Concept Art

Concept art

Concept art is a type of illustration used to show a general idea, which might them be made into a final product. In video games, concept tends to be of characters, items, destinations and maps, certain attacks, and actions may also be concept art before it is turned into an animation. Concept art is the earliest stage of creating a game; the art work can help game designers get an idea of what style of game they are making, so if the concept art is of a medieval knight they are not going to start designing levels based around a modern warzone. Concept art also helps develop a story; the concept art of characters can help writers come up with a back-story, however concept art can change, the image of characters can be completely flipped from one personality to another.

 

The images above are from The Elder Scrolls: V Skyrim, to the left is the concept are of the area around the in game city of Whiterun- this city is the first city the player should come across whilst playing the game, so it was probably one of the earliest locations the games artists were drawing. To the right is the actual area of Whiterun, it has changed a lot from the concept art, the most obvious change is the landscape- it has gone from nice looking green fields to a grim tundra like landscape; this is an important example as Skyrim is a lot more gloomy than the previous Elder Scrolls games, so maybe there was a  big change in direction of the game after the concept art was created.

Here is some concept art from Counter strike Global Offensive (CS: GO), It shows a character holding a gun which has not been drawn yet- there is a basic outline of a rifle, I think it’s important that First Person Shooters, plan what weapons will be used in the game, they need to know what guns look like on people, and how a trained person would carry and operate one.

Below is some of the concept art I have created- they are all very rough sketches, most of which was done on lined paper. The Game Idea I have in my head, is a violent "Grand Theft Auto" style game set in New York; the game play will probably be a plat-former, or a top down sandbox game. All these sketches will need some colour, and will be tweaked a little bit. 

Here is a sketch of a weapon- it's a badly drawn sawn-off shotgun

Here is a sketch of a Tec- 9 gun

Here is a background sketch of a New York City Street, it needs more shading and colours

Here is a sketch of a character, I was aiming for a "Crazy Drifter" style of character