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Concept art is a form of visual art used to convey an idea for use in film, video games, animation, comic books, television shows, or other media before it is put into the final product. [1] The term was used by the Walt Disney Animation Studios as early as the 1930s. [2] Concept art usually refers to world-building artwork used to inspire the development of media products, and is not the same as storyboard, though they are often confused.[ citation needed ]
Concept art is developed through several iterations. Multiple solutions are explored before settling on the final design. Concept art is not only used to develop the work but also to show the project's progress to directors, clients, and investors. Once the development of the work is complete, concept art may be reworked and used for advertising materials. [3]
A concept artist is an individual who generates a visual design for an item, character, or area that does not yet exist. This includes, but is not limited to, film, animation, and more recently, video game production. Being a concept artist takes commitment, vision, and a clear understanding of the role. [4]
While it is necessary to have the skills of a fine artist, a concept artist must also be able to work under strict deadlines in the capacity of a graphic designer. Some concept artists may start as fine artists, industrial designers, animators, or even special effects artists. Interpretation of ideas and how they are realized is where the concept artist's individual creativity is most evident, but subject matter is often beyond their control. Many concept artists work in a studio or from home remotely as freelancers. Working for a studio has the advantage of an established salary. In the United States, the average annual gross salary for a concept artist in video game industry was $60,000-$70,000 a year in 2017. [5] In 2024, entry level concept art positions ranged from $60,000-$95,000, with the average salary at about $112,000. [6]
Digital media production, including the television and video game industries, has grown substantially in the 21st century. From 2009 to 2012, the value of the United States video game industry jumped from $19 million to $37 billion, and from 2008 to 2016, the value of the mobile game industry in China increased from 240 million yuan to 37.48 billion yuan. [7] The need for concept artists in this rapidly growing industry has skyrocketed; 65% of the game development industry's staff are artists. [7] As such, there is a push for countries across the world to increase the availability of art education so that local artists have the skills to capitalize on the booming media industry. [1] [7] The art education community has made changes, offering new courses in art universities order better prepare students for the digital art field. [7] Certain educators are pushing to move away from historic art education towards more standardized, industry-paced approaches that will better prepare students for this modern workforce. Other programs are pushing to create artist workshops in order to train artists in digital software. [1]
Concept art has embraced the use of digital technology. Raster graphics editors for digital painting have become more easily available, as well as hardware such as graphics tablets, enabling more efficient working methods. Prior to this, any number of traditional mediums such as oil paints, acrylic paints, markers and pencils were used. Many modern paint packages are programmed to simulate the blending of color in the same way paint would blend on a canvas; proficiency with traditional media is often paramount to a concept artist's ability to use painting software. Popular programs for concept artists include Photoshop and Corel Painter. [1] Others include Manga Studio, Procreate and ArtRage. Most concept artists have switched to digital media because of ease of editing and speed. A lot of concept work has tight deadlines where a highly polished piece is needed in a short amount of time. [7]
Concept art has always had to cover many subjects, being the primary medium in film poster design since the early days of Hollywood, but the two most widely covered areas are science fiction and fantasy.[ citation needed ] Since the recent rise of its use in video game production, concept art has expanded to cover genres from fantasy to realistic depending on the final product. [8] [ citation needed ]
Concept art ranges from stylized to photorealistic depending on the needs of the project. Artists working on a project often produce a large turnover in the early 'blue sky' stage of production. [8] This provides a broad range of interpretations, most being in the form of sketches, speed paints, and 3D overpaints. Later pieces, such as matte paintings, are produced as realistically as required. Concept artists will often have to adapt to the style of the studio they are hired for. The ability to produce multiple styles is valued in a concept artist.[ citation needed ]
Concept art is a broad field, including specializations on a wide range of fictional and nonfiction subjects, such as character design, environment design, set design, and more industrial applications like retail design, architecture design, fashion design, and object design. [1] Specialization is regarded as better for freelancers than concept artists who want to work in-house, where flexibility is key. Knowing the foundations of art, such as anatomy, perspective, color theory, design, and lighting are essential to all specializations. [1]
A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic, or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at Walt Disney Productions during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios.
Gouache, body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent, and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache has a long history, having been used for at least twelve centuries. It is used most consistently by commercial artists for posters, illustrations, comics, and other design work.
A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebases for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines, all of which fall under the umbrella term of "game programmer". A game programmer should not be confused with a game designer, who works on game design.
Visual effects is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action footage or CGI elements to create realistic imagery is called VFX.
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicated concepts or objects that are difficult to describe textually, which is the reason illustrations are often found in children's books.
Traditional animation is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation of the 20th century, until there was a shift to computer animation in the industry, such as digital ink and paint and 3D computer animation.
A video game producer is the top person in charge of overseeing development of a video game.
A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is not present at the filming location. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage (compositing). At its best, depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the effect is seamless and creates environments that would otherwise be impossible or expensive to film. In the scenes, the painting part is static while movements are integrated on it.
Motion graphic design, also known as motion design, is a subset of graphic design which combines design with animation and/or filmmaking, video production, and filmic techniques. Examples include kinetic typography and graphics used in film and television opening sequences, and station identification logos of some television channels.
Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image with a background image. In this case, the matte is the background painting. In film and stage, mattes can be physically huge sections of painted canvas, portraying large scenic expanses of landscapes.
Craig Mullins is an American digital painter, and leading international concept artist. He has created art for books, video games and films. He is often considered to be a pioneer in the field of digital painting, painting digitally for many years before drawing tablets were available.
Previsualization is the visualizing of scenes or sequences in a movie before filming. It is a concept used in other creative arts, including animation, performing arts, video game design, and still photography. Previsualization typically describes techniques like storyboarding, which uses hand-drawn or digitally-assisted sketches to plan or conceptualize movie scenes.
A background artist or sometimes called a background stylist or background painter is one who is involved in the process of animation who establishes the color, style, and mood of a scene drawn by an animation layout artist. The methods used can either be through traditional painting or by digital media such as Adobe Photoshop. Traditional methods involved painting entire production scenes for a television program or film. Current methods may involve painting primarily background keys or the establishing shot while production background artists paint the corresponding background paintings.
William Robert Davis, aka Bill Davis, is an American illustrator, animation director and designer, graphic designer and painter. He was the creative director at Sierra On-Line and Rocket Science Games during the 1990s. Davis is the founder and creative director of Mother Productions, a graphic design firm which creates animation, motion graphics, logos and other graphic designs for on-air and online purposes.
Animation Mentor is an online animation school that teaches students character animation skills. Headquartered in New York, New York, the school offers online programs in 3D Character Animation, Game Animation, Creature Animation, 2D Animation, Storyboarding, and Concept Art. The school also offers supplemental workshops in areas such as Maya, Previsualization, and Cartoony Animation. Students are taught by “mentors,” experienced animators who are professionals working in the animation industry. Animation Mentor is a distance learning school where animation professionals teach animation to students in over 105 countries, with an alumni network exceeding 5,000 students.
Game art design is a subset of game development involving the process of creating the artistic aspects of video games. Video game art design begins in the pre-production phase of creating a video game. Video game artists are visual artists involved from the conception of the game who make rough sketches of the characters, setting, objects, etc. These starting concept designs can also be created by the game designers before the game is moved into actualization. Sometimes, these concept designs are called "programmer art". After the rough sketches are completed and the game is ready to be moved forward, those artists or more artists are brought in to develop graphic designs based on the sketches.
An environment artist is a professional artist who works in the video game industry or film industry as a 3D modeler, specializing in outdoor and indoor locations for a game's setting. They are responsible for creating the majority of the overall asset and visuals the player will encounter on the screen, modeling, texturing and placing assets, buildings, streets, foliage, furniture, and all other elements into a scene using a method called set dressing. They also approximate collision so that the player isn't running through walls or other objects that block, optimize topology so that the level runs at a manageable framerate, and help bring life to the game world.
The VFX creative director is a position common in films, television programs, and computer games using a large amount of visual effects (VFX).
Dylan Cole is an American Digital Matte-Painter and concept artist specializing in work for film, television, and video games. Cole received a degree in fine arts from UCLA. He is best known for his work on feature films like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Avatar and its sequel, Daredevil, Alice in Wonderland, Tron: Legacy, Maleficent and The Chronicles of Riddick. He recently published his first book, The Otherworldly Adventures of Tyler Washburn.
Art Ludique – The Museum is a 1,200 m2 museum in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, France, formerly housed in Les Docks, cité de la mode et du design and inaugurated on 16 November 2013. As of September 2024, the museum is still looking for a permanent home after having left Les Docks in 2017.
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