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Concept art for video games, despite its importance to the process of making them, often goes completely underappreciated. It’s a necessary process when making them – arguably the most important, as it establishes worlds and characters, and shows the programmers what to do – but it’s an industry that’s not very highly publicised. Not only does it allow the programmers to maintain consistency and set the tone of the game, it also allows executives to present ideas to potential stakeholders and secure funding for their project. Because of this, concept art production is incredibly important but completely underappreciated as it’s not very highly publicised. I’d like to use this webpage to explore this somewhat unknown process and shed some more light on it.

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

MATERIALS AND PROCESSES

To be a concept artist, you need to specialise in at least one of several areas: character design, landscape or area design, or asset design. There are also several skills that are important, including but not limited to anatomy, perspective, and proficiency in digital art.
Drawing isn’t the only thing that concept artists need to know how to do. They need to have good research skills to inform their drawings to make sure the mood remains the same and make everything cohesive. Leadership skills are also required to some extent in order to direct 3D modellers and programmers to try and best capture their original vision into the actual game.
To get started in this industry, studying art, whether as a hobby or at degree level, is an absolute must. Making sure to practice digital art is especially important as final concepts are created digitally, and sharing your art via social media profiles to get your name out there is a way to get a head-start. Skills in industry standard programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop are highly recommended as well, as it’s highly likely you will need to use these to some degree on a professional level.

"PROFESSIONAL" CRASH BANDICOOT

In this current age, all concept art is done digitally, meaning that proficiency in various digital programs is a must. The drawings that are created are usually very detailed – more detailed that they’ll be in the final game for the most part. This is due to limits in video game budgets as well as limits of whatever console the game is being developed for. Despite this, though, initial sketches may be produced traditionally, even today. These would just be very rough, very early ideas in order to get an idea of what the final pieces would look like.
There are several different types of concept art that need to be created for a game. For characters, model sheets are essential. These will show characters in several poses and with several facial expressions, and sometimes in different outfits. Model sheets are incredibly important as they show characters from all perspectives – this allows 3D modellers to accurately capture everything that the original concept wanted to convey and makes sure they don’t have to guess as to what characters look like. Landscape shots will typically be a lot more artistic and visually exciting than the character designs. These environmental concepts are essential in making sure the mood of the game is accurately conveyed. For example, if your game is a gigantic open-world game, showing a large, sprawling shot of a small character in a big world perfectly captures the atmosphere. Conversely, a horror game may have black and white, dreary shots of decaying buildings or horrific creatures in the landscape.

VIDEO GAME MATERIALS?

This was a difficult topic to approach in regards to video game concept art, as moral and ethical questions are not something you’d think about here. An important thing to think about is representation, especially if your video game features human characters. Historically throughout video games protagonists and supporting characters have been white, heterosexual, and male. Characters that don’t fit this archetype are very few and far between, and sadly often come with controversy. When Lara Croft was introduced to the world in the first “Tomb Raider” game for the original PlayStation, there was immediate uproar from general audiences about the fact she was a woman starring in a video game, which in the 1990s was almost an entirely male-dominated hobby. Even then, though, she was made to be an object of male fantasy, as she was in very revealing clothing, which is not appropriate dress for the job she undertakes in the game.
Diversity and representation is something that needs to be added to video games in general. One blatant example is character customisation – many video games lack realistic and varied dark skin tones (and some don’t include dark skin tones at all), there are not many body type options, and hair types and faces are usually more in line with Eurocentric beauty standards. This can start to be remedied with concept art. If concept creators were to create characters that have more diverse backgrounds and appearances to your typical burly white male protagonist, and perhaps think more about backgrounds to have more references to underrepresented cultures, and design the user interface of character customisation menus to include many more options, video games could become an even more safe haven for all sorts of people.

My research has given me a much deeper appreciation for this element of video game production. I’ve been passionate about video games for my whole life, and I’ve always wanted to look more into it. It’s a career I might consider going into as I already enjoy drawing things like characters and objects. I’m very glad I got to research this more and it’s given me a lot more respect for the people in the industry that aren’t in as well-known roles such as programmers.

Adobe (2024) ‘An Introduction to Video Game Art.’ Available at: https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/illustration/discover/video-game-concept-art.html (Accessed: 09 April 2024).
Shahbazi, N. (2024) ‘Step by Step Concept Art Process’ Available at: https://pixune.com/blog/concept-art-process/ (Accessed: 09 April 2024).
Clip Studio (2024) ‘Introductory Guide to Concept Art’ Available at: https://www.clipstudio.net/en/conceptart/beginners-guide/ (Accessed: 09 April 2024).
Yermakov, R. (2024) ‘Concept Art for Video Games – A Complete Guide’ Available at: https://stepico.com/blog/concept-art-for-video-games/ (Accessed: 09 April 2024).
Looper (2024) ‘Lara Croft’s Entire Backstory Explained’ Available at: https://www.looper.com/200572/lara-crofts-entire-backstory-explained/ (Accessed: 09 April 2024).