Concept Art
The role of a concept artist in games development is a crucial role to starting the visual designs for the game. With many ideas from many individuals, the role of concept artists is to focus on the artistic vision, and to work out errors that could be met along the path. It is different from illustrating – concept art focuses on generating ideas to make them effective, while illustrating focuses on polishing up the ideas.
Workflow:
A workflow is the process that is used and followed to create a piece of work.
One such workflow starts at creating thumbnails for the area that the artist is sketching concept art for, in the example case, character creation. This starts from simply choosing the correct software and choosing the correct canvas size and brushes.Such software that could be used include Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Designer and Procreate.There are also multiple options of brushes that could be used for concept art, and each brush has its own form of texture. Often, for beginning pieces, it is best to start simple, before going on with different brush types. This will then lead on to choosing a theme for the said concept piece – if it is character design, concept artists will think over whether they want their character to be human, or some other creature. The theme could also be centred on cultural style, style of art used, or even the era of choice. The next part of the workflow is to start creating the said thumbnails, known as ideas generation. It is often suggested to draw multiple thumbnails, each one with a different variety, so it appears as a silhouette. This results in having thumbnails that can later be refined into concept pieces with different shapes and different poses.
The next step to this workflow would be to refine the piece of thumbnails, starting off by choosing the few thumbnails that are better received. This could be done by reviews from peers, directors, or even clients. When the selected thumbnails are chosen, they can be refined, not through constant details, but through defining shape and value on the sketches.Some of the key prospects to think about during this section of the workflow include:
- Shape/Silhouette/Negative Space
- Pose Shape/Anatomy
- Style (Will the styled be realistic, or will it be done in a certain style, and if so, are the proportions correct for that style)
- Design Elements (These include clothing, hair and any additional accessories or weaponry)
Through the refining segment of the workflow, this is the part where the character’s identity can begin. Begin by figuring out who the character is and what their design purpose is.
The next segment in the workflow focuses solely on variation, this starts by choosing one design and creating multiple appearances for that one design. Such enhancements could include different weaponry or clothing and hairstyles, and some varieties may include a different position for one limb. Designing the characters is almost like an experiment, using one thumbnail as a base and choosing which options suit well and can be used again, and which options don’t work.
The final part of this workflow focuses on finishing details, making the selected character pop out. One focus on this section is to add lighting and texture to the concept piece, as this helps to indicate what is on the character. Lighting helps to indicate where there are shadows and highlights on the character. It never has to be exact, but it assists as a direction to keep things uniform. The final bulk of this workflow is to add any final details. This is a chance to zoom in on the selected piece and start working out on the final levels. This doesn’t have to be exact or overdone, but it should be done on areas that need attention, to help make sense of the overall design.
Historical Influences
Space Invaders (1978) – Space Invaders was a very basic arcade game, and is considered to be one of the most influential games of all time, by helping the gaming industry become a more global industry. The designs for the game are very simple, due to the technology that was available at the time, limiting most 2D pieces being built of very few pixels. From the concept art to the right, we can see the concept started with sketches and ideas for the appearance of the enemies. To get them ready for the game, they then created a grid of pixels, to get a similar design within the limit granted. The game itself later became an influence to many game developers citing Space Invaders to be their introduction to the gaming industry.
Tomb Raider – The Tomb Raider series is one where the art style changes. The series has been remastered three times, each one with it’s own different style. Starting in 1996, Tomb Raider has a more blocky design, where characters and environments were, although very well designed for what they had, were still very limited. When the series got rebooted in 2006, the style changed to a more realistic style. Lara Croft’s character design consisted with this, with a more realistic body shape, unlike the concept given for her original design. When the series once again rebooted in 2013, the art style changed to become more realistic, in a similar fashion to that of Uncharted 4, below. This was done in an attempt to make the characters and worlds of the Tomb Raider series appear more believable than in previous games.
Uncharted 4 – This game is a positively acclaimed game, as Uncharted 4 won game of the year and has become one of the best-selling games on PlayStation 4. The game itself is set to appear realistic, with both its characters and environment. Before the characters and environments get built into the game, they had to go through the concept art progress before they can be built, so the idea can be confirmed and perfect before creation. As seen on a piece on the right, the character thumbnails had been made, and are now in the progress of testing different clothings and colours.
Spyro – This game franchise of Spyro has gone over many different designs over the years – mostly due to the different uses of consoles and reboots the franchise has gone over the years. Starting with the original game in 1998, the designs for the game were very simple, supposedly due to the constraints that were in place at that time for the game industry. As the series went on in the years, it got rebooted in 2006. Although there were subtle changes to the main character, designs became a lot more expressive, and eventually, the original trilogy was remastered. The remastered trilogy was the same as the normal game, however the design and concept art was enhanced. Rather than the same dragon designs, each dragon was given their own design, given minor details to stand them out. The environment designs were also greatly enhanced, appearing more realistic instead of flat and jagged.
Sonic the Hedgehog – The franchise of Sonic the Hedgehog started off with many different designs for what the hero could look like. Two of these stemmed from the original Sonic sketch, and even an Eggman sketch was considered to be one of the heroes. Another sketch consisted of a dog. The designer then consisted of a survey of what design the people preferred. Starting as single line sketches, the concept art extended until a final design was made – and then the final design was enhanced to become the design that was created. Eventually, the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise turned towards 3D gameplay, starting with Sonic Adventure. Keeping some of the old characters from the classics, the concept art team gave the characters newer designs, in a new style. This style of character is what is used currently in today’s Sonic the Hedgehog games
Contemporary Influences
Social Issues – When it comes to designing for video games, there are some features that could become a social issue in the future. The topics such as race, gender, sexuality are some of the more sensitive topics, due to a much greater acceptance from when game industries first started. This in particular links more into character concept art. Most games today share a responsibility of encouraging diversity among people of different races and cultures. This responsibility also extends towards attracting more females into the gaming industry – the representation of female characters also links back to this. In a particular case, the character Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider franchise was originally created to have big breasts and a tiny waist, particularly showing her off as a sex appeal character. However, this could be considered unappealing for the female side of the game industry, for it portrays women in a manner that is considered discriminatory due to an ‘ideal’ appearance. To the contrary, it is considered a positive difference to have female lead characters who don’t fall under the damsel in distress trope. Characters who portray the LGBT community are very slow in approaching the game industry scene, however they are progressing better in the games of today, due to a wider acceptance of the LGBT community, but most games use this as a secondary material, rather than that of the main storyline for a game.
Software/Techniques – The creation of concept art could pretty much be made using any form of media. Some forms of concept art starts off as simple sketches of multiple shapes and forms. In earlier years of game development, this particularly started as traditional artwork, as the use of technology was still in the young days. In the current day of gaming concept art, there are different software that could be used to show off more expressive concept art. Some of these softwares include that of Photoshop and Painter. Photoshop is the more noticeable of the software that is used in the industry, being very flexible and being easy for collaboration using Creative Cloud and able to be saved on many different formats. However, it’s downside includes how it is very expensive, and for many who are used to traditional artwork, it can be a very complicated to get use to. Painter is more easier to use than Photoshop, and unlike Photoshop, doesn’t require a subscription, however, it is not as stable as that of Photoshop, and is a lot more limited in terms of options.
Sophie Level 3 Games Dev 2nd Year 