great blue heron
Over the past year I've noticed a certain theme emerge in all the art advice I've been given. It's been hinted at by story artists, visdev painters, and recruiters. But I've never heard it talked about at art school, or any formal setting. It's incredibly central to storytelling, and something you can start using right now. You've read the title, so you know what it is, but for the sake of making this a tidy little essay I'll say it again: specificity! Be specific in your art!
I found it really strange that I kept hearing hints of this over and over from all kinds of different people. I first heard it during a Zoom presentation where Michael Herrera was discussing his path to Disney. He kept getting rejected over and over, but it was only when he relaxed, and drew stories that were personal and specific to his interests that he got accepted. While giving advice on what made good storyboards he kept repeating the importance of being specific over and over. Make sure the acting beats aren't generic symbols for an emotion, but the way this specific character would express their feelings through gestures and body language.
I also picked up threads of specificity in my study (and thorough enjoyment) of Ludo Studio's Bluey and Cartoon Saloon's Wolfwalkers. Both of these stories are deeply rooted in the locations the studios call home, both of which are places we typically don't seen in animation. Bluey is washed in the sunny palettes of Brisbane, with the characters often traveling to real places you can visit (which fans have since tracked). Cartoon Saloon has built the success of their entire studio on a willingness to be specific to the mythology and artwork of the Irish countryside, and in Wolfwalkers, characters walk along the same cobblestone streets that the animators themselves take to work. It saddens me (for more than a few reasons) that the entertainment industry is so centralized in only a few cities because we're likely missing out on so many unique locations for stories. Just think how many stories are set in California or LA simply because that's where the studios are!
It's easy to see this advice as simply "write what you know" or "be yourself." But "be specific" encompasses so much more. For example - consider a period piece. I'm pretty sure Tracy Butler (creator of Lackadaisy) didn't grow up in the 1920s, but careful research and a uncommon (but specific!) choice to set the story in St. Louis rather than a northeastern city created a specific and memorable story. Of course, it's easier to add specificity to a project by including something that you are familiar with (Tracy did move to St. Louis prior to writing Lackadaisy.) But specificity has more to do with a willingness to ask questions than a previous knowledge of the answers.
That's how you add specificity to your art - asking questions along the way. Everything starts out generic, but by adding thought and care, we can sculpt something specific out of it. Say you're drawing a pirate. You could just include the visual hallmarks: parrot, vaguely 1700s fashion, eyepatch, sword. This is generic and has been seen dozens of times before - but what if we began asking questions? What sea does he sail upon? Where is he from? How often do his raids succeed or fail? Is he concerned with impressing people? Or terrifying them? Actors are encouraged to ask these kind of questions all the time, yet visual artists commonly are not. If you can use your own experiences and observations to provide some of these answers, all the better. For example, I'd probably gravitate towards a pirate story based on the Carolina coast, since I'm familiar with the area and could bring even more specificity to the setting and attitude.
I also may find that I'm simply unequipped to tell certain kinds of stories. For example, I'd love to make a story set in the Australian outback, but since I've never been there, I will struggle to create something that doesn't feel like a generalized version of the culture and setting. I could do a ton of research, but I'm fighting against the grain here. Many of my favorite stories are made about the places and people that their creators already know and care about. They may be draped in a level of fantasy and unreality, but the direction of that fantasy, and the heart of the characters, will be something taken from real experience. David Petersen's Mouse Guard may seem like another forest-animal-medieval-fantasy, but it's specific because the main cast are based on his college friends. Not saying that you can't make stories about things you don't already know, but it will take much more work to be specific and honest to those subjects.
If specificity so so tough, why bother? Well, the practical reason is that specificity implies story. Say you're drawing a kitchen counter in your scene. Even adding something as simple as dirty coffee mugs left about implies multiple past events and something about the person who used them. Being specific allows you to cram in as much story as possible into your project, which as a storyteller, is kinda a big deal.
But even bigger on the scale of Big Deals is that it allows you to cover your story in love. And since that sounds heckin' cheesy, I'll back up and explain. If we're honest with ourselves, we won't make the time to do the research to be specific about something we don't already know and/or love. So if we have the ability to be specific about something, it's probably because we've noticed it, appreciated it, and on some level understood it. In other words, we love it. And when we're faithfully incarnating that thing/person/place in our stories, perhaps even exaggerating it for a clearer message, we're inviting the viewer to step into the story and love that thing too. We all have different loves, and the world will be a poorer place if we don't share the unique bits of beauty we see with people who may otherwise pass them by. And this applies to everyone - writers, nurses, waiters all. Our life experiences have given us the skills to see beauty in things others cannot, and I think it would be pretty cool if we shared those specific experiences with others. As a Christian, I'd say we all have a unique way to express God's love for the world, that happens to be mirrored in our own little collections of loves. I love Carolina summers, Nashville afternoons, and mice with swords because God loved them first.
So perhaps being specific isn't about drawing what you know, but drawing what you love.
Let's make those kind of drawings. Those kind of shows. Those kind of conversations. And make the world more like a stained glass mosaic of all the little bits of light we see.
Grateful for your readership and your amazing-ness-ship -
Much love on this Valentines Day :)
-dh
PS:
I will not let myself sink to the academic level of adding a Works Cited section to a Roost post but here's another article on a similar subject that helped me find the thesis of this essay. It would be unfair to not include it, or miss another possible reference to the Happy Rock ;)
