What is Concept Art

Concept art is a form of illustrative work used to represent ideas, designs and moods for various subjects. There are many reasons why there is a need for concept art; in the games industry, concept art is used to help the other artists in creating game assets such as 3D models of characters, weapons, items, levels and enemies etc; without the use of concept art, assets created may end up not fitting well together resulting in wasted time and loss of money; the different artists will have their own ideas and their assets may not mix well without the direction of the concept art.

Concept art can be created as either traditional art or digitally in applications such as 'Photoshop' and 'Coral Painter' with the use of a graphics tablet. The artist usually starts off by making lots of thumbnail sketches in order to get as many ideas out on paper in as little time as possible, the best ideas are then taken and improved upon and these eventually become illustrations.

Here is an example of thumbnail silhouettes from Jeff's Art 2011

Silhouettes are the quickest way to draw out ideas of characters, it allows the artist to draw without having to think about the details of the design. Once the correct shape has been identified, the artist can then add in more lines and detail by using a contrasting colour.

Designs with added detail and tones from Jeff's Art 2011

Coloured Jeff's Art 2011

Concept art can be useful when pitching a game to potential investors or publishers, it can help to sell the idea of a game if the investors like the visual style of the game.

It is not just video games that make use of concept art; for instance animations, films and comic books usually make use of concept art in their creation. Concept art may also be referred to as visual development or concept design, these terms are usually applied to retail designs, set designs, fashion designs and architectural designs.