In this article, I will be telling you all about concept art in the games industry. What its used for, how it’s used, how beneficial it is, etc
Throughout the article I will be using Digital Extremes ‘Warframe’ as the main example, as there is an abundance of concept art and documentation on the work of the company.
In the gaming industry, concept art is used to show how something should look like in the final game. It is the guidelines used to give the people creating the assets an idea on what they are creating. Concept art is also used to show progress in the development of the game to show to the community or other groups.
A good example of the use of concept art is Digital Extremes, and their game ‘Warframe’. Every two weeks they host a livestream where they show concept art of new weapons, armour or maps that will be added to the game. Using concept art as a means of communicating upcoming features/objects to the community is a very beneficial thing for the company. By doing this the company creates a sense of excitement when the community see cool new designs before they are released, which brings more attention to the game.
The Chroma ‘Dynasty’ skin was conceptualised by Eric Vedder and the concept art (above) can be found on his Instagram page ‘eric_vedder_illustration’ alongside a plethora of other pieces of work he has created
(left) As we can see by the concept art, Chromas skin is supposed to be reminiscent of a mix of Chinese mythology, namely the ancient depictions of dragons and Samurai warriors.
From the comparison, we can see that the final version is very similar to the concept art and has most of the features present in the concept art, except for the chain and a set of horns on the shoulders.
A great example of an artist would be Lucas Hug, who has created a lot of art and renders for various weapons, vehicle, and NPCs in a multitude of different styles and shapes. The work above is his illustration of the ‘Gram’ sword in Warframe and can be found on his website amongst a hefty collection of his impressive work. As the assistant art director at Digital Extremes, he states his role is to help the team ‘follow the artistic vision to shape the game in a coherent and original way’*. He does this by reviewing and creating concept art with his team. Concept art creates bridges for artists to provide feedback, tips, and other types of constructive criticism. By using concept art, artists improve their skills as an artist in general and benefit and contribute to the team they are a part of. ‘My goal is to spark emotion and passion by creating surprising and believable worlds, with the reciprocal help of the entire team’** Concept art helps with the creation of these surprising and believable world, and with the ‘reciprocal help’ from your team, you can make the game as amazing as possible
Now we will talk about how the concept artists create the art we’ve seen so far.
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In the gaming industry, the industry standard is Photoshop, however a lot of concept artists use Zbrush or Corel painter. Lots of work is also done by hand, on paper using pens and pencils. A key thing to note about concept art is research. Before the artists even begin to start creating concepts, they must have knowledge on a multitude of things that relate to what they want to make. For example, if an artist wanted to create a character based on monks and dragons, they would have to research things revolving around monks, dragons, anthropometrics, different colours associated with dragons and monks, etc. You need to know the rules before you can break them, and this links well to drawing in a more cartoon-like or unrealistic way. An artist needs to be able to draw and understand normal, real life bodies and faces before they can tinker with the proportions and add things like armour or weapons.
A good example of this would be the deluxe skin for ‘Vauban’ from Warframe. When Eric Vedder was tasked with working on the skin, the plan was to ‘make him feel like a medieval knight/samurai with a touch of engineering thrown in’.
During the creation of Vaubans deluxe skin, a lot of research would have been conducted on knights, samurais and steampunk aesthetics. Then Eric would have to figure out how to blend these very different styles together to create an interesting result. The skin also features unique animations and effects that dynamically play when equipped. The parts that are animated are the cylinders on Vaubans chest and back, and the effects are jets of stream that erupt out from the cylinders when they expand and contract.
Lots of the concept art for Warframe is for new playable characters and weapons, and the quality of this concept art is important to the Digital Extremes and its artists. The style of Warframes concept art is unique and very well documented.
For example, on Lucas Hugs website you can find this set of concept art he created for the ‘Helios’ sentinel in Warframe
His end result was this
This is the concept art for the in-game sentinel companion ‘Helios’. From how Lucas has organised his concept art, we can see the process of how Helios got his shape and over all appearance. We can see many different shapes and forms that Helios could have had in the first picture, followed by the form they settled on. Across the last three pieces of art we can see the process of adding more detail to Helios and tweaking small, existing details. In game, Helios is a companion that has the unique function of scanning its surroundings and adding data to the players ‘Codex’ which is essentially the players own encyclopaedia for anything related to the game. Helios just so happens to be a Greek god and is often referred to as the all-seeing Helios which is a fitting title for a companion that indexes information regularly. The way Lucas has organised and made this concept art is very efficient and is easy to follow for the artists who will make the final model.
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The future of the gaming industry is looking interesting. With technology improving and being applied in fun and unique ways, we are acquiring more and more ways to take the ideas that we have and turn them into concepts and then reality in games. With concept art, creative groups of people can give equally creative and talented people their ideas to make the gaming world a more interesting experience
In conclusion, even the simplest things such as drawing the ideas that you think of is important in the gaming industry and is simultaneously both easy and difficult to do.
Bibliography
1 Vedder. E. February 20 2017 https://www.instagram.com/p/BQvXoJwBl1b/?taken-by=eric_vedder_illustration
2 Digital Extremes February 17 2017 https://twitter.com/PlayWarframe/status/832727252391452672
3, 4, 5 Hug. L. February 2013 https://lucashug.com/warframe
8, 9 Vedder. E. January 27 2018 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bed1linncn2/?taken-by=eric_vedder_illustration
10, 11, 12, 13 Hug. L. March 2014 https://lucashug.com/warframe
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