/art/ - Art & Creative

No. It's way too slow and unflexible.

Markers are still pretty fast and maybe watercolor but in the end digital is faster when you take in the amount of editing or fixing you have to do to the same image.

That's the question an idiot asks.

Concept artists are hired for the concepts, not the art (a professional level of artistic quality is a given). The field is very demanding, a concept artist is generally required to produce dozens of presentable pieces over a few days, while constantly receiving feedback from the client - editing images, combining elements from different designs, and presenting many versions of mostly extremely similar items. You're not trying to create artwork as much as you're trying to convey a concept, and as this guy >>2789 said, you need the flexibility of digital in order to manage the work load. If you're using traditional mediums your employer is going to replace you with someone who can manage triple your workload.

Some pros still have paper sketchbooks, where they may do tons of preliminary drawings and thumbnails, but they invariably switch to digital to bring the work to a presentation level of completion.

I can only talk about games/anime/manga and there are probably some things wrong or missing:

The line between doing concepts and producing finished results blurs, so it is often pen+paper then right into to the normal tools (paper, 2D/3D software) to try and produce a finished result.

For concepts with colors to be handed out to everyone watercolor can work and the computer is as convenient depending on your needs. But you probably will end up attaching notes with the color names/RGB/CMY(K) values because color consistency can't be trusted and your work files may disappear or a million other things happen.

Markers are probably the worst you can do to others and yourself.

For meetings paper is often the better choice compared to computers, so you could end up working with pen(cil) even if you normally use computers. Or you just end up with a few photo copies with some notes attached. Sometimes there is no need for an elaborate concept because you just make a copy or work from photos.

Whiteboards aren't useful for concept art.

Doing concepts is only one part of the job, you also probably end up doing quality control for finished art or work on the finished art itself as part of why you are doing concepts for this project in the first place.

No clue about how it works in movies with real actors or advertisements.

>>2788

Depends really. Some concept artists attend meetings where the idea for games get pitched, and the job of the concept artist is to draw it quickly either on a chalkboard or paper or whatever is provided in the room, to provide lightning-fast visual aid for the rest to see. And after the meeting the result is a lot of quick sketches.

Usually concept artists get requests for high volumes of concept art, which means 10-30 drawings on a single thing, easy. And deadline for one subject ranges from one day to a week.

Some of the finest looking concept art pieces that youve seen most likely arent even "real" concept art, but art made for marketing, disguised as "concept art". Those fancier pieces are usually art made AFTER the concept-stage of the game is already done. Pic related.

Then theres stuff like Storyboarding, where the average amount of pages you have to do to reach the deadline can vary from 10-100.

If youre as fast as the dude in the video, then sure, theres no real other barriers for traditional methods.

>>3949

You are incredibly wrong.

>Some of the finest looking concept art pieces that youve seen most likely arent even "real" concept art, but art made for marketing, disguised as "concept art".

>If youre as fast as the dude in the video, then sure, theres no real other barriers for traditional methods.

Both of these statements are entirely false. The guy in your video could never be a concept artist, using a bunch of gimmicky symbol-painting techniques, just like Bob Ross couldn't.

Feng Zhu is an actual professional concept artist, and he shows you what that's like on his youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL

You'll see most of these are entire scenes, complete with actual concepts for cityscapes, vehicles, animals and monsters, uniforms and clothing. Some of these are strictly creature, character, or vehicle design, where he'll make dozens of sketches and bring a few of those up to a very readable quality level within two or three hours.

The embedded example video is 9 solid examples of concept art, completed in 3 hours. Any project with a reasonable budget is getting plenty of concept art of at least this quality, they absolutely do not need to pay for extra "fake concept art" after production.

>Some concept artists attend meetings where the idea for games get pitched, and the job of the concept artist is to draw it quickly either on a chalkboard or paper or whatever is provided in the room

Even where this is done (which is fairly unusual), that would only comprise one small part of the concept artist's job.

You could say that Feng Zhu is one of the best in the business, and it's not fair to assume that your 'average professional concept artist' would be held to the same standards and output the same workload, but the truth is they do, the field is that demanding (some may lack specific skills that Feng Zhu has, but they are still required to output tons of high quality work, consistently).

I am assuming you're trying to be some kind of elaborate troll by comparing someone who makes "tourist art" to a professional of any kind, but if OP actually believed what you said, they might start working towards an impossible goal. If you're not trolling, why would you pretend to know about something you don't have any idea about?

>>3949

>Then theres stuff like Storyboarding

Why even bring up story-boarding?

A storyboard artist isn't a concept artist, they're simply not the same job. A concept artist trying to get work as a concept artist probably wouldn't include story-boarding on their resume even if they have a lot of experience, it's just not relevant.

>>3985

>The guy in your video could never be a concept artist.

That is irrelevant. The point he made is that if someone can make images that fast, then there's no real other barriers to traditional barriers. Though you're not going to find anybody that can deal with the creative demands of concept art at that speed, especially with traditional medium. But the point is still true, despite the fact that one is going to be that fast.

Regarding the fake concept art thing, his statement is certainly true. Some of the best-looking 'concept art' images are in-fact promotional images and not concept art.

What you are also not considering is that those paintings in that Feng video are thumbnail paintings, of environments. Blow them individually up to standard image sizes and it's blatantly clear how unfinished those concept art images are(which is fine, for concept art). However, promo concept-art can't be made at nearly the same length of time, as they need to hold their own at all resolutions.

For some real proof, just google "destiny concept art." A majority of those pictures are promotional concept art images made by Jaime Jones. Images of that level of finish serve no practical purpose in the standard production pipeline, and are generally done for promotion.

Some more info, for you.

http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/2014/02/lets-get-real-concept-art/

>Why even bring up story-boarding?

To show the difference in volume between different artist-tasks? Stop trying so hard to find things to disagree with. Are you one of those people that discredit everything someone says after you've 'convinced' yourself they're wrong about one thing?

>>4000

>What you are also not considering is that those paintings in that Feng video are thumbnail paintings...

I'm well aware of this, the video is something which accurately represents the kind of work a real concept artist would be doing, and you may have noticed his next video he does blow up 3 of those thumbnails (something you can't so easily accomplish in traditional mediums) and brings them up to a reasonable level of detail. That video was an EXAMPLE, as I mentioned.

>Images of that level of finish serve no practical purpose

These images (https://www.google.com/search?q=destiny+concept+art&tbm=isch) are not a noteworthy level of polish beyond what you'll see in the majority of Feng Zhu's videos. A concept artist is required to produce that level of work in addition to their more common workload.

The article you linked is interesting, but possibly somewhat misguided, it's not uncommon for pieces of concept art (already at a reasonably high level of polish) to be passed off to another artist (generally a junior artist according to Feng Zhu) for the sake of adding additional polish to turn it into promo-art. I could be mistaken about the prevalence of the practice of making fake concept art, but again, just look at the videos on Feng Zhu's channel, in fact look at the part 2 of the previous video I linked (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhk97e2gaRo Skip to the end if you want to see that they're clearly as detailed as Jaime Jones' Destiny work). Feng Zhu explains what's going on in his industry throughout his entire series, and consistently produces pieces at the level of Jaime Jones' destiny concepts. Why would I assume Jaime Jones isn't producing these as legit pre-production concept art (later passed off for further polish or not) the exact same way Feng Zhu does? I am entirely certain a major production like Destiny has had plenty of work at or near the level of quality I'm seeing in the google results as legit concept art, and stand by what I said earlier (that they wouldn't need to produce any extra work at all).

The one thing the article is correct about is the fact that the majority of concept art is the rougher looking, often purely photo-bashed pieces, as I said earlier in the thread, the concept artist is hired for the concepts, not the art. That doesn't mean polished scenes don't also serve a purpose in the production pipeline.

>The point he made is that if someone can make images that fast, then there's no real other barriers to traditional barriers.

I'll say again, there's absolutely no way a guy who's painting 100 thumbnails of clouds and waves a day to sell to tourists could use those same symbol-based gimmicks to produce the quantity of quality works on various subjects that would be demanded of a concept artist.

"If someone can make (actual quality) images that fast" is essentially the OP's question, and the answer is what you said,

>you're not going to find anybody that can deal with the creative demands of concept art at that speed, especially with traditional medium.

So you actually agree with me, but you disagree with the way I said it?

>Do you think Concept Art for movies, games and advertisment done with traditional art techniques like oil, watercolor or markers can work nowadays?

>To show the difference in volume between different artist-tasks?

How does that have anything to do with the OP? Why not include the workload of a septic tank cleaner? The concept artist's job is going to include just as much septic tank cleaning as story-boarding, none. It's completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

>Are you one of those people that discredit everything someone says after you've 'convinced' yourself they're wrong about one thing?

Is that what you're doing right now?

I strongly disagree with someone stepping into any conversation and promoting a position purely out of ignorance which could misinform others.

>>4002

>These images (https://www.google.com/search?q=destiny+concept+art&tbm=isch) are not a noteworthy level of polish beyond what you'll see in the majority of Feng Zhu's videos

I do not agree with this... Maybe you cannot see the difference. The level of polish is not all; it's the quality of polish and more. I should have mentioned this before, but it's also the composition, and the inherent feeling of the artwork is different. The difference in the compositions and the required technical dedication to complete the pieces is clear to me. Multi-figure work with nuances of atmosphere and rendering.

>Why would I assume Jaime Jones isn't producing these as legit pre-production concept art (later passed off for further polish or not) the exact same way Feng Zhu does?

You are free to assume that, but Jaime Jones is primarily known for his illustrations and his certain look, so it's unlikely that someone would be hired to finish his pictures.

>So you actually agree with me, but you disagree with the way I said it? Yes, because you argued against a claim with bad logic. The fact that the man can't be a concept artist doesn't prove >>3949 to be wrong. I see the video as merely an illustration or example of speed; his quality of work doesn't really matter in this sense.

>How does that have anything to do with the OP?

Not everything must relate directly to the OP's question. It's an additional amount of information which relates to some themes of his post; speed, quantity. Merely an embellishment, and not as far off-topic as you say it is.

>The more I look at these Destiny pieces, the more I can see the shortcuts taken.

Sure, there are shortcuts taken. Custom brushes are in fact massive shortcuts, allowing you to paint patterns of pixels faster than you could with standard brushes. Although those floating highlights are not a problem. They read correctly. They may be loosely painted, but they're in fact precise. If they weren't precise, they wouldn't look right or correct zoomed out.

>need to hold their own at all resolutions.

It's a hi-rez file. Hi-rez files are never as polished as lower resolution pictures at 100%. You could call this an exception, in that images are almost never published at their working resolution rather than their viewing resolution.

>Again, if this was true, why would the practice be completely universal in today's video game and movie industries?

You do know that Star Wars was the holy grail to work on right? The artists had free reign and almost no movies had an art department and production phase that Star Wars had. I wouldn't call that a 'standard pipeline.' Past a certain point, say, going from a Feng Zhu painting to a Jaime Jones promo-illustration serves minimal/no practical benefit to the pipeline. The concept actually reads worse the more illustrative you go with a painting. The intricacies in a Jaime Jones painting, as well as the information left out, cloud up the concepts inherit. That's why it's not practical in the standard pipeline. Although it may be desired anyways for non-practical reasons, like motivating the staff with an awesome painting.

What's really important to get from this is, concept art only needs to look good to a certain point, and concept art images generally have their own feel/composition that differ from illustrations.

>Is that what you're doing right now?

No.

>I strongly disagree with someone stepping into any conversation and promoting a position purely out of ignorance which could misinform others.

Are you implying I'm doing that? Or are you implying the other person was?

>>4004

>Yes, because you argued against a claim with bad logic.

>The guy in your video could never be a concept artist, using a bunch of gimmicky symbol-painting techniques

My statement was clear and well founded, it's sound logic. I stated clearly that the example made use of symbol-painting techniques, the implication being: that is why the guy appears to be fast at all.

>I see the video as merely an illustration or example of speed; his quality of work doesn't really matter in this sense.

This was the root of my disagreement. The video is obviously of a guy making 'tourist art', so it's very disingenuous to use it as an example of someone potentially good enough to be a concept artist. The "speed" of the example video is only the speed to make clouds and waves, and has no baring on the speed at which a person could produce more intricate and varied work.

Everything else we're talking about is basically just nitpicking (and I mean I'm guilty of nitpicking as well).

>>4015

>This is a practical purpose,

Okay, I'll give you that it actually is practical.

Since you're using FZD a lot for your evidence/concept art authority, I will show you FZD talking about something from essentially my viewpoint. https://youtu.be/3TVji_fiKsw?t=21m33s. This marketing art produced by illustrators is what I'm talking about. Illustrations are intentionally or unintentionally labeled as concept art, because concept art is a buzzword.

Feng Zhu also says during the Fallout 4 video, “the kind of work we do here in the design industry is not producing a beautiful piece of art, even though we are, we can’t fall in love with that kind of stuff. This is part of production pipeline, that in the course of a game or film we do many, many, many versions of these kinds of things, and many, many of them get rejected…”

So what does that really mean, for concept art? Make it just beautiful enough that your client won't scoff at it. Throw in a bunch of highlights, rim-light/high contrast, pump levels. The images are still crude, but they pass the threshold.

http://conceptartworld.com/?p=21721 Take a look at all these images. Some of them stand out in mood, composition, and artistic beauty. Maybe they were once unrefined concept pieces, but now they're awesome illustrations. You could consider it to be in a gray area, between concept art and illustration, if you want.

Why is this even important though? Back to where we started, with the idea or notion that some of the finest looking 'concept art' pieces aren't real concept art. Why is it important to know this? Because if someone wants to be a concept artist, they need to know the difference between bare-bones, down-to-earth concept art and 'concept art' 'illustrations'. Feng Zhu is bare-bones all the way. He is right there with just enough detail to be believable, and (likely)not a bit more than what is absolutely necessary, with almost zero artistic add-ons that someone like Jaime Jones would employ.

Whether or not Jaime ever comes up with the visual designs for concepts or just paints others' concepts beautifully, he is considered a concept artist and illustrator. But for any aspiring concept artist, it is good for them to know that being able to produce illustration-level paintings is not necessary for producing concept art in the pre-production pipeline. Actually, it is not just unnecessary, it's way too much to ask for given the quantity of paintings they create.

>I stated clearly that the example made use of symbol-painting techniques, the implication being: that is why the guy appears to be fast at all.

Your statements are clear and well founded, yes. But that wasn't really what I was arguing about. Anyways, regardless of that...turns out his statement is actually false, as you said. "If one is necessarily fast with traditional medium, there's no real barriers for traditional methods." There's still many barriers, even if one is fast enough with traditional media to try it. Traditional is less flexible(slower, less precise in certain ways, and more difficult to correct) than digital, more effort going in to upkeep of supplies than digital, medium needing to dry if slow-drying...etc. These things don't go away when you become fast with the medium.

Regarding the concept art from Star Wars, you are right. In hindsight, I didn't mean that images of high level of finish serve no purpose, but that there is minimal gain between the average, expected level of finish or illustration, and the above average ones. Looking at the Star Wars concept art now, there is a lot of variation in how finished or illustrative some of the concept art is. They had a lot of time to develop things as they wanted, which is pretty cool.

In a pipeline that FZD talks about, with probably a stricter deadline of 2-6 months in the design phase, the pictures are not treated too much as illustrations, because they would take more time and for very little benefit, no? It's like the 80/20% rule. 20% of the work accounts for 80% of the image. Well, not quite, but you get what it's saying about diminishing returns. The longer you spend, the less effective your time becomes. You're just polishing things, adding subtleties, or unifying the whole piece. Though with the use of photos you can skip a large chunk of that time, which is pretty groundbreaking itself.

http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/2014/02/lets-get-real-concept-art/

This is a very good and still relevant blog post from an industry professional of what concept art actually is. And it repeats my point that efficiency is often more important than high quality when it comes to concept art. Ultimately keeping to the appointed schedule and deadline is more important creating the best concept art world has ever seen.