Unit 5 Contextual Influences in Art and Design: Concept Artist Research

Concept Art

Concept art is a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in films, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. Concept art is also referred to as visual development and/or concept design. This term can also be applied to retail design, set design, fashion design and architectural design.

A concept artist is an individual who generates a visual design for an item, character, or area that does not yet exist. This includes, but is not limited to, film production, animation production and more recently video game production. A concept artist may be required for nothing more than preliminary artwork, or may be required to be part of a creative team until a project reaches fruition. While it is necessary to have the skills of a fine artist, a concept artist must also be able to work to strict deadlines in the capacity of a graphic designer. Some concept artists may start as fine artists, industrial designers, animators, or even special effects artists. Interpretation of ideas and how they are realized is where the concept artist's individual creativity is most evident, as subject matter is often beyond their control.

Concept art ranges from photorealistic to traditional painting techniques. This is facilitated by the use of special software by which an artist is able to fill in even small details pixel by pixel, or utilise the natural paint settings to imitate real paint. When commissioning work, a company will often require a large amount of preliminary work to be produced. Artists working on a project often produce a large turnover in the early stages to provide a broad range of interpretations, most of this being in the form of sketches, speed paints, and 3D overpaints. Later pieces of concept art, like matte paintings, are produced as realistically as required.
The two most widely covered themes in concept art are science fiction and fantasy. Concept art has always had to cover many subjects, being the primary medium in film poster design since the early days of Hollywood, however, since the recent rise of concept art used in video game production concept art has expanded to cover genres from football to the Mafia and beyond.

I really like this piece of artwork, this piece of work is inspiring in my opinion. And i would like to do something like this for my piece of work. I couldn't find the artist who designed this game character.

Stephen Chang

Concept artist Stephen Chang has released some great concept artwork he created for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed I & II. Stephen Chang is currently working at LucasArts as a senior concept artist.
Link: stevoskit.com

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed I & II Concept Art by Stephen Chang

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed I & II Darth Concept Art by Stephen Chang

This is my personal favourite piece of his artwork, i really like detail and the colour used, i am also a of machine characters for concept art this is probably why i am really interested in this exact piece of work.

Paul Richards

Paul richards is one of the Halo concept artists, while working at 343 Industries. Paul has also worked for companies such as ION Storm, id Software, 3D Realms, Ritual Entertainment, Raven Software, Vigil Games and Blizzard Entertainment. his work is possibly the most enspiring simply because loads of people love halo and love the artwork.

Isaac Hannaford

Isaac Hannaford also did concept art for halo, mainly for halo 3. He has a job some of us would die for. Well not die, because it would mean you cannot work anymore. You see my point. Anyway he was concept artist for the Halo saga. As I’m a huge fan of Halo, i really like this type of concept art more than anyother. I personally reckon that his artworks is much better that Paul Richards.

Alon Chou

Alon Chou is a Taiwanese artist currently living in Taipei. His digital paintings are fascinating because they contain an amazing number of details. He paints both imaginary and realist scenes. He has his own website that contains all of his art work. http://www.alon.tw/PersonalWork/PersonalWork.htm

Josh Nizzi

Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon, one of the most anticipated movies of the year is an outstanding visual spectacle that boasts some of the most impressive, fluid and stunning cgi sequences in the movies industry so far. The photography is fantastic and the 3d technology is used effectively to create stunning, visually amazing scenes.

In today’s article we focus our attention on Josh Nizzi, a freelance concept artist who captured the attention of Aaron Archer, the design director for Transformers franchise.

megatron transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art by josh nizzi on gods of art

Blitzwing Moody Version ( Josh Nizzi )

blitzwing moody version transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render digital painting by josh nizzi on gods of art

Ultra Magnus ( Josh Nizzi )

ultra magnus transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art robot render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Dreadwind ( Josh Nizzi )

dreadwind transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Dreadwind Protoform ( Josh Nizzi )

dreadwind protoform transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art robot render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Rush Head ( Josh Nizzi )

rush head transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art robot render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Breakdown ( Josh Nizzi )

breakdown transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render digital painting by josh nizzi on gods of art

Hooligan ( Josh Nizzi )

hooligan transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Hooligan Protoform ( Josh Nizzi )

hooligan protoform transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Warpath ( Josh Nizzi )

warpath transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Warpath Protoform ( Josh Nizzi )

warpath protoform transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Tempest ( Josh Nizzi )

tempest transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Tempest Protoform ( Josh Nizzi )

tempest protoform transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Flash With Dog ( Josh Nizzi )

flash with dog transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Dreadlock Decepticon ( Josh Nizzi )

dreadlock decepticon transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art robot render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Dirtbag ( Josh Nizzi )

dirtbag transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Dirtbag Protoform ( Josh Nizzi )

dirtbag protoform transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Megatron in Africa ( Josh Nizzi )

Megatron in africa transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art digital painting render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Megatron Ground Pound ( Josh Nizzi )

megatron ground pound transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render digital painting by josh nizzi on gods of art

Megatron Africa Camp ( Josh Nizzi )

megatron africa camp transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render digital painting by josh nizzi on gods of art

Megatron Africa Camp ( Josh Nizzi )

Blitzwing ( Josh Nizzi )

blitzwing transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render digital painting on gods of art

Colossus ( Josh Nizzi )

colossus transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art robot render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Transformer Killer Squad ( Josh Nizzi )

transformer killer squad transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art robot render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Decepticon Fighter ( Josh Nizzi )

decepticon fighter transformers 3 dark of the moon concept art render by josh nizzi on gods of art

Decepticon Fighter ( Josh Nizzi )

Ralph McQuarrie

FilmEdge is saddened to hear that renowned concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, who helped define the look of STAR WARS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and many other films, passed away today at age 82.In fact, it was thanks in part to McQuarrie’s artwork that Star Wars was given the green light early in production. He even designed many of the series most well-known characters including Chewbacca, Darth Vader and the droid duo R2-D2 and C-3PO in addition to many of the set pieces that make up the Star Wars universe and while some of his designs naturally evolved – as often happens in a collaboration of that scale – it’s always fascinating to look back at an artist’s original vision. Here’s to you, Mr. McQuarrie, may the Force be forever with you.