Do U Think Concept Art is Becoming More Advanced?

NoSeRider

http://www.thehollywoodstore.com/ralph/swart/draw/index.html

Ralph McQuarrie the concept artist for Star Wars...Original cerca 1975.

I look at his sketchings and I think to myself, I can do that. Then I goto conceptart.org and think to myself, oh I suck.

Do you think concept art has become more sophisticated? That is clientel expect more?

ElysiumGX

simplicity can go a long way, as long as the general idea is depicted. some of the most skilled concept artist can still have the worst ideas. but a nice shiny coat of paint can get you hired.

Kevin Albers

Standards keep going in games, film, etc. In games, the amount of detail that can be put into objects keeps going up rapidly, which means concept art benefits from having more detail to it. More detailed concept art can often look better than simpler art, but of course not always...depends on the artist doing the work.

KDR_11k

Who's this U guy and why is everybody talking about him?

CheapAlert

U is Nose's imaginary friend

For those who don't know U, say hello to U!

JKMakowka

I guess you can't really compare the pictures on conceptart.org with actual production enviroment sketches, right?

Toomas

Concept art isnt about rendering quality but rather a medium to share your ideas with others and do it very fast.
IMHO painting quality concept art is wasted resource, the polishing part could be spent on alternate designs etc.

ThE_BirD

I know where you're coming from Nose but I think we have to keep in mind the originality of the pieces McQuarrie did... No one had seen a stormtrooper or Darth Vader. I know it's been said before but it's really true that concepting is much more about conveying great ideas than making pretty pictures(something I definately forget about a little too often:S) Not all of Mcquarries drawings appeal to my personal taste but some of them and especially many of his paintings were brilliant both conceptually and technically... It took me years to really apreciate the genius of Joe Grant(check out "Before the animation begins" for some of his work at Disney) because I was looking at his work for different reasons... If you look around you will find a lot of incredible concept pieces done in the 70's (Syd Mead immediately comes to mind) but thanks to the gaming industry and big fat movie budgets we have a lot of projects that have lured many more talented people into the field. Our best of the best are on a pretty level playing field with the best of the best from yesteryear we may just have more of them;)

pogonip

Ehhh nose I think those were very fast sketches cause if you look at his paintigs he was a very advanced artist so those just tell me " very fast " I think the diffrence today is access to good material for learning technique . Back then you had to go to art school to learn advanced techniques . Today we can paint digitally ..imagine if you still had to hand paint everything and buy the supplies/scan ...you would hardly seen anyone who could paint . Another thing is there is WAY more highly capable artists entering the Concept Art field now that Comics is a dead industry . Back then ( even as soon as 15 years ago ) most of the really talented illsutrators went into comics because it was better money and fame !! Now that the comics industry is pretty much dead all those old artists have become concept artists for games and films and the new artists who might have went into comics are going into games and film . So there is a HUGE influx of very skilled illustrators into the concept art field . That is why it's next to impossible to get a job in that field . Make sense ??

Marine

it's become more about the art than the concept, sa it's becoming common for the concept art to be published along side or with the game now, so you can't get away with concepts that get the idea across but lack.. style, flair, execution.
while a turn-around might get the design across perfectly, a pose would give you the design and the character's personality at once.

gauss

to echo and clarify what has been said: drawing a concept is NOT a piece of art. it is a method of communication. what you're doing isn't drawing a pretty picture (though that will often help), it's getting something out of your head, onto a piece of paper or computer screen, and into someone else's head. Ralph McQuarrie's SW work was genius, and is basically unrivaled by any of the current SW concept artists, with the possible exception of Ian McCaig. yes, their rendering techniques are far more polished.. but are their designs qualitatively better? all of the foundations of the SW universe were built on McQuarrie's designs.

as has also been mentioned, designers like Syd Mead have no peer in today's newer artists. Mead was largely responsible for the visual design of Tron and Blade Runner--whereas all a designer like Doug Chiang seems to do is design robots that are closely related to his droid federation designs.


so yeah... your render quality is important to convey your ideas... but it's the transmission of the those ideas and the quality of those ideas that counts. everything else is icing on the cake.

conceptart.org has a lot of extremely talented people, some of whom i've had the pleasure of watching work in person at the austin workshop... but many of them get hung up on illustration more than actual concept art.

Snowfly

I hear what gauss is saying. When I signed up at CA.org in 2000, my gripe with the work on display was there was too much fine art, and not enough concept work.. I basically got bashed for it, no less than Manley explained that concept artists need to work on their art fundamentals first and foremost... something I totally agree with. But as far as genius conceptual work goes, there's not a lot to be seen around.

Personally I'm for several rough iterations...the well-rendered pieces can come after production.

gauss

snowfly: you're right. a lot of the time they're confusing concept art for illustration; conceptart.org is ironically just a slightly more concept art oriented version of the sijun forums. not that that's a horrible thing to be, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not quite truth in advertising

Bradfordart

Are you talking in terms of the rendering or the ideas expressed? One weighs a lot more merit than the other. To me, concept art is most important about the ideas expressed. I don't think a renowned concept artist has to be an amazing, detailed penciler or painter - but just has to have awesome ideas and be able to draw/paint those out well enough so that another can understand them or take it to the next development step (3d, costuming, etc). Judging by the photos I see something we are all too familiar with, and I think saying that you could do it is a bit far fetched if you lived in that influential era.

pogonip

Guess I think Syd would have more peers in the public eye if they came out of hiding . Most of those Sci-fi and fantasy artists who's amazing paintings grace the covers of books and such have real jobs . For instance BROM is the Art Director at a game Company . Jeff Easley who's work has graced D&D covers for 20 years + works at a game company as an artist. A lot of really good concept artists don't ever show there work online they are totally out of the public eye . Like for example Feng Zhu is pretty good for his age but there are WAY better people out there then him , but because he puts himself in the public eye he gets a lot of attention .

NoSeRider

http://www.fengzhudesign.com/

Feng Zhu seems to be getting better....not that he was bad to begin with.

It seems concept does not end with a concept, but how you can render it too.

killingpeople

i see the art of conceptual design advancing. i feel the age old lesson applies, which states: "obtaining new knowledge is a loss of something equal in value."; the story of the forbidden fruit.

take my view with grains of salt and sweetener. in disclaimer, my thoughts on this topic are not well developed and are welcome to criticism.

the easiest change to see is the influence of the new digital medium.
with this new age and media, the artist is handed a plethra of more opportunities. the medium enables endless room for errors (edit>undo, paint white over black - black over white all day, no cleanup or supplies). change creates new responsibilities and awareness.

i see the digital medium as a paved sidewalk on a mountain of dead stone; it creates a wider range of possibilities, supported with a richer past influence and the advancement of communication of people around the world.

i see the advance is in many directions.

with tools of the future the potential of the arts is more magnificent. ergo, the perversion of these tools, and the arts, can be more vile.

what is lost is a phycial relationship of paint and canvas, not to mention billions of nameless colors. the attatchment of traditional arts is muffled. a hardening of valuable lesson and respect could be missed, possibly replaced with another.

the action of the fine artist or designer to these changes is what truely matters in my eyes. it's what is done with what you have that makes what you are doing worth value.

gauss

kill: feeling your fine artist oats these days? i wouldn't disagree with your observations, but all that really doesn't change the basic nature of concept art and design. design is still about communication, not making pretty pictures in and of themselves, however much more some concept artists seem to be getting into the illustrative side of things. of course being able to illustrate different ideas/materials/scenes etc. can greatly expand your ability to do concepts... but the key disciplines of design are different from those of the artist. yes, artists are by nature creative and imaginative, but being a good artist does not grant the ability to draw a good concept. in fact, many of the goals of the fine artist are contrary to those of a concept artist.


as far as the topic of the encroachment of digital media, i do not believe that it will ever really be an issue. we all start on physical media and their inherent physicality cannot be revoked, nor can the itinerant joys thereof. everyone who picks up a brush and paints with oils realizes there's something here that cannot be replaced, even with the most accurate simulations. they may prefer digital media, but they know it is not a replacement.
just as those claiming that books would become obsolete in the face of their digital counterparts failed to account for the simple but inalienable satisfaction that a physical book can bring--so too will the physical media of art never be eclipsed by digital media.

the real danger of digital media and the much greater degree of manipulation available is mostly summed up by the vast majority of work on display at deviantart(most often neither deviant nor art, go figure that one out). that is, people who pick up the dodge/burn tool before the pencil. fundamentals will always be important, as well as understanding that sometimes limits give the artist more than unrestricted freedom ever could.

Ruz

Well, Illustration is part of design communication and I would personally rather see an imaginative idea and also have it well rendered or even a basic sketch which has lots of style.
If you want 'just' the idea you might as well just describe it in words.
Like it or not if the drawing looks 'shite', whether its a great idea or not, a lot of people will be put off by it.

frosty

Sheesh, as far as digital art, you people here have eclipsed so many, and hobbyists like myself might as well go peepee in the wind, I see the pimps here and am astounded at what is going on now. I am sure many here who have been at polycount longer than my 4 yrs or so can really see the changes lately.

tubboy

I think it is evolving not advancing. When you say advancing, it almost seems like you asking if technology is advancing the way we draw. If i understand it right, the pincel has not really evovled all that much in the last 40 years.

CheapAlert

what the hell is a pincel?

tubboy

dancing on the last nerve

gauss

cheap, tubboy might be ill-favored around here, but you're hardly a golden boy yourself. that was the least constructive, helpful, or on-topic post i've seen in a long time, and i really don't appreciate it. tubboy has been working on making amends, but you seem intent on eroding what small good will you have accumulated. watch it.

tubboy

gauss , my bad:)
No hard feeelings Cheap.:)

Personally, I think artistic expression thorugh concept art depednds on the artist. I prefer the think of it not as advancements but as artistic evolution and the every present need to learn more. We all learn something new every day. Every so often something ground breaking is acheived with art and a new era or style is born. I would not call that advancement, Just New. RAW concept is the purest form of delivery in my opinion.
Thats my $0.02 more

gauss

i think that's an interesting point. there's always the case of someone like Yoji Shinkawa, whose concept art for the Metal Gear games is often very minimalist ink drawings, but extremely expressive and evocative of the character being portrayed. obviously an exception than a norm for concept art, but a good example nonetheless.

tubboy

Excelent example gauss. I've never heard of that guy but his art is exacly the RAW talent I was talking about. LIke this one: http://yojishinkawa.com/pics/art/3b.gif

Gmanx

I have a framed signed print from Ralph McQuarrie in my front room, which I pass every time I leave the house. It reminds me of the inspirational leap he made back in '75/'76 compared to what else was around at the time.

As far as concept art as art goes, I would agree with Gauss that it's purpose is to inform and instruct - to communicate a very specific design direction. Concept art is diagrammatic by nature. I have in the past been approached by Art Directors to take a particular piece of my concept work and render it, or produce a painting from it, possibly for publication or as a mood piece. Most of the concept stuff I do and have done isn't all that pretty. Most are quickly shaded pen or pencil sketches. They do have a style and are presented properly, but only as far as the recipient requires. I remember having to re-work some sketches because while they were fine for communicating exactly what I wanted to a particularly skilled Art Director, they we're very rough, and we needed to make a presentation to the financiers, so I had to put in a lot of additional detailed coloured drawings to make them readable to non-artists.

Now if you're asking whether we've become a lot more visually aware in the last decade or so, and a lot more focussed in our scrutiny of visual arts - in all forms (theatre/games/cinema/tv/internet/print etc.) that's another matter...