Concept art is essentially an artists early ideas of what something in a game, film or other form of media might look like. By drawing concept art, an artist and or development team can get an idea of what something will look like, and they can make changes to the design before deciding on the final product. In this assignment I will talk about how concept art is used for computer games.
The use of concept art in games
Concept art is used for many different things in games. Characters, landscapes, buildings, vehicles, gadgets and more. For this assignment I will be using examples from the game Titanfall 2, a futuristic first person shooter.
Here you can see the concept art for robot multiplayer characters.
These robotic characters have a very futuristic and sleek style. Unlike robots you may see in other games/other forms of media, these ones aren't very bulky and are quite advanced. In the game they are able to fight like human soldiers, and are very mobile since they use advanced movement and parkour.
The characters have quite serious look to them and give off a serious mood. I think this is because of their faces, and how they lack any human expression. They just have a single blue light. They look like they have no other purpose but to fight.
The colour scheme is quite gritty as well, which adds to the serious mood.
There are also human characters in Titanfall 2, here you can see some of the faction leaders from the game.
Unlike the robot characters above, these characters play a more important role. You can tell they are more important by what they are wearing, as their clothes look quite unique. These characters are used in the singleplayer story, and they player has to fight them as bosses at various points in the game. This is why they have unique and recognisable appearances. Their facial expressions also give the player a better idea as to what they might be like and how they act.
The mood is serious, and some slightly brighter colours are used, probably to make them stand out more.
Concept artists don't just draw characters, and large landscapes and game scenes are also drawn. Below you can see a drawing of a huge battle taking place. This image uses a dark, gritty colour scheme, which gives the scene a serious tone/mood. The way the colours have been used, and the way the landscape looks reminds of a WW1 no mans land scene. It's muddy and wet, things have been destroyed, and there are people fighting amongst all of it. Obviously there is a futuristic feel to it. You can see Titans in the background, and the soldiers aren't hiding in trenches. Instead they are running and gunning out in the open. This fits with the game since the soldiers use advanced movement and parkour, and can move around very fast.
Concept art for devices and gadgets has also been drawn. Below you can see several designs of an arc tool. Something that allows the player to time travel. As you can see, the artist drew several different versions of the device until he got one that he liked (The one used in the game is the middle right one I think.) The smaller ones look better in my opinion, and more futuristic. It wouldn't really make sense to use one of the huge ones, because technology is quite advanced in the game, so the device being quite small is believable. These designs use a similar colour scheme to the other drawings I have talked about.
Stages of Concept Art
Concept art goes through a few stages when it's being drawn. Below, you can see a concept art image for the character Zer0 from Borderlands 2. The artist has used the usual stages of drawing concept art.
Stage 1: The first stage of drawing concept art is to do some basic sketches. By doing this, the artist won't spend too much time one one design to find out it won't be used. They can create many designs and put all their ideas on to paper.
Stage 2: The artist then picks out a sketch that he likes (or multiple sketches) and begins to refine it and shade it, to get it looking more like the final result.
Stage 1: The first stage of drawing concept art is to do some basic sketches. By doing this, the artist won't spend too much time one one design to find out it won't be used. They can create many designs and put all their ideas on to paper.
Stage 2: The artist then picks out a sketch that he likes (or multiple sketches) and begins to refine it and shade it, to get it looking more like the final result.
Stage 3: A final design is then chosen, and the art is used to help create a 3D model on the computer. The concept art is important because it allows the 3D model to be created easier. The 2D image can be imported into the modelling software, and the model can be created on top of it.
Stage 4: At first, the model will look plain and colourless, but then the textures are added. You can see the final textured model on the right. The model is now ready to be animated and used in the game.
Titanfall 2 images from conceptartworld.com
Borderlands 2 image from Google Images.
very good
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