various tinted focal points, like fires atop chimneys, and the search lights from the lurking airships, the symbol of an onlooking authority with an air of powerlessness. The ships are not down amungst the chaos, they simply watch from afar, echoing the lack of control Gotham cities police force seems to have. Finally, our other major focal point. From batman being one of the darkest features of the scene and our main point of interest, the secondary focal point is the large beacon atop the police station. the usual means of calling Batman, and an interesting contrast being a device associated entirely with light, being used to summon a character exclusive to the darkness.