(Post will be updated after sleep)
Beginning research, I am maintaining an open mind as to which aspect of Games Development I will be writing about in the upcoming assignment. However, I have decided to start looking in the areas that potentially allow me to transfer some of my existing skills, and one of those areas might be concept art... or more specifically still, character concepts. Prior to coming onto the course, as mentioned in First Post, I drew and indeed still draw as a hobby and I like to think that a strong aspect of my drawing focuses on character and costume design.
Some of my research will be drawn from ImagineFX and Computer Arts magazines I've collected over the years, including specials on the topic of videogames.
So far, I have identified several catagories within the umbrella term of Concept Artist, the main ones being Character, Enviroment, Creature and Vehicle Artists, each of whom specialise in the areas of design as listed and
The role of concept artist also bears importance at various points in the development cycle, for example in preproduction when early ideas need to be visualised as quickly as possible of potential characters and environments to aid level designers as well as the 3D artists. This can involve straight up drawing, but it also involves gathering references of people or places that could help set the mood and tone that is being sought for the game. At this stage as well, there are no final designs persay - A main character or an enemy could have a dozen appearences until the right look is decided upon, even with a brief that is fairly specific. The concept artists role is to inspire ideas early on, for the 3D artists to later develop.
This work continues as a game goes into production and as ideas evolve and designs become unworkable or prove unpopular with any QA testers... or even as new ideas crop up down the pipeline.
To cite some examples of this, I can either point towards Half Life 2 : Raising The Crowbar or Team Fortress 2 - both Valve games that had protracted development cycles. Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer team based shooter, and went through multiple designs from a realistic shooter to a human vs alien design before finally settling upon a highly stylised look inspired by the advertising artwork of artists like Joseph Leyendecker.... which all shows the importance of concept art in adapting to changes throughout development.
Because I love looking through the concept art of TF2, I shall include a link to their art page - Team Fortress 2 : Artwork
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