Initial Research

• What is concept art?

Concept art is a form of sketch or illustration that is used primarily to communicate an idea or thought process. It is what is created at the beginning of a project, and is later built upon as the project progresses. Concept art can come in many different forms, such as: character designs, clothing, weapons and backgrounds or places. Concept art is where the artist is able to show how they get from a rough sketch to something that will be used later on.

• What is a concept artist?

A concept artist is someone who creates concept art. More often than not, they will be given the story and characters in order to create concept art that fits those aspects. Most of the time, a concept artist will create a rough draft, or sketch, that will then be passed on to the project manager. From there, the sketch will be handed on to a 3D modeler or illustrator that will work further upon it. Sometimes, concept artists will just work up to the sketch, until the piece is passed onto the illustrator; however, some will be included and involved throughout almost every step of the process. 

Sometimes, concept artist will work in groups and use their combined talents to make something as good as it can possibly be. 

There are occasions where companies will call in more than one concept artist to create the same pieces of concept art. When each artist is finished with their designs, the project manager would choose the one they thought fit the game better.

• What is concept art used for?

Concept art can be used for anything that is created. Animated movies, games, anime and manga are just a few examples of what concept art is used for. Before something is finalised and created, there is, more often than not, concept art for it. Concept art is used as a starting point for a project. While there would be a story and characters planned out, the concept artist is the person who would be the one putting the words of the creator into sketch form.

• Why is concept art important?

In video game designing, concept art is hugely important as it creates a direction for the project. By hiring concept artists to create different design ideas a game, a specific feel is given to the designs. However, if all of the individual tasks are handed to the different departments from the beginning of the project, each designer will design something that they each think is right. The designs would all think differently, therefore all of their designs would probably not fit together.

If this initial task is handed by a concept artist, the same imprint will be left upon the work; while they may make changes according to what the project manager is looking for, it would still ultimately be their work.

• Concept art vs. Illustration.

Quite often, when looking up 'concept art' on the internet, some of the results will contain what are actually illustrations from a game. These days, the line between concept art and illustrations is blurred; the two often being put into the same category, even though the two are very different.

Sometimes, early illustrations are released online or in magazines in order to create a gathering, and to make people look forward to what is coming. However, there may be many changes from when the illustration is revealed to when the final thing is finally released. The changes could be made for any reason — maybe the project manager wanted to change something because they thought that something else would fit better; or maybe something would be easier and cheaper to animate than what was already created.

A lot of the time, what gets released under the guise of 'concept art', can actually be seen as promotional art — something that is final enough to represent what the final design will be. While changes are still subject to change, they wouldn't be drastic at all, and would still represent the promotional art that was released. 

Concept art is everything that leads up to the promotional art. All of the messy sketches of different ideas that slowly progresses into what everyone will end up seeing. Concept art contains all of the 'what ifs' and 'what could have been' of a character or piece of scenery, and all of these different experimental pieces and mock-ups will lead up to the thing that is created in the later stages of development and illustration. 

References:

Anhut, A. (2014). Let's Get Real About Concept Art. Available: 
http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/2014/02/lets-get-real-concept-art/. Last accessed 26th May 2016.

Pickthall, J. (2012). Just what is concept art?. Available: 

http://www.creativebloq.com/career/what-concept-art-11121155. Last accessed 26th May 2016.

Raymond, J. (2014). Concept Art: What is Concept Art and Why is it Important?. Available: http://artistryingames.com/concept-art-concept-art-important/. Last accessed 28th May 2016.

Unknown. (Unknown). Concept Artist. Available:
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/3072_concept_artist. Last accessed 25th May 2016.