Discover the
area ‘Concept Art’ in how it’s used for not only the games industry but for
other jobs, as well as learning it’s uses and how it is done!
Its Purpose
Concept art
is one of the most important keys when designing anything for any industry
ranging from a gaming studio to architecture designs. Its purpose is to allow
people to sketch and plot out initial designs of a wanted product, piece or
even characters. The artists then build upon their first idea by
drawing other images similar to first one by possibly adding in/ taking away
detail keeping in mind how they’re going to possibly re-create this later or
how they’re going to show other people how to create this product, like concept
artists in the games industry produce sketches for the modellers to use later
in production.
The Process and
Traditional
Concept art is usually started off in a traditional form
using different mediums such as tonal pencils, chalk or charcoal for possibly
the line art or shading; if the theme of the product was supposed to be
‘gothic’. At other points watercolours, copic markers and possibly soft pastel
can be used to colour the illustration to allow other members of the team, to
see what the artist sees clearly. Normally the process starts off with having a
number of different sketches for one character, a few favourite sketches are
picked and possibly re-drawn on a larger scale but more detail is added to them,
using charcoal and tonal pencils to add the lightning and shadows around the
muscle or unusual anatomy parts. Finally a design is chosen from the rest by
other members of the team, for example in the games industry modellers,
developers, managers, some programmers and possibly animators will choose the
design between them so that the creation benefits each of them, in terms of
stress and work.
Initial sketches of Amaterasu holding the Glaives and their
initial sketches, Glaives are known as an ancient Japanese weapon.
Some of these are
sketches of what weapons Amaterasu could be holding, in the end Clover Studios
decided to use Glaives, Rosary Beads and Reflectors also known as Divine
Instruments.
Coloured in concept art of the divine instruments.
Finally the complete version of the concept art where the
colour, lighting and shadowing effects have been used, in this piece it shows
all the different Reflectors that will appear in the game by finding/ buying
them or defeating enemies.
Digital Concept Art
Recently
concept artists have allowed themselves to engage in digital art rather than
traditional for a few reasons. One of them being its more time efficient as in
Photoshop you can create an image using layer upon layer and if there’s a mess
on the shading, all that would need to be done is to go to the shading layer and
clean it up without disturbing line art, basic colouring or even lighting
effects. Another great thing about it is using onion skinning to re-draw a
certain object again or save one piece of art as a JPEG file, then going back
and erasing the layers with the design of that object and creating another
design for it.
Digital concept art of Ruin from Darksiders, it seems as
though they've used layers because the tack is extremely detailed and clear
whilst Ruin’s body looks as though they've used various levels of the opacity
to create shadows and lightning which is substitute for charcoal and tonal
pencils.
Visualisation
This is key
factor when creating concept art, the artists have to keep in mind how they’re
going to represent characters through simple sketches for the other
departments, keeping in mind they won’t see what the creation is like the
creator will. It’s necessary to keep the line art to a minimum as possible in
order for the object to seem less confusing which will lower the stress levels
of modelers When coming to adding the muscle effects it can be difficult as
sometimes people have to think where a ray of light is coming from like the
side, the front or behind or the item could have many lumps, bumps and muscles.
For example a horse can be quite difficult
when placing the shadowing or lightning; I always complete the shadows first
because I can always alter them later when it comes to the lighting bearing in
mind I have an idea of where my light source is coming from.
I recently created this piece on Christmas Eve 2012 in
memory of my Nanna who loved Shire horses; however when I drew this Clydesdale
the shadowing on the muscles where quite hard because Shire horses are quite
largely built compared to a skinny Thoroughbred or Arabian.
Communication
Leading on
from visualisation the artist usually has to represent their creations possibly
based on the role the character, object or scene does in the game, or let the
creation’s attitude shine from their appearance. It’s important when creating
characters and creatures that the target audience gets an initial thought of
who is what in characteristics. For example you wouldn't have a chibi dragon
that was supposed to be the games main antagonist where all the evil guardians
were big, gothic and bulky mythical creatures. Such things would happen in a
cartoon but not a serious game.
Link is Legend
Of Zelda’s protagonist and the concept
art here is based off the Twilight Princess game. Without playing any Zelda
games we have an idea that this character is on the good side. For example the
colours aren’t dark bold colours they’re quite relaxed. Verdant could be
symbolised with for yes or go because these words are usually in this colour
giving us the clue yes he’s a hero, but he could be one of the main hero’s as
he has the get up and ‘go’. Green could also be associated with meadows, fields
and life meaning Link gives people life or gives people a better chance at
living which he does. For the meadows idea you could think he lives somewhere
in the countryside, possibly a farm boy or someone shoved into conflict
perhaps?
In the
actual Twilight Princess video game Link does start off as a teenage boy who
owns a horse and helps herd up goats in a close knit village, then from out of
nowhere Twilight creatures are thrown into his village where they kidnap his
friends so he has to save them- ultimately causing conflict. Throughout the
game he saves people and creatures throughout the whole of Hyrule.
Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess concept art of Link the
main protagonist.
This is the
kind of thing target audience who’ve never played this game could pick up;
another representation is his clothes and their design. If we look at the
chainmail that would represent someone who fights to save something like a
knight of some kind, on the other hand that’s the only protection he has
(besides his weapons) which could also suggest again he’s a character thrown
into a war he never wished to be in because most guardians or knights in games,
are piled high in heavy armor like War from Darksiders for example.
War from Darksiders
If you look
closely at the leather arm guard the top half represents a heart. Hearts are
known to be symbol of life, dedication or love towards someone or something.
Mix that with the fact Link isn’t an adult he’s a teenager which shows he isn’t
a hard, intimidating character. Again in the game Link takes care of people’s
problems saving the village children, Gorons, Zora’s, Epona (in one case),
Midna, Zelda and many others. Finally if you look at the initial sketches of his
most used facial expressions you’ll see he’s more of a happy character than an
evil one.
The other
thing with communication is allowing other people in the games industry, but in
different sectors, see through the artist’s eyes so they have a full acknowledged
grip on the structure of the piece of art from the sketches and drawings.
Style
Every artist
develops a unique style along the way that can be associated into different
groups, or they simply have a passion for certain art topics; for example one
of my favorite art topics is Surrealism. Each game will have a set theme and
it’s that which the concept artist has to go by.
Spyro The
Dragon franchise is very well known wide world and has various sequels and
prequels to the original game. One thing that separates them is the concept
art’s style. Going from the first Spyro The Dragon up to Spyro The Dragon:
Hero’s Tail they use a younger Spyro to gain a younger target audience rather
than an adult one and even in the actual game despite the graphics not being as
good as they are now, the whole theme was set for younger children/ young
teens. The colours were very bold, bright and even the enemies were something
simple like a Yeti or a Rhino.
Then they
decided to add prequels to the actual Spyro the Dragon game by bring out
Eternal Night, dawn of the dragon and such. However with this the character
designs were completely different including the game play. It gave off an
adult/ teenage feel as the game has grown up with many people like me so they
wanted to keep that audience and succeeded.
From the
picture here there’s more of a realistic style to Spyro meaning more of a
realistic style for the game too (Dawn Of The Dragon), whereas the first Spyro
resembles more of a cartoon so whilst young children playing Spyro at the age
of 5 when it first came out they’ve grown up with the character, giving more of
a profit to the gaming company all thanks to the concept artist designs.
Where Else Is Concept Art Used?
Concept art isn't just used for the media sector, let alone the gaming industry. It can be
used in any job that requires an illustrated image made from scratch. Yes this
happens in fashion, films, graphics, printing, modelling real life products,
architecture and many more. Most of the time the art is made in a studio of
some sort ready for other workers to view the art. However it’s possible in
some cases that the art for maybe a game, film, fashion is exceptionally
amazing and followed by many people resulting in an exhibition of that artists
work which will open doors for that person because no doubt a lot of business
will want the best for their company.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the images; all rights go to
the original artists.
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