My Concept Art Pipeline - How I Make Concept Art
The Idea -
Prompted by an image or cultural concept / story
Brainstorming -
This brainstorming is the part of the pipeline where I ask myself in its simplest form ‘What do I want to make?’ ‘How do I make this into a game?’ ‘How do I make this into concept art’ ‘How do I capture the essence of this idea in concept art?’ ‘What sort of concept art do I need to make?’ At this point I will be using these questions to inform my research and I keep the brainstorming stage very brief as my ideas may change or be scrapped.
Research -
This is the stage where I compile notes of in-depth research on the subject of my idea and the culture around the idea.
Research is a gradual part of my pipeline; I will use research as the connection to more research so I can accurately depict the history and cultural significance of my concept subject along with helping me create sources of reference for my concept art.
For me research is the foundation to every idea and decision I make and I believe there is no such thing as bad or useless research; if I find something interesting but I know that it doesn't fit the subject of my concept art or my idea has changed I tend to keep that research for possible future projects.
Design Document -
This is the documentation finalising the mechanics, characters, story details e.g. time period and locations of the project and concept art.
Having this documentation gives me a clear understanding and gives my concept art function along with giving me direction.
Reference Research -
At this point in the pipeline I start to collect images that relate to my research; this usually involves gathering images of clothing, fabrics, patterns, interiors, exteriors, furniture, architecture and aesthetics of the culture along with animals and plants found in that region. I will usually set my projects in the 1800’s or 1900’s; being the golden age of illustration and the height of folklore; with old cottages, flowery fabrics, bonnets and pinafores i find the imagery associated with this time period visually pleasing and epitomises the sense of charm i am trying to communicate.
A Lot of this stage involves capturing the look and feel of the game and building up a visual blueprint of the project.
Initial Concept Sketches -
Starting with a couple of rough sketches to get the idea onto paper, my art style emphasises soft features and rounded corners, i try to make my designs simplified and readable with many of the characteristics in the smaller details. My sketches vary from static poses to featuring the character completed day-to-day tasks that communicate what the character is like and what the game is about.
I tend to keep pieces of my art symmetrical to work efficiently so one side of the sketch will be given more attention and the pencil lines will be more defined.
When making the initial concept I will first draw on paper with the character in a full body sketch without any extra designs added such as clothing, hats etc. this is so i can place a new piece of paper on top of the sketch and create multiple concepts.
Digital Layout -
I will arrange the scanned sketches onto a digital canvas along with adjusting the tone of the pencil line so it is more clear.
During this part I will place colours around the illustration to use as the palette. What i like to do with my palette is use ‘off-colours’ with my blacks and whites to make the art more softer along with picking one dominant colour (typically green or brown) and slightly blend that into my other colours in order to make a move com
Digital Concepts -
I will start my digital version of the concept art by lowering the opacity of the layer I will be working on in order to follow the pencil illustration underneath.
When creating my digital art, although it is styled to look lineless I will draw an outline of each part of the character e.g. head, eyes, hat and body on a different layer; when the outline is complete I simply fill in the empty space.
This is helpful to my process for a number of reasons - it is a simple solution that speeds up the process of art, i can duplicate the outline and recolour it in order to get the line art i need on clothing folds and fingers and it allows me to make quick colour exploration concepts.
Reflecting on where this project has led me I initially planned at the beginning of semester 3 to move onto ‘Idea 3’ which would entail me creating my own original folk tale; however there is so much more i want to add to the concept art, i would like to expand of creating more function concept art to show the mechanics of the game so i see this semester as the stepping stone of creating the Hob game and now I plan to continue developing this project further in semester 3 by expanding my concepts into building the world, characters and folklore of the game - one outcome i would like to explore at the end of Semester 3 is have the concept art printed into book form.
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