Illistration to Video game art,any advise?

Bronco

hey guys

Im posting this on behalf of a friend.

she is currently an illistrator but wants to migrate to videogame art or the concept art aspect mainly.

Do any of you guys have any advise for her on what she should practise and do?

She is also trying to get into texture painting but thats a slow process as its soemthing new to her.

Ive already said stuff along the lines of check out videogame art books if she can get hold of them (art of halo,world or warcraft,half-life 2 etc) to get an idea of the quality required and the design process for a charcter design.

also I suggested she should try and learn the possible technicalities of designing things for videogames that maynot be relevent for standard illistration.....polycounts,particularly complex objects etc etc

as im not in a position to really help her I was hoping some of you guys that have made the switch would be able to help out.

thanks for your time.

john

MoP

Well if she's an illustrator and wants to get into concept art for games, she probably doesn't need to know much about polygon counts or anything like that. It's the concept artist's job to produce a template for the other artists in a team to interpret and make into models or textures or whatever.

Surely all that's required is a lot of practise drawing characters, vehicles and environments? Maybe picking up a little 3d knowledge along the way would be worthwhile too...

JKim3

at the company where i work, all illustrators have to do a bunch of things. they have to do all these: character concepts, object concepts, environment concepts, character sheets, illustrations for design docs, and full story boards. of course, not like that everywhere, but something for her to think about.

Daz

That was my exact career path John. I spent several years as a freelance illustrator before deciding that I wanted to make my hobby ( game Art ) my career.
However, this case is a little different. As Paul said, If her particular interest is concept Art for videogames, then no, she needs no serious knowledge of how to make videgames really.
What she needs, is a kickass porfolio of conceptual design of things like characters, vehicles, weapons and worlds. That'll get her a job in the industry. Easy huh?

Gmanx

She would need to demonstrate an understanding of anatomy (obviously) both real and imagined, and a good hold on perspective. She should be able to instill a sense of high drama in her work - with good composition and colour balance. Also she should show that she can communicate ideas quickly and clearly, while her art director/senior designer is with her, or she's in a design meeting (ie - not be timid about drawing with an audience). Her stuff needs to be sexy, commercial, brash even.., traits which many traditional illustrators purposefully avoid. If she's a commercial illustrator, then she's probably already produced a little of the kind of work she'll need.