Level 3 Games Development
By Eoin Matthews
Concept Art for Games; What you Need to Know
An introduction
In this article, I will be showing you how the use of concept art is a crucial stepping stone within the Games Development process, from basic sketches to fully rendered concepts. I will be explaining how concept art is used and what the process is behind producing concepts.
Use of concept art
Concept art is the visualisation of ideas that have been developed using a variety of influences through art, film, literature and personal experiences like visiting the beach or just by walking to the shops and observing the goings on around you and recording this by either taking photos of sketches. Concept art is used to shape the approach and tone of a style or theme in the development of a project to give developers an idea of how they might achieve it visually.
Many concepts are evidently scrapped to make way for improvements or a different iteration of it. Take for example ZooTopia, they had gone through five different iterations of the script involving a shock collar (Figure 1) on all of the predators, after removing the shock collars and by changing details or major elements to the script until they are satisfied with the final version they were able to go on to produce the final product. As you can see in the images below with examples of characters with and without the aforementioned shock collar originally named a calm collar.
Figure 1: Shock Collars
Figure 2: VTunnel10
Examples of Concept art in video games
A good franchise to take a look at for the amount and variety of concept art is the Fallout franchise. Spanning from the late 90's (1997) to the most recent game Fallout 4 VR in 2017, Fallout has had hundreds if not thousands of concept art created for it. Ranging from miscellaneous object to characters and even guns! To the left is a piece of concept art for Fallout 3 (Figure 2), produced by the late Adam Adamowicz who unfortunately passed away in 2012 due to lung cancer at the age of 43. Adamowicz has worked on multiple games in the industry such as The elder scrolls Oblivion, Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls Skyrim and Fallout 4. Here is one of his early concepts for Fallout 3, in this piece of early concept art titled "VTunnel10" he has designed this interior space to be themed as a Vault which is a large, cold, industrial feeling interior, although this particular piece is a very large open space as indicated by the little person in the middle of the concept which was most likely used as a size reference. Looking closely at the art shows that it was meant to be a sort of garage or some kind of entrance to a vault.
In the next piece of concept art also produced by Adamowicz (Figure 3), it describes a scene within a communal area inside a vault, which happens to be a bar celebrating the new year with a few decorations such as multicoloured lights and a sign saying "Happy New Year!" hung above a patron and a barkeep giving a sense of life to an otherwise dull and cold interior. The lighting within the scene is bright and well lit which illuminates the detailing around the room allowing you to see smaller details like bolts holding walls up and defines the pipes snaking along the walls. The choice in the colour palette within the scene is limited to only a few select tones, the overall theme is cold using a light blue to shade the steel walls and door whereas the bar area has a bright warm yellow tone illuminating the bar and bringing even more details behind the bar to the scene which emphasises that its a bar inside of a small vault.
Figure 3: VTunnel11
Figure 4: LArmorFrnt01
Figure 5: Mad Max
Figure 6: LArmorFrnt02
Figure 7: LArmorBack02
In the gallery above shows the character design for a set of armour to be used as a concept for Fallout 3, as you can see one of these images is not like the rest *the one with the dog in*. This is Mad Max, which is referenced a tone in every fallout game to date and is cited as being the main inspiration towards the franchises many styles within the wasteland. From the leather jackets to the various belts and buckles, Adamowixz did not stray too far from his reference material and yet still created his own representation of the armour which is still being redesigned and remade within the newer Fallout games.
Figure 8: Photoshop
Sharpen your Axe
All concept artists use a multitude of tools and techniques to make their art come to life, from using a Graphics Drawing Tablet to digitally create their art or by just using a scrap of paper to start brainstorming ideas to put into their final concept. The tools in which a concept artist may use are as follows;
Pen and Paper, this is a traditional technique used to create rough sketches and storyboards in order to gather ideas and lead an artistic direction towards to finalised piece of concept art. This is essentially the beginning of the creative process towards video game concepts.
Graphics Drawing Tablet, These are used to create digital drawings and is classed as a modern technique as it allows the artist to layer images to create more depth to their work and to also undo mistakes with ease as it is digitally produced on a computer.
Another popular option for artists to use is Photoshop, Photoshop is Adobe's photo editing, image creation and graphic design software, but it does come at a cost which many new artists may not be able to afford. It is highly recommended as it has many tools and effects that can be utilised within the creative process, tools such as the Brush tool which allows the user to render brush strokes within their art, also the Blur, Smudge and Burn tools which will allow the user to Blur points of their scene, Smudge layers and the Burn tool which lets the user darken their art. One particular piece of editing software available is GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) a free program that achieves many of the same results as Photoshop but is free!
A few of the techniques that a concept artist may use are keeping a bunch of art books on hand to stimulate their brain and to help them utilise certain methods that can help them to produce concepts, poster art is also very useful for the creative process as it allows an artist to observe themes and styles to use in their own work. One thing that artists are always looking for is references, be it an online piece of art or a rough sketch they have made from the back of their mind. References are an important part of creating concept art as it allows the artist to expand their knowledge of a particular genre or to understand a key method that will help them later on down the line when it comes to producing concepts.
The future of Concept Art
Concept art as a whole is the means of creating something unique, be it never before seen or a different iteration of a previous piece. Art has been around for centuries dating back to the stone age where the early man would draw onto the walls in a cave depicting stories and telling the history of their life, since then art has come a long way. To the Egyptians decorating their lives with intricate patterns and hieroglyphs or the renaissance in the middle ages between the 14th and 17th centuries, to the current day where art is bigger than ever. Anyone can create art, be creative and change ideas which I personally feel like Concept Art along with other medians of Art will be here to stay for centuries be digital or traditional there will always be art as long as mankind exists
References
Figure 1 - Zootopia Wiki. (2018). AoZ83.jpg. [online] Available at: http://zootopia.wikia.com/wiki/File:AoZ83.jpg
[Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].
Figure 1 - Zootopia Wiki. (2018). Nick Concept Art 2.jpg. [online] Available at: http://zootopia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Nick_Concept_Art_2.jpg
[Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].
Figure 2 - Flickr. (2018). VTunnel10. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/6877322311/in/album-72157629320774861/
[Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].
Figure 3- Flickr. (2018). VTunnel11. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/6877323923/in/album-72157629320774861/
[Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].
Figure 4 - Flickr. (2018). LArmorFrnt02. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/6877200101/in/album-72157629320774861/ [Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].
Figure 5 - IMDb. (2018). Mad Max 2 (1981). [online] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082694/mediaviewer/rm2841652480
[Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].
Figure 6 - Flickr. (2018). LArmorFrnt01. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/6877200013/in/album-72157629320774861/ [Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].
Figure 7 - Flickr. (2018). LArmorBack02. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/6877199787/in/album-72157629320774861/ [Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].
Figure 8 - Iconfinder. (2018). 'Adobe' by Zohanimasi. [online] Available at: https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/241928/adobe_logo_photoshop_icon
[Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].