Concept Art
The art of transforming ideas into images
Creating concept art is a matter of communication, efficiency and speed.
Types of Concept Art
There are many types of concept art. I am specialized on three of them: pitch concepts, production concepts and vfx concepts.
Pitch Concepts are these flashy illustrations which almost look like full-fledged illustrations – they take a lot of time, but their job is to convince an investor to back this particular project.
Production Concepts are the most common form of concept art. Their main use is communication between departments. The produced images are a little bit rougher than their pitch counterparts, because there have to be quite a lot of them depending on the size of the project.
Vfx Concepts are quite similar to the production concepts although they get produced at a very different time. Production paintings are usually made before the first day of shooting, since they feature a lot of elements, which have to be built. Vfx concepts on the other hand are produce while and after shooting and mainly serve the purpose of combining digital and real world, so these two elements don\’t drift too far away from each other, designwise.
Production concepts
There are three main areas of application for concept art during a film production.
Environment Concepts are the most common one, since their purpose is to put all the pieces together. Costumes, Lighting, set decoration, props and many other departments all come together here.
Character Concepts are more common in video games, but also in science fiction and fantasy movies. If a subject is too complex to get handled entirely by the costume department like for example an alien race, there has to be a character concept beforehand.
Then there are Props Concepts. This kind of concept art is usually produced because something that doesn\’t exist has to be built. This can be very challenging, because these props have to actually work. They will get used by actors and will get closeup shots which makes this very delicate. Every descision has to be made beforehand so the risk of physical failure is minimized.
