Specialised practice: Concept Art Design

For my specialised practice I will be focusing on concept art design. Being from a fine art background I have an inclined interest in the process of how a concept artist comes up with their ideas, how they follow a project brief, and how they get their resources for their art design. I will be exploring this field through the medium of research, doing my own practice and following some fundamental steps that I will find through my journey of how to become a concept artist.

To find out what kind of responsibilities a concept artist would need to have within the entertainment industry: that being game, movies or any media platform that requires a concept artist, I will look into job sites that would specifically outline the requirements and skills that the artist will need to hold.

Looking at many websites I narrowed my search down to gamasutra.com, this site happens to be the best one and I was recommended by many students and teachers to look at the sites job list. Now not able to find a specific job roll for a concept artist I found something that is relatively the same, and that is a UI Artist. The responsibilities that a UI Artist needs to hold are as followed:-

• Design and create high quality 2D art assets.
• Design layouts, flows, and interactions for our game’s UI based off our game system designs
• Document flows and interactions to clearly communicate designs to the team.
• Rapidly prototype, iterate, and refine ideas based on feedback.
• Collaborate and keep a constant line of communication open with stakeholders to ensure you are in sync with each other’s needs.
• Support additional 2D art efforts for the studio and game as needed.

(Tenacious Entertainment, https://jobs.gamasutra.com/job/ui-artist-designer-bellevue-washington-34286 , 2020)

Now I would like to point out some of the key factors that I think I will have to pay attention to when I am learning about being a concept artist and that is, designing high quality 2D art and assets. Knowing that a concept artist would be doing a lot of fast and rapid drawings to get their ideas down on paper or on an electronic device, the artist would need to produce a final outcome that is refined, polished and has executed their design to its finest, so that the rest of the team can follow one or more design properly.

Second point I would like to point out from the job description is, to be able to work from feedback and make changes to the design if required. Making quick, steady prototypes, this is to demonstrate that you have took feedback and are able to work from it and that as a designer you can take criticism and develop something that can satisfy the needs of you director or the project brief.

Finally the artist should be able to collaborate with the team and be able to communicate clearly with them, so that you and the team are in sync and the working environment is efficient. By working in a team, you as a designer would have it easy to be creative and design work that will represent the product and you.

To achieve these requirements in my final major project I will be working with the class or a small team of people where I will be given the task to design what the group has visualised and working on a brief OR, if I am not working in a group then I will take the liberty to go around the class and ask if anyone needs any character design, environment designed or a model design that they will develop it on 3D max studio. Like this I can make my own brief and work towards it.

Before I started my practice of being a concept artist or indulging myself in this path, I had to ask myself what is a concept artist? Looking at job description only tells me what skills are required from a concept artist, but how does a person become into a concept artist? For that I started to Google some artists who specialised in this field and are currently practicing. In my search for artist and doing research on them I came across an artist, Feng Zhu and his YouTube channel where he covers basics for beginners. I manage to watch 2 videos that have been approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes long, together.

The artist goes through several skills and attributes for example, working on inexpensive surface, like printing paper, working with pens, pencils, working in thumbnail form, working from real life reference images and the list goes on. All of these skills will help you with when you’re practicing to draw and coming up with ideas for your concept design. The artist recommends to draw at least 2 hours a day and doing 10 drawings a day for 6 days a week. By doing this you would get better and faster at drawing, and you will definitely see the progress in your work. Like the old saying says “practice makes perfect”, that is what the artist is stating.

The first episode I saw of Feng Zhu’s, the artist goes over and over how a beginners need to draw and to keep their practice up. He also explains that you don’t need any expensive sketchbook, but use printing paper to do your drawn or bits of scrap paper and that would visually stimulate your ideas working on uneven or scratched up surface. To explain his eagerness of drawing the artist says,

Quote: “….put a piece of paper in front of you and draw something.” (Zhu, F. (2018). Design Cinema – EP 89 – Just Draw!. [online] Youtube)

This is the artist basically saying that stop finding excuse and just draw. The artist also mentions that keep your drawing basic and work from natural forms like rocks, trees, insects and etc., also keeping in mind that your subject matter is at its side profile with minimal foreshortening, so you find it easier to draw and the perspective is flat to the page.

I have also looked at another artist, Tony Camhel. Camehl, he is a concept artist that specialises in creature design, currently working in the video game industry and creating creatures for AAA games. He is also interested in animal anatomy and in his free time he would sketch the anatomy of an animal to help him to be a better creature designer and make believable designs. He also follows up that if you want to communicate your design and make it believable, you should be able to work in any medium, whether 2D or 3D. The artist also used inexpensive materials, like watercolour to get his basic shapes and ideas down on paper and this would give you a visual base to work of off and respond to.

Quote: “…., one of the things I have learned is that coming up with shape studies/sketches is the most crucial and important first step when it comes to creature design. When you are a professional creature designer, you need to come up with the best design possible which fits the description or idea…” (Lewis, 2019, p.52, 53)

After mentioning what a concept artist is required when applying for a job or when briefly touching on the subject of how a concept artist becomes a concept artist, I would like to conclude this topic by explaining what exactly I will be doing in my final major project. I was really inspired by Feng Zhu and his teaching of how to approach from a beginners level, so I will carry on drawing from primary and secondary images of natural forms and then what my sketch work inspires me and how I want to turn that into a concept design I will use reference images, from google, books, magazines or other media. I will also ask other 3D modellers and game developers for any concept ideas that they have and if they would like to have me design it for them. By collaborating with other people will help me to make a library of sketches and also help me to make a great portfolio, where I can demonstrate that I have explored other aspects of concept design, from character design to landscape design. Making a full attempt of covering this field and getting as much knowledge as possible. I won’t keep this practice limited just for the class room, however I will be doing more sketching and drawing in my free time, so I can develop my skills further. I will carry out my research on Feng Zhu and his YouTube channel, FZDSCHOOl, also carry on looking at the book, Sketching from the Imagination: Creature and Monsters. I think this form and method will be well suited for me and it will aid me to advance further.