How concept art and better graphics cards made concept art more popular and improved games
1. What is the influence of concept art in videogames?
In this essay I will examine the history of concept art, how it developed in the
20th century and became used in video games. I will also discuss how different
concept artists have influenced video game style and design and how I see the
influence of concept art will develop in the future.
The definition of concept art according to Wikipedia is “Concept art is a form of
illustration used to convey an idea for use in film, video games, animations,
comic books or other media before it is put into the final product. It usually
refers to world building artwork used to design media products.”
The term concept art was coined by Walt Disney (1901-1966) (1) in 1930 and it
was first used in a series of animated short Disney films called silly symphonies
(There were 75 different short films which made up silly symphonies.) which
were created between, 1929-1939. In these films, characters such as Donald
Duck were created to accompany the music and make the films far more
appealing to a wider audience. Later on concept art was developed further by
artists like Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) (2) who took concept art and put
it into the pop art movement in the 1950s. Here traditional “fine art” was
translated into popular culture such as comic books, advertising and mass
market products such as the Campbells soup design by Andy Warhol (Warhol, A,
Campbells soup, 1962) (3) and other adverts such as Norman Rockwell’ Orange
Crush advertisement from 1921 he also did some work to promote war bonds
during World War II. (Rockwell. N, Four Freedoms series, 1943) (4) All of this
concept art in the advertisements increased all sales that were linked to the
advertised products.
Around this time in the 1950s computer scientists/ programmers began
developing games to be played on computers. At this stage the games such as
nimrod developed in 1951 by Ferranti for the Festival of Britain were designed
more to showcases the programmer’s skills rather than for the enjoyment of the
players. The games often used angular basic shapes rather than characters. By
the 1970s games such as Pong (Atari, Pong, 1972) (5), Breakout (Atari, Breakout,
1972) (6) and Pac-man (Namco, Pac-man, 1980) (7) were developed. At this
stage concept artists began to be involved in the designs of the games and as a
result the designs became much better and attracted far more players.
Since then, the work of concept artists has influenced the development of video
games style and design. From Pong (Atari, in 1972) (8), through to Asteroids
(Atari in 1979) (9), Super Mario (Nintendo in 1990) (10), Wolfenstein 3D (ID
Software in 1992) (11) and then Sims (Maxis in 2000) (12), Grand Theft Auto
(Rock Star Games in 2000) (13) to Call of Duty (Infinity Ward in 2003) (14), the
characters have gradually become much more realistic and the games even more
popular. As a result of the much better characterization and graphics, different
genres of games evolved as diverse as the “first person shooter” genre (for
example Wolfenstein 3D ID Software, 1992 and Call of Duty, Infinity Ward in
2. 2003) and the fantasy genre ( which include Final Fantasy, Square in 1987(15)
and Dragon Age Origins, Bioware, 2009) (16) styles.
Examples of concept artists who have influenced the style of the fantasy genre of
video games include Gilles Beloeil and David Paget. They have both had a
massive influence on today’s video games through their use of the ultra-realistic
art style which most triple A games use now. This has really popularized games
such as Assassins Creed (Ubisoft, 2007) (17) which had its concept art worked
on by Gilles Beloeil and Batman Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios, 2009) (18)
which had its concept art worked on by David Paget and resulted in much higher
sales of the games. I really admire their work and I have met David Paget at
Teesside University where he is both a freelance concept artist and a course
tutor.
As for the first person shooters concept art who influenced the genre, they
include Eric Chiang and Lorin Wood. Eric Chiang did work on Call of Duty Black
Ops II (Treyarch, 2012) (19) which yet again uses an ultra-realistic art style
which is quite common now in Triple A games. As for Lorin Wood he did the
concept art for all of the Borderlands games (Borderlands 1, Gearbox Software,
2010(20). Borderlands 2, Gearbox Software, 2014(21). Borderlands3, Gearbox
Software, 2019) (22). Borderlands uses one of the most unique art styles within
video games at the moment making it quite rare in games nowadays. In this
cartoon like style they over accentuate the outlines to make the designs stand
out. Both of these games have fantastic designs and they are both fantastic games
to play as a result.
In summary, since concept art was first used in films of Walt Disney’s through to
today’s video games, it is in no small part due to design improvements and the
creativity of the concept artists that have made video games so popular today.
Now concept art is used in every design choice you could make in video games
from character design, environment design and prop design. In the future I
believe that communities such as Lightbox EXPO will be crucial to the
development of concept art because it could be used as a platform for teaching
and learning different ways and techniques for creating more creative designs
within concept art. I expect some considerable technologic advancement in video
games design and functionality in the future which means that concept artists
will have to adapt. For example the Oculus Rift and other headsets can now
monitor how scared you feel and make it scarier when you get scared (this is an
actual ongoing project at York St. John University). In the future concept artists
and designers will have to take that step further somehow like maybe making it
like a full on matrixesque way of playing and experiencing games. I believe that
software and drawing tablets will only become more sophisticated and outdate
the ones that we have now. I also believe that Photoshop might become a relic of
the past and that other programs such as Reblle (Escape Motions)(23) and Z-
brush (Pluralsight)(24) will become the industry standard as they offer more
options for designers. Maybe in the future we will all be able to play 4D video
games as holograms with fantastic characters and settings designed by concept
artists rather than looking at computer monitors.
