Research:

"Video games can be a great source of design inspiration; they’re the ultimate mash-up of visual goodness and entertainment. Making concept art requires a high skill level with image creation software such as Photoshop and 3D animation applications such as Maya, as well as a very creative mind..."

Concept art gives the basis of how a game may look as a finished product. Concept art is the start, it goes through a process of being digitalised and modeled in 3D on computers. Eventually, ending up in-game.

It is important to have a variety of concept art because it's not often that everything (characters, environments, etc) fit together well. Picking a particular style early on is necessary to produce good pieces of concept art. The more concept art there is, the more you have to work with. The best pieces are those that work well with other pieces of concept art e.g. an environmental pieces makes you feel the same way as the concept for a character; multiple approaches of a character design can lead to further development, bits can be taken from each for the final design.

Concept art is also used for advertising and marketing, not just for the initial development process. So all pieces are beneficial. After all, games are often sold with concept art with them, making them more costly and valuable compared to the standard editions without the concept art.

Here are some examples of concept art I've seen that I think will help me when creating my own:

Section 8 by Alessando Baldasseroni

Artist facts:

Born in Italy, currently stationed at Los Angeles. He was employed by Blur Studio as lead character artist.

He specializes in:

• High resolution modeling for films, cinematics and videogames
• Texturing
• Illustrations
• Lighting

As a fan of certain sci-fi things such as Star Wars and Halo, I thought I should add this to this blog of inspiration, as it were. Although my current game idea is not sci-fi, I think this is a good picture of the humanoid form which I could look back to some time in the future.

Starcraft: Protoss Hero by ProlificPen

Artist info:

"Yanni Davros (Prolific Pen) is an award-winning illustrator and concept artist for the entertainment, electronic game, and publication industries. He is currently residing in the amazing birthplace of Rock and Roll Cleveland, Ohio USA. Yanni is a B.F.A. graduate with honors in sequential art from the Savannah College of Art and Design. He works with a variety of media including traditional, as well as digital paintings with Apple computers in conjunction with the Wacom Intuos graphics tablet and Cintique monitor. Software used is Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, and Corel Painter XII. While he will work in any genre or subject matter, his specialty is designing and rendering believable renditions of what does not exist in the real world..."

Likewise with this piece of art, it is sci-fi, and I like that. Rather than a human though, this is an alien form which may come in handy if I were to design a new species for a game.

Dawn of War by Cheol Joo Lee

Artist info:

“Cheol Joo Lee, a concept artist at Vancouver-based Relic Entertainment, 

goes a step further by suggesting games artists bring more to the table than 

the superficial bells and whistles consumers see when they boot up the final 

product.His comment about the game art made us to think what the art is once 

more “Not all artists are creative, but most artists are trained to develop creative 

ways of forming art, so their creative minds can be helpful for all aspects of 

game development.” 

Gamasutra 

“Cheol Lee has nearly 10 years of experience as a professional artist in the entertainment industry. With a degree in Visual Design, Lee has worked primarily in video games but he is also a published comic book artist and an award-winning concept artist. Lee started his career at FX Digital in South Korea, working as an art director, concept artist and writer for the TV animation film series, “TOPO TOPO. In his first year in the industry, Lee’s talents were quickly noticed when he won the “Newcomer Award” for comic artist at Seoul Publisher. Lee moved on to become an art designer for MEG Studios, where he worked on the PC game, “Dark Heaven”. During his time at MEG, Lee led the Consortium with the Korean Government and he also went on to win the Grand Prize at Korea’s largest comic and animation festival. In 2003, he moved to Canada and joined Relic Entertainment, where he was the key character artist on Company of Heroes, but his contributions spanned many areas of the game since he was part of the original prototype team on Company of Heroes. In 2006 he was promoted to key concept artist at Relic Entertainment."

John Johnson 

CEO SGI games 

This is heading more towards what I have in mind for my game idea. I like the sort of dark and dreary setting. Also I do think I prefer black and white images as opposed to coloured, I find they just look more professional for some reason. (My game wouldn't be in black and white, but definitely not colourful)

Gears of War by Michael Heilemann

 Michael Heilemann is currently a game designer for a Copenhagen, Denmark based game developer.

As I've enjoyed the Gears of War games, I thought I might as well through this image in. My game idea is set during the present and I thought pictures of environments like this could help me.

Red Steel by Renaud Bec

Artist info:

Concept artist at Massive - A Ubisoft Studio
Montpellier Area, France | Computer Games
Current:
Concept artist at Massive - A Ubisoft Studio, concept artist at ubisoft, character 2D/3D artist at Ubisoft, Montpellier
Past:
Concept Artist at ubisoft, Concept Artist at ubisoft, Concept Artist at ubisoft, 2D/3D graphist at ubisoft, Concept Artist at ubisoft.

Here is a better picture of what I plan my game levels to look like. A some what run-down urban area.

Beacon (Unreal Tournament 3) by Mavor

I like how the bright colours from the beacon contrast with the surroundings in this piece of art. There will be some sort of fantasy element in my game and I thought this image could help generate ideas.

For the Horde (World of Warcraft) by abraaolucas

Nothing particularly special about this image. It's just that I like WoW. Still, it could come in handy when looking at the humanoid form in movement and also species design for possible future game ideas.


Abraão Lucas Artist | Professional | Digital ArtBrazil

Godfather by Tyler West

Artist info:

Tyler West

CEO WestStudio

Greater Los Angeles Area | Entertainment

Current:

Creative Director | CEO at West Studio

Past:

Conceptual Artwork at Irrational Games, Conceptual Artwork at Gameloft, Conceptual Artwork at Digital Domain, Conceptual Artwork at Capcom.

Education:

Art Center College of Design

Summary:

Specialties: Conceptual Artwork, Matte Painting, Story Boarding, Style Guides, Creative Consulting, Book Cover Illustration.

I think out of most of the artworks here, this one is probably closest to what I have in mind for my game idea. The whole environment is pretty exact to what I'm aiming for.

Stranglehold by Stephan Martiniere

Artist info:

"Stephan Martiniere is an internationally acclaimed Science Fiction and Fantasy artist. In the past 25 years he has become known for his talent, versatility and imagination in every entertainment fields including feature films, animation, video games, theme parks, editorial, commercial and book covers."

"His clients include ILM, Disney, Universal, Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox and Dreamworks. Stephan Martiniere has worked on movies such as Star Wars: Episodes 2-3, Tron Legacy, Star Trek, Knowing, I, Robot, The Fifth Element, Virus, Red Planet, The Astronaut’s Wife, Sphere, Titan A.E, The Time Machine, and the upcoming Total Recall, Akira, and 300 the Battle of Atemesium."

"Stephan was also the visual design director responsible for the games URU: Ages beyond Myst, URU: The Path of the Shell, and Myst 5. He worked several years as Visual Design Director for the game Stranglehold for Midway Games in Chicago and later as Creative Visual Director of the concept department for several other Midway games including Area 51, Blitz, Ballers, MK vs DC, Wheelman, and several un-announced titles. Stephan was the Art Director at ID Software for  the visually acclaimed game Rage."

Another image of an urban area that has seen better days. Obviously it has something to do with trains (used to be a train station maybe?) however, I think the number of train carriages is a bit 'overkill'. The general sort of atmosphere could be useful.

Elveon by Radoslav Javor

I like this piece of art, even though I have no idea how this could benefit me personally. It sort of reminds me of Lord of the Rings.

God of War by Eduardo Gonzalez

As you can see by the title of this piece, it has relevance to god-like beings. I plan to include something a long these lines within the story of my game idea and thought this could give me some ideas.

Killzone 2 – Extrasolar War by skybolt


Artist info:

Name: Matt Allsopp 

Born: United Kingdom

Current Residence: England, UK

Favourite style of art: Concept Art and Illustration

Another good sci-fi picture. Reminds me of when I used to design Star Wars ships out of Lego when I was younger.

Assassins Creed by Nicolas Bouvier and Patrick Desgreniers

Info on Nicolas Bouvier:

"Sparth (nicolas bouvier) has been an active artistic director and concept designer in the gaming industry since 1996. Born in France, he now lives in Seattle, Washington, working for Microsoft."

"Sparth has contributed to the development of several released games since 1997. Alone in the dark 4 (2001), Cold Fear (2005), Prince of Persia - Warrior Within (2004), and Rage, a project still in development at ID software  and has participated with Darkworks-Studio, to a lot of game projects in collaboration with large companies like Capcom and Namco. In 2003, he decided to leave Paris for Montreal in order to join Ubisoft on their ongoing projects, Prince of Persia Warrior Within, as well as Assassin's Creed. he left Montreal for Texas in October 2005, where he spent more than three years working for ID software in Dallas. finally, in January 2009, he joined Microsoft to participate to the future HALO adventures."

Info on Patrick Desgreniers:

"I'm a concept artist, illustrator, living in Montreal."

Although this image is set in an era prior to what I have planned for my own game idea, it is still very atmospheric and I think I could use this for my own work.

Path of Neo by Rick Majon

Another good image of an urban area.

San Marco (Assassin’s Creed 2) by Ubisoft

I admire the architecture in this image. I find it inspirational for when I'll be needing to design levels for games.

The Path by Auriea Samyn

Again, there's not much about this image I feel I could extract for my own ideas. But I think it is a good piece of work none the less and it could help me for possible levels in the future for my current game idea. Going from urban to a bit more wilderness.

Hitman game by Cynthia Iurinic

Artist info:

"I make highly creative art, concepts and designs for games, films, music, motion & experimental media

During the last 6 years I co-founded two online media companies, lead a bunch of creative people, produced original games for the web and finished a literature book."

Specialties

art direction, creative direction, visual storytelling, visual art, literature, design, painting, aesthetics, photography, matte painting, code, music, publishing, distribution, marketing, entrepreneurship.

Another good piece of urban artwork. When I came across it, it reminded me of the short story scenario I had come up with for my game and now I have a better visual image to go along with that idea.

STF Lighting (Fable II) by Lionhead studios

I'm very interested in this picture because I plan for the main character of my game to have special/super-natural powers. I think this is a good way of displaying that. Mine would possibly be displayed a bit more subtlety, but this is something I'd use when I get to it. 

Smoke (Grand Theft Auto IV) by Rockstar Games

This picture made me think of character designs. No doubt some of the people in my game idea would be based off this image in some way or another.

LCPD (Grand Theft Auto IV) by Rockstar Games

Another good urban picture. I'll probably be adding police into my game somewhere so this would be useful.

King on Throne Concept by aaronsimscompany

Artist info:

"Aaron Sims has been in the film industry for over 23 years specializing in character design for films. His credits include Men in Black, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Constantine, War of the Worlds; and most recently I Am Legend, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Golden Compass, The Incredible Hulk, The Mummy 3, and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Aaron began his career in Makeup Effects, designing and creating characters. His life-long experience with the visual arts – drawing, painting, sculpting, airbrushing – provided the foundation for the early part of his career. Once the technology was available, he quickly learned Photoshop and many other 3D design/animation programs, progressing into Visual Effects. Now, his years of experience with these mediums have helped hone his own specialized approach to character design. He has worked for two Academy Award-winning Makeup Effects houses: Rick Baker’s Cinovation and Stan Winston Studio. Working as Winston's Art Director for both the Makeup Effects and Visual Effects departments helped to prepare him for founding The Aaron Sims Company."

The main character in my story is somewhat deluded, considering himself to be above others. Sort of like a king. This could give good for ideas for some of the inner workings of my main characters mind and dreams.

Lair by Deak Ferrand

Artist info:

"Deak Ferrand has worked for more than 15 years in visual effects as a matte painter. He was on the team that won an Academy Award for the Best Visual Effects for WHAT DREAMS MAY COMES. He has since founded his own company, Hatch, and has participated in a large number of film projects such as RIDDICK, CONSTANTINE, SHOOTER, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES, RED CLIFF and WOLVERINE."

Nothing I feel I could really use from this picture as such. I just think it's a good piece of art.

Fable Village by skybolt

Here is a good picture of a fantasy sort of village. The main character for my game idea lives in a village and although this is a different setting to what I have in mind, I still think this could be very useful when designing said village.

Other random concept art:

Here is some Hello kitty concept art. It differs from all this previous art I've looked at as it is focussed for a younger audience rather than teenager/young adults. I believe it was created by a Mr. Steve Lieber.

Another piece of concept art for a game aimed towards a younger audience. Its style is based off of japanese anime, giving it a somewhat 'cartoonish' look that none of this other concept art has.

Video game poster

Here is the basis of my title that I made in Illustrator. I plan to develop it more in photoshop.

Development of my poster:

The finished product:

Evaluation:

We were tasked to create a game poster for our game ideas. The game is called "Judgement". It's hard to explain but basically it's about this character that is somewhat deluded and judges people, correctly or incorrectly so. He takes matters into his own hands and considers himself as some sort of crusader, doing what is right, thus the image in the background. It started off as a drawing, which took a fair bit of time as I don't believe I have much of an artistic flare. Still, the poster portrays what I wanted it to. The main character in the middle is of course the main focus, with the alternate ego "Judgement" fading away into the background. The foreground is black and white for a reason, it's insignificant and has no meaning, thus the lack of detail and colour. The textures are supposed to make it look fairly dark and gritty. The main character has no facial features for a reason, I have received criticism for this is what I'm sticking with. When I play games, I find it more emergent when the character can be customised or where the face is hidden.

With more practice on photoshop, I believe I am slowly getting better at it. Whereas normally I'd probably require some assistance, I am now able to figure out where things are and what they do on photoshop. However, there is still much more to learn if I am to create professional pieces.

I think of this purely as a first attempt at my own individual work. All work I've done prior to this has been following particular guidelines so this was a nice change. Eventually in the future there should be a lot more pieces like this where I can do as I please. It has been good practice.

What I had planned looked much better in my head. I don't think I yet posses the skills to fully put what's in my head onto paper. It is supposed to look a lot darker and gritty, as well as much more realistic. Still, I'm fairly proud of the drawing I managed to produce. I like the sort of amateur look with the rough sketching effect that I had kept in for the final piece. I feel the title looks a little bit out of place. It was created using Illustrator rather than Photoshop but I still don't see why it doesn't quite fit. I had tweaked about with the colouring and what not but I'm not sure what could be done to improve it.

I think the best way of addressing these weaknesses would just be spending more time with it, tweaking things and such. I can't think of anything that particularly needs drastic changing and there is no clear way to improve it. In general it needs to be darker, possibly have more contrast, hue and saturation needs altering to make it more black and white looking.


Some alterations of the final piece:

As I wanted it darker and less colourful, I thought I'd try it out purely in black and white and personally I think it looks much better.

I had feedback saying the black and white one was a little bit dull so I've done some more alterations and decided to only have certain things coloured. In my opinion this is my favourite one.