Concept Art Practise

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Knowledge & Understanding

1.  Demonstrate a critical understanding of business aspects of working as a concept artist including copyright issues pricing, and the rights of an artist.

There are two main distinctions between copyright issues and pricing whilst working as a Concept Artist.  The main differences depend on whether an artist is working under employment by a studio, or whether the artist works on a freelance basis.

The studio system can provide the artist stability in terms of consistent work and a stable salary, predetermined before employment.  However, from past experience from working in studio, the company generally declares that the artist cannot work for any other third party studios whilst under their employment.  Essentially, this means the artist can only work for one company.  As well as this, the studio owns all ideas created by the artist.  The artists may be allowed to feature their work on websites and/or portfolios; however this is based on the company’s discretion.  A common approach for most studios is that the artist may not show any artwork to the public until the project has either been announced or until the project is completed and been released.  Even then, the artist must check which pieces of work they are allowed to show to the public.

Freelance artists have to follow similar criteria to an artist who works in a studio, but with some subtle differences.  NDA contracts (Non-Disclosure Agreements) have to be signed before joining a project.  This is a legally binding contract essentially saying you will not discuss the project you are working on with anyone from the general public.  As a freelance artist is not paid by salary, a rate of work needs to be negotiated.  This varies from artist to artist in terms of costing and how the artist has predetermined this rate.  Some artists work by a daily rate, some are hourly, and some even negotiate a lump sum to work an entire project.  The copyright issues fall under a similar banner as an artist who works in studio.  Generally, as a Concept Artist, the studio will own all of the ideas and the artist will have to request which pieces of work they are allowed to publish on their portfolios.  Some people may find this ‘harsh’ that the studio owns all of the ideas, but most studios work on a basis of; “this idea was created for project “A”, but it didn’t work very well.  However, it will be ideal for project “X” when we come to making it in two years’ time, so we need to make sure we own the idea”.


2.  Demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of concepts, information and techniques at the forefront of Concept Art. 

I’ve demonstrated an understanding of concept development and painting techniques throughout my work.  These are some of the early designs created for my “Beauty and the Beast” character.

Through digital painting techniques, I was trying to create a modern and realistic costume design based around the famous gold dress Belle wears in the Disney movie.

However, I didn’t think my design was original enough and tried a new approach to make my design appear ultra-modern with a sci-fi twist.  This led me to complete a variety of new sketches.

After selecting my design, I began establishing colour and building up the level of detail in my painting.

This painting technique brought me towards my final design.

 


Cognitive & Intellectual Skills

3.  Review and critically appraise the complex concepts and professional practices which underpin the production of original imagery.

There’s a general production line in creating concept art.  A very common approach is by doing some initial research, like I have done for my ‘Boudica’ character design.  The idea being that you harvest ideas that you feel could work nicely within your own design.

Based upon some of the research, an artist can then begin sketching and creating their own ideas, such as this..

Using fast and loose sketches helps generate a lot of ideas, giving the artist (or client) a variety of ideas to choose from.  The first design is never the best design.  Also, by working quickly, the artist will not become protective over one idea they’ve worked hours on.  Instead, by spending only a couple of minutes on one sketch to see if the idea works or not, it is much easier to leave poor ideas behind.

After selecting the chosen design, the artist can then begin developing the final image.

This then results in the final design.

4.  Critically reflect on the challenging and novel visual solutions to a brief


There are certain aspects to any design that require a level of thought process, iterations, and variations and ultimately complete re-designs of an image.  The reason being to hit specific criteria required from the brief.

For example, when designing my Assassin’s Creed character, I had to look at past examples of existing art work.  There four main title Assassin Creed games, each with a different lead character, with a different design set in a different time period.  Plus additional spin off title, a PlayStation Vita game and comic books; there are a lot of character design to cover.

However, every character has very similar attributes.  Despite age or gender, all of the designs consisted of athletic and nimble characters.  This is to suit the game design’s free-climbing aspects.  The character couldn’t appear overly large and cumbersome for example.  The hood aspect of the clothing is essential as it references the ability for the player to blend in with crowds as well as being a franchise identifying trademark.  The hidden blades on the forearms also fall into this category.  As well as this, each character wore a bold red sash and incorporated the Assassin’s Creed emblem somewhere on the design.

All of these individual aspects, when combined, are the essential visual solutions an artist would need to help create a believable Assassin’s Creed character.   



Practical & Professional Skills

5.  Act autonomously in planning and implementing a ‘Pitch Presentation’ at a professional level.

I presented to Shelly Page the development aspects of my Beauty and the Beast design.  The problems and issues I found with it, and why I moved away from this brief towards the Boudica design.

The format worked so well, I kept a similar layout for my final submission

 

6.  Analyse and interpret challenging client briefs and produce relevant and original work in response.

Jack Couvela, an Art Director from Ubisoft Reflections, set a brief based around the Assassin’s Creed franchise.  The interesting part was he said we could choose any time period in which to set the game, so long as it was a time period that consisted mainly with hand-to-hand combat.  A modern day war setting for example wouldn’t work.  The brief stated I needed to create a character, weapon/prop and building design that could fit into this world.

I chose to set my character design in Victorian London in response to his brief.

7.  Explore and evaluate a range of visual responses to a brief.

Regarding Pete Amachree’s brief, I created a range of visual ideas to try depicting an idea of what Rome could have looked like.

 

Key Transferable Skills

8.  Reflect on practice and recognise and critically appraise strengths and weaknesses.

For me, my major weakness throughout this module was my vehicle design.  Even with my past experience in digital painting, vehicle design is not an area I have covered with great detail.  So the design progress was a struggle and I finished with a design I wasn’t overly confident with.

It’s a brief I feel I could have spent months on and not have been happy with the progress.  However, I know this is due to lack of practise, and is an area I’m personally going to develop much further.

I believe, especially after reviewing my work, that my strengths in this module lay within my character design pieces.  They feel these most complete images and I was satisfied with the results I achieved.