The Use of Concept Art in Games

by oliviaayka

Concept art is a form of illustration that is used by computer game artists so they can visualise and communicate their ideas to other people. This helps them to then build from the ideas on paper and construct them into the final outcome that will be used in the games. Concept art is not only used for computer games, animation and film also use it, most media you see today would have started out as a concept sketch that have been brought forward with help of a team of professionals and industry experts. You can get inspiration for concept art from anything, life experience, culture, the environment or even a dream you may have had. Without concept art the developers don’t get the chance to create and model their ideas into exactly what they are looking for, so without concept art the art within games would probably be unrealistic. Even with fantasy games where the artwork might be unreal, cartoons, abstract etc. there will usually be a certain level of realism that needs to be maintained like tone, depth, perspective, form and colour. These things show us what the character or objects would look like if they were real. Concept art helps formulate this in the first place.

Concept art will almost always be made before producing a game. It helps decide basics like characters, environments and items/ objects within the game. Most concept art is done from pen/pencil on paper, to finishing on the computer. Some concept art will be done completely digitally; it all depends on the artist. Concept art is all about getting the perfect final design. Some artists might draft 50 different ways of how to draw one character before they decide on what one they like the most. The others will just be discarded.

In the game The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for example each character would not just have been drawn once, the artist would have developed an original idea until they found one they were in love with. They would then have drawn the character from all angles, front, back, side, above, etc.

This is some early artwork for Link in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

In this example you can see how the first sketches (top and bottom) compare to the middles, which is more like the Link that appears in the game. The eyes are a lot smaller in the sketches and the height slowly seems to decrease. Links hat also changes from each picture, whether there is more movement in it, or the way it hangs from his head. As there were previous Zelda games, Link couldn’t be changed too much for ‘The Wind Waker’ so things like his outfit and the way his fringe comes out at the front needed to be kept the same.

Below is the final concept art for Link and then how he appeared in the game itself.

 

 

This is a good example of how concept art can change from the first few doodling’s on a page to the final idea. This example then shows how similar the concept art and the final game outcome are to each other.

Concept art is not only drawn for characters, backgrounds, places, features and items also need to be sketched out before hand for the artist to get an idea of what they really want.

This is the concept art of the Villa Cloud in Costa del Sol from Final Fantasy VII.

This is how it appeared in the game.

As you can see, in this example the two are very similar and have barely changed from one to the other. However if you look closely you can spot a couple of things that are different between them.
Games such as Halo and Fallout are famous for how detailed the concept art for their locations and ‘movie’ clips are.

Concept art for Halo 3

Concept art for Fallout: New Vegas location 

It’s hard to say exactly when concept art was founded and used as preproduction design. We know that it wasn’t until the 1930’s that the term concept art was first introduced. Industries such as car manufacturers and the animation industry, most famously Walt Disney used concept art before drawing the cartoons you all know today his first published animation using concept art being ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’. On this animation Walt Disney spent roughly $1,400,000 but the film ended up making around $190,000,000 in the box office. Personally I think that without his use of concept art to help him clearly develop his ideas, the profit margin wouldn’t have been so great. This applies in the same way to the game industry. When the artwork used in the game is unrealistic or unappealing to the player, the game isn’t going to be as popular. The game industry really emerged into the visual world shortly after the release of the Atari 2600 in 1977. This is when games first started to use truly skilled artwork. However the industry’s need for concept art really broke through with the breach into 3D design. Nintendo 64 and Sony PSX were revolutionary consoles of the time and they required great concept artists to keep up with the new found level of imagery they could produce. Characters such as Crash Bandicoot, Lara Croft and Spyro were created in simple hand drawn form. The art sector of the game industry proceeds to grow at a substantial rate. Nowadays concept art has embraced the world of digital technology.  Digital painting software such as Raster graphics editors are more widely used these days than ever before. Technology such as graphics tablets are extremely popular in the industry today, as they are efficient and easy to learn how to use.

An example of a Graphics tablet used to design and draw concept art.

Before this the most common material used for concept art would probably have been pencil, but all types of mediums were used such as oil pants, acrylic paints pen and ink.  The original concept art for the game Spyro in 1998 would probably have been something like this:

Whereas in the year 2014 we can predict that the concept art for Spyro would look more like this:

This is just one example of how much technology has affected the appearance of concept art.

I’ve talked about how Concept art is useful for saving time for developers to establish exactly what they want the game to look like, and how it gives the artist a chance to try out a lot of different ideas and see what they look like etc. but there are many other uses and advantages of concept art. The game industry also releases concept art to the public as a way of advertisement. Sometimes this is released on media such as posters or billboards but it can be released online as a teaser to the public to get them excited for, and talking about a game.

Before the recent release of GTA 5, there seemed to be an advertisement for it everywhere I looked, whether it was a small poster, a television advert or a massive billboard. This enhanced the excitement and anticipation for its release.

This is an example of how important concept art can be, this advert is making an extremely bold statement and the artwork is the most effective part of its purpose to excite people.

Fandoms are very important for games, when players and game enthusiasts like a certain game, they will create a fandom, and they will buy merchandise for that particular game including posters, t-shirts, key rings, etc. The majority of the merchandise will involve concept art of characters, places or items within the game. Merchandise is another way that industries advertise their games, in a much more subtle way compared to the billboards. For example when someone is wearing a t-shirt displaying concept art from their favourite game printed on it, anyone that that person sees that day will see his t-shirt, even if it just happens to be a stranger walking down the street. They might be inclined to go buy the game.
There will also be blogs and online communities that get together to talk about the game and recommend the game to other gamers. The website ‘Deviant Art’ is very popular among gamers. It contains original concept art for games and also fan own concept art. When there is a lot of online talk and a large fan base behind a game it then encourages developers to create multiple sequels of the game and gives them the chance to make a larger profit.

This is an example of a poster for Diablo 3 that is available as merchandise for the public to buy. Merchandise with concept art is a good way for the game industry not only to make a profit but also to build up a fandom.

Concept art is not only used as an advertisement for the public to buy the game. Game designers will also create concept art to give to producers in an attempt to pitch their ideas and get funding from another investor or have certain developers buy the idea of their game all together.

Within the society we live in not only does the environment influence what our concept art looks like, but vice versa. Concept art in modern day life is extremely influential in relation to clothes and fashions as well as what games we play and what films we watch. Concept art is such an essential part of the industry that society as we know it wouldn’t be the same without concept art and it continues to grow more and more popular.