The history of the concept art that we now know from many digital portals, as usual, has its roots in the deep past. Much further back than the 1930s, when the term concept art was rumored to have been first coined by Walt Disney Feature Animation. Right back to the days of the first artists. Not the ones who painted mammoths on rocks, but the ones who turned visual art into a profession in its own right.
Artists at all times made sketches before painting, and of course it was impossible to grow without these sketches, because daily practice and study is what makes growth possible, and what makes the subsequent transition from quantity to quality toward new lessons and the unknown.
Thus, underneath the beautiful term, as is often the case, is a truth as old as the world. In the same way, there are all kinds of entities around us, covered up in catchy terms, but they are ordinary, ancient, thousand-year-old bicycles that have been discovered.
We are not going to try to cover what cannot be covered in this article, and will focus our attention only on concept-art, which can be related to games and movies, in other words – concept-art of the entertainment industry.
The main purpose of concept art is to create in the shortest possible time a sketch or layout of an object, which can then be put into production. With minimal loss of time you can choose the best concept, thereby saving time and money. Because in the case of approval of the concept run “flywheel machines” other specialists, and in the case of the game industry based on the concepts create models, locations and other game entities.
In the case of the film industry, models or prototypes of real-world entities, such as the Titanic model or the life-size Davy Jones ghost ship used in Pirates of the Caribbean, start to be developed. A mistake at the concept level, incorrectly approved and put into production, could result in multi-million dollar losses. In addition will be lost a second no less precious resource – time.
Besides the fact that concept art saves time and allows you to cut off unnecessary things at the earliest stages, it is a powerful tool for creating the world. Without it, the people creating the world won’t get a coherent view of what’s being created. Because a concept in the head and a concept on paper are not the same thing. Yes, every day we see pictures in our heads, imagine something, but our heads think in images, while we need specifics. And when we transfer these specifics to the canvas, we suddenly realize that not everything is perfect, and that what was good in words, is not impressive in a finished concept.
Developing concept art is an integral part of developing anything from building a house to launching the development of a new car. Or maybe a new popular mobile device that is supposed to bring the world to its knees. A particular case of such concept art will long remain in the patent library, a reminder of the prolific nature of Steve Jobs.
Let me be clear – I’m not an Apple fan, I don’t even own a touch-screen device, but I do respect those who go forward and achieve their goals. This person fully deserves it. The only thing is that patents like this are a very shaky field. With one artist in hand, you could patent the entire world, mapping out the existing objects and potential objects in it, hectare by hectare, the main thing is to have imagination.
Techniques for creating concept art
The concept can be conveyed using any material that exists on earth. Even sand from the beach can serve as a material for creating concept art. Let’s forget the classical ways of creating it, let’s stop using pens, pencils, pens and brushes for a moment and let’s look at cinematography.
There are iconic people and iconic products that are always on the cutting edge of existing industries. There are several such people in the film industry, and the first people that come to my mind are Ridley Scott and James Cameron. Today, more than anything else, I would like to mention the latter. James Cameron isn’t just famous for DeCaprio sinking on the grand piano or even for his global shootings of the sinking of the giant ship. In that case, his contribution to filmmaking would not have been so obvious. “Avatar,” for all its spectacle and the wide range of modern technology used in it, is also not the target of my strike.
I suggest you dive deeper into cinematic history by focusing on the 1986 film “Aliens.” James Cameron is known to have had his hands all over the project during filming, and not a single detail of this landmark film was left untouched.
He was, and still is, different because he always knows what he wants. He always knows what what he’s creating should look like and why. And if the concept-artists working with him fail to fully realize what he needs – he takes up the cause himself. Namely… for children’s models.
James Cameron’s sketches for Alien. It should be noted that, among other things, he is an excellent drawer, which gives him the ability to communicate his ideas to his subordinates with maximum detail, both logical and visual.
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James is known to have failed to get the technique he was interested in from his employees. Without thinking twice, he went to a children’s store, bought models of assembled equipment and assembled from their fragments what he originally needed. That’s how the samples of sci-fi equipment were born, which to this day look relevant. Which, to this day, can be cited as an example to other designers.
I must say that the technogenic style he developed for “Aliens”, I mean not only machinery, but also elements of the environment, including architectural design, for many years became the standard and was used to create a lot of Sci-Fi films, games, comics and pictures. This style is successfully exploited to this day by a variety of offices. Among the latest games that come to mind is Doom 3.