hey everyone, im a very amature artist (pen and paper), i guess i would consider myself a concept artist, but i've never really seen any drawn concept art so i dont know have the general gist of what concept art exactly is. ive read the descriptions and definitions of it, but im in need of pictures. any concept artists out there willing to give some advice?

hm, im also wondering where i should start, i've drawn things but im not confident in my ability to draw, especially compared to the drawings i see from others :-/

I've written replies to similar posts twice in the last week, so I'll just link to those: Read this thread and this thread.

Any questions after that?

thanks dbaum, id like to know if just drawing using pen and paper would be acceptable as a concept artist?
some things ive drawn in my spare time http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/gg137/RABdrawings/?action=view&current=33966e87.pbw



id be interested in drawing up blueprints for levels, but i'd only be able to draw them, not make them with a program, do you think that is acceptable? and is/could that be cosnidered concept art?

While one certainly can draw concept art with just a pen, it isn't really an option to only draw with pen, and I think it would be impossible to get a job if that's all you did -- and it's not just that pen drawings won't cut it for everything, it's that only working in one medium says that the artist doesn't have deep and wide art skills. It's understandable in a beginner, of course.

And I understand the desire to stick to what you know. I certainly did it myself. Back in highschool I pretty much drew either with a pencil or a pen, and I never drew people (and I still suck at drawing animals). But only drawing one thing in one way won't do for serious projects, and as uncomfortable as it is you can and should expand your skills.


You will want to draw a variety of subject matter in many different mediums and formats to show that you are an artist with broad skills. You want to show that you have general ability and a deep understanding of art rather than showing that you've trained yourself to draw a very particular subject in a very particular style. The artist that can draw anything in any way is, in fact, the better artist than the obsessive specialist. And such an artist will be far more useful to a project than someone that can only draw dragons really well, or something.

I think that you want to do the easy parts without having to go through the trouble of learning the hard parts, using all the software and scripting and skills and taking all kinds of classes. Understandable, and I felt similarly to you back when I was starting out because the skills you need to learn are all very, very intimidating.
But you can do it because hell, I did. And you have to go way past what you're comfortable with right now to do art seriously in the future. Sure everything will suck at first, but if you recognize that and learn from it, why, that's how you get better. Seriously, only one of of five or ten pieces an artist makes are really good. They just don't show the crap they make to the world, so it looks like everything they do is awesome.


My advice to you is to draw as much as you can (and not just things that are easy for you), and take as many art classes as you can, like I said in my other posts. You've got the potential, but you have to work to bring it out.

hey thanks, (i know this is a opinion question) but do you think that i should try to learn photoshop cs3 (i have it), or keep at the drawing?


also, what exactly do you do with photoshop after you have penciled out a concept, like color it in and give it textures?

thanks for all the help

Quote:hey thanks, (i know this is a opinion question) but do you think that i should try to learn photoshop cs3 (i have it), or keep at the drawing?

Let's call it an informed opinion; I have a degree in this, after all!

So: Do both.
The skills you learn by doing each will reinforce the other. Remember that you're learning how to "make art" in general, not just the particular skills of "pen drawing" or "photoshop".

Quote:also, what exactly do you do with photoshop after you have penciled out a concept, like color it in and give it textures?

You could do that. I mean, seriously, you can do anything that it is possible to do, there aren't any laws on how you should do this sort of thing. But yeah, it is common to scan in drawings to use as a sketch to form the basis for a digital painting.

If you're serious about digital painting, I would recommend getting a Wacom tablet.

But but... you want to learn to do all your drawing on the computer, right? How can you not want to draw on the computer, but still be interested in helping make computer games? [smile] Photoshop is not that intimidating; I can do a fair amount of stuff with it even though I can't draw worth a hoot (being a programmer, after all).

If you really don't have any experience with drawing things in other media, you might want to start by studying some colour theory. Colours made up with light (on a computer screen) work quite differently from those made by pigment (which absorb ambient light instead of generating their own).

I work with guys who are concept artists, and don't actually do any work in game.

I'm going to throw my hat behind dbaumgart's suggestion and say:

Keep working on your pen/pencil skills, AND start working on learning computer based tools (i.e. Photoshop is a great one). As a concept artist, people don't really want sketches, they want a high level representation of your concept. This means that they want to see colours, they want to see shade, they want to see style. Not just some doodle. Often you'll want to take your sketches and either reproduce them on the computer, or scan them in and start from there. This will let you produce bright, colourful, obvious art that you can print on glossy poster paper (concept art always looks better on glossy poster paper in my opinion...).

You don't need to worry about learning how to create textures, or model in 3D if you're not intereseted in that area. However, concept artistry is a field where companies can tend to be a bit more picky in who they hire, so practice, practice, practice. Be good at drawing (everything, realistic, cartoony, people, environments, animals, cars...), and develop really good communication skills.