How do concept artists work

They might create 2, 20, or thumbnails. But this is the exploration phase which is the most important part. The best artists include a front view, back view, and profile view of the character to offer all angles for the design.

They might even include some action shots of the character jumping, lunging forward, or swinging a weapon. These finished pieces go to the art director who critiques the design. If the director has any changes these paintings will be updated accordingly. Concept artists repeat this process for characters, animals, scenery, props, and pretty much everything you see in a video game or animated film.

However many concept artists who work in animation take the job title of visual development artist. This is closely related to concept art and both fields require strong artistic knowledge with a good eye for design. Most concept artists for video games follow a realist style of art. Most concept artists will draw digitally by hand in Photoshop , while some may work in a 3d software like ZBrush to block out shapes and forms. This step will more than likely involve some in-depth research, especially when designing more complex things like characters or architecture.

Once the first pass is done, the concept artist will get feedback either in the form of notes or a draw over.

This is when a supervisor may circle things that need changing and write what those changes are. They may even draw an outline of the exact change they would like to see. The process of a video game concept artist is quite similar to that of someone creating movie concept art.

Some concept artists specialize, while others are more generalized. For example, you may be a concept artist that primarily does work on designing mechanical robots. Though you may be a very impressive mechanical robot artist, the job market may not offer too many jobs focused only in that realm. You want to add a bit of variety into your portfolio while keeping your personal touch.

Some things to focus on learning would be the human form, animal forms, architectural design, color palettes and the moods they convey, and light and shadow and how it can affect the mood of a scene.

It is important to understand the distinction between different concepting tools i. Some game companies, for example, do much of their ideation for characters in Zbrush because it is fast and precise and very easy to make changes based on the supervisor's feedback. Only share your best work in your portfolio. If you only have two pieces that you are truly confident in, keep your portfolio confined to those two pieces.

A potential employer may ask for more work, so keep in mind that you may have to show them the next best piece. Network as much as possible. There are plenty of meetups that happen around the world every week, if not every day. These meetups may be in person or online, and sometimes include guest speakers from the industry that will take your questions after they give a seminar. That also means that concept artists have to produce a lot of different visual options and directions based on the initial pitch, whether that's a character, an environment, an object, or an ability.

It's much easier for everyone in the team to hear, 'This design feels scarier than this one, keep pushing in that direction' than, 'Make something scary' and go from there.

While the role of the concept artist may be slightly different depending on the size of the studio, and evolves alongside development, it is the most crucial at the beginning of a project, as everything needs to be fleshed out. When the production [reaches] the end, we participate in checking everything that can be polished visually, in both 2D and 3D. Finally, as concept art is a way to explore the game's atmosphere, storytelling will often transpire through the art, meaning narrative elements are something concept artists often have to keep in mind when working.

Where do they come from? What are they doing here and how do they intend to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve? Same goes with objects, Jaubert adds. You'll need to think about how it will be seen in-game: will it be up close? Or only from one angle?

It's not all about telling a story or transmitting a strong intent for a character or environment. But even then, you can find little things to put in them. Your tools will be the shapes and colours you use, but remember also that a lot of the design will also come to life through the animations, sounds and effects of the final version.

Concept art is the ability to convey ideas in a visual form, meaning that good communication skills -- both in your art and verbally with your colleagues -- is crucial. Jaubert adds: "Sometimes people aren't clear on what they want, so you won't always have clear cut pitches to base yourself on for your design. Try to understand what they want, while also minding what you think is good for the game. Closely linked to communication skills, synthetic thinking and problem solving are a must to be a good concept artist.

It might also be up to you to [decide] what the place of the element you're designing is in the game. A game designer will give you parts of the information, a QA might complement it after doing in-game tests, your art director will also have their own word about the element you're trying to design.

But you need to summarize all these views together to work. On top of that you'll also need to learn the visual and design style of the game so that your concepts fit nicely in the universe. Finally, curiosity is another key quality to being a good concept artist, as you'll need to learn about all sorts of unexpected things, from animal anatomy to engineering, to perfect your drawings. Curiosity will also help you cultivate your own references and nurture your tastes, what will eventually grow to be your comfort zone, and what you like working on the most.

In addition to cultivating the qualities listed above, Armal says that one of the best things you can do to improve is constantly feeding your "visual library" through reading, watching movies, or playing games.

And regardless of your level as an artist, you should always be working on your drawing fundamentals.