Video Game Concept Art

What is Concept Art?
Concept art is essentially an idea. It's what a video game artist draws before the main development of the game begins. It's a chance for the artist to play around with ideas and make lots of changes to make sure the characters, weapons etc can be as good as possible. Concept art isn't just drawn for video games, and it's used with film making, architecture and fashion etc. 

Examples of Concept Art
I have chosen concept art examples from the game "Fallout 3" because in my opinion, it's spectacular. Fallout 3 is set in the year 2277 and takes place in a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. The game has a retro-futuristic style.



In this image, we can see some retro-future elements. It's difficult to make out, but the destroyed car on the left has quite an odd shape. On the left there is some kind of sign but it's designed almost like a giant mace. There are also some buildings/signs in the background that have odd shapes. On the floor in-front of the four men, there is a suit of power armour (something you can use in the game.) It has more of a childish toy robot look than a serious look. One of the things with Fallout is that it doesn't take itself too seriously.



I have a feeling this image was drawn after the previous one, because it has the very grey and dull look that most of the areas in Fallout 3 have. As you can see the artist has taken real life D.C. and turned it into a post-apocalyptic version. To do this he went to D.C. and actually took pictures, so he could get the correct scale and look. The in game view is just as grand as what is shown in this concept art (even though the graphics are fairly dated.)

The in-game view from the D.C. monument. (The game is quite old so textures and details don't really render in properly)

This image shows Rivet City (the giant boat on the right.) My guess is that the artist was playing with different colours and tones. This image has a warmer, more pleasant orange look than the previous D.C. image.

For the concept art exercise I drew an AK-47, specifically the one from Counter Strike: GO.