Concept art
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Concept art is a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in movies, video games, or comic books before it is put into the final product. This is a relatively new designation popularized by artists working in the automobile and video games industries. This term has been in use since the 1930's by the traditional animation industry who was describing drawn or painted images which illustrate the look, feel, design, colors, etc...of the animated movie to be made.[citation needed] Concept art is also referred to as "visual development" in traditional animation. The term was later adopted by the games industry. These illustrations became necessary for developed visual properties.
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[edit] Concept Artists
A concept artist is an individual who generates visual reference for an object (like weapons, armor and vehicles) or being (like a character or creature) that does not yet exist. This includes, but is not limited to film production, and more recently video game production. A concept artist may be required for nothing more than preliminary artwork, or may be required to be part of the creative team till the project reaches fruition. Concept artists are an enigma in the art world.[citation needed] While it is necessary to have the flair and natural talent of a fine artist, a concept artist must also be able to work to strict deadlines in the capacity of a graphic designer. Interpretation of ideas and how they are realised is where the concept artist's individual creativity is most evident, as subject matter is often beyond their control.
[edit] Materials
In recent years concept art has embraced the use of technology. Software such as Photoshop or Corel Painter have become more easily available, as well as hardware such as graphics tablets, enabling faster and cheaper working methods. Prior to this acrylic and oil paint were the most widely used mediums. Owing to this many modern paint packages are programed to blend colour in the same way paint would blend on a canvas, and knowledge of how real paint works is therefore paramount to the concept artist.
[edit] Themes
The two most widely covered themes in concept art are science fiction and fantasy. Concept art has always had to cover many subjects, being the primary medium in film poster design since the early days of Hollywood, however, since the recent rise of concept art used in video game production concept art has expanded to cover genres from football to the Mafia and beyond.
[edit] Styles
Concept art ranges from photorealistic to traditional painting techniques. This is facilitated by software whereby the artist can fill in every detail pixel by pixel, or utilise the natural paint settings to imitate real paint. When commissioning work a company will often require a large bulk of preliminary work to be produced. Artists working on the job will need to produce a large turnover in the early stages to provide a broad range of interpretations, and most of this will be in the form of sketches. Final work is produced to the level of realism required by the company.
