Become a CONCEPT ARTIST for video games - What to practice?

[Music] hey guys it's trent and i've been a concept artist working on some popular video games probably for about the last 20 years and i want to try today i'm going to do something that's never been attempted before i'm going to try to summarize everything that you're going to need to learn about how to become a concept artist to work in video games very different than being an animator very different than being an instagram artist or a youtuber this is the ultimate summary of everything that you're going to need to practice and work on before you can become a legit concept artist to work in video games all right can i summarize that in 10 minutes i don't know we're gonna find out wish me luck first and foremost these days every concept artist needs to work on some kind of a pen input device or a display that you can draw on okay so you're gonna have to get over the drawing with a mouse or drawing on paper thing but the good news is that all of those skills that you've learned from drawing on paper are going to translate over when you start working in digital don't skip the fundamentals of drawing that is absolutely the focus that you should be working on if you're not employed yet if you're feeling stuck oh you're not growing it's because you're not working on the fundamentals that means learning to light spheres that means learning to study materials it means learning to turn forms it means learning to draw buildings and objects in three-point perspective two-point perspective one point perspective yeah it also means you're going to have to learn to calculate how to cast shadows correctly sometimes the difference between your designs being approved or not being approved is just based on the lighting that's sad but it's true the more you understand the fundamentals of drawing the better your ideas will be communicated it is a language becoming more articulate means that you're more clearly understood the second thing you're gonna have to learn is the difference between concept art and illustration yes they are different things when you look at those beautiful splash screens that you see on league of legends that ain't concept art man that is a different discipline altogether if you're going to become a character designer you're going to have to do life studies you're going to have to learn to draw the body you're going to have to learn how muscles fit onto bones you're going to have to figure out how to pose characters in interesting ways that showcase personality how are you going to become a character designer if you can't draw a human man but that said you can't just focus on one part of the human you can't just do headshots and portraits of cute anime girls and then submit that as a portfolio to a game studio that's not making anything that has anything to do with the type of content that you're showing them so if you want to be a concept artist stop looking at the flashy splash are and start looking at more of the production art get some of those art books that you see for games like monster hunter absolutely essential if you want to be a character designer you need to be looking at how they explored iterations and how they thematically tied interesting ideas together and how they fit the characters into the universe and how those characters survived in fact the more you start digging into production are the more you begin to understand that concept art is more about the storytelling of how these characters live breathe survive what they worship what their goals are what their ambitions are what they deal with in terms of survival each and every day what their threats are and how they're fighting off those threats how they get along what their political structure is how they actually interface with each other on a social level how do they eat where do they go to sleep how do they feel safe when they're sleeping how do they warm up if they live in a cold environment how do they traverse the kind of rough environment that they live in all of these things are essential in every single game that i've worked on as the focus it's the untold unspoken storytelling of the world that makes it feel alive and it makes people get sucked into it you notice how none of that has anything to do with rendering quality but do you need to be able to paint really well oh yes that too you're gonna have to get comfortable with the idea of iteration don't just settle on your first idea you're gonna have to try to explore a lot of different thematic elements and try to smash things together that shouldn't exist you're going to have to become an idea factory that never just settles on one idea it's never finished it's never going to be perfect so you need to become eager to redesign things that you've already designed 40 times already because that is a part of your job as a concept artist if you're on that road to being a concept artist in video games you need sketchbooks full of iterations and ideas and just doodles just working out ideas and designs become fascinated with the way that things are constructed in all different types of universes from sci-fi to to dark fantasy to gothic fantasy to cartoony and whimsical don't limit yourself to just one genre you're gonna have to learn about shape language and what kind of emotion or reaction certain shapes are going to give to the viewer and are those shapes relative to other shapes that are going on in the body so that belt buckle needs to tell a story and oh boy are you going to have to learn to take criticism you're going to have to learn to compartmentalize all of that feedback into something that's outside of your own self-worth you'll have to keep up with current games that are coming out and what's going on with the kind of trends that are happening with design and for example you might pull ideas and inspiration from modern trends that are happening but smash it into the kind of context of the individual game that you're working on which means being able to dissect and understand what makes the style of the game that you're working on so for instance if you're designing a dark fantasy character that looks like a knight from elden ring there are stylistic things you can't do in that universe in that realm you have to know what those are and tone them back in reel them back in to break down exactly what makes the style of another game even if it's something that you're not comfortable with or it's not what you would do so you have to become extremely adaptable and the things that were absolute truths yesterday are totally different now and different art directors are going to give you different directions so you need to be able to be adaptable so when they say no we need you to paint more like this other artist you have to learn to be able to do that which means yeah you got to learn to be adaptable you have to learn to be able to dissect what works about another artist's style or another artist's design sense and be able to adopt that into what it is that you do it's going to be really important that you learn to be a team player and that means getting early practice working with 3d modelers so reach out and try to find 3d modelers that will build your your concept designs find out what information they need in your concepts and actually provide that for them in fact this is one of the biggest distinguishing things about concept art is that a lot of times people don't do turnarounds they don't do call outs they don't show how things work they don't show how things break down leonardo da vinci wasn't just a painter he was one of the first noted concept artists the guy would design bridges and airplanes and all kinds of contraptions and that meant doing little sketches to explain how things function and how things worked at least in theory but one of the ways that i like to think of it is that when you become a concept artist on a game you become an inventor within that world so you have to learn to think the way that gnomes think if you're designing for gnomes you have to learn to design structures the way that a tuskar would design structures based on what they need and what they want you're an inventor in a fictional world which means you need to be able to close your eyes and imagine what it's like to live there and then you open your eyes and you start sketching it out in a way that other people can understand you're documenting your whimsical fantasy adventure so you have to kind of become obsessed with the construction of things for example things that are built in a medieval grounded fantasy world like conan are constructed totally differently than if they were built in something like a world of warcraft where you got magical crystals you have to really pay attention to those distinguishing features of a universe of an existing universe and think within the mindset of the people who live within that world and that means becoming obsessed with culture and history and architecture and language because all of those things are going to bleed into the storytelling that you're going to infuse into your character designs and into your environment designs you're going to have to think creatively within the confines of gameplay and story that is provided for you and sometimes elaborate on that so for example you might just be given a task that says hey we need a character who is a blocker he just he blocks attacks we have to think of 50 different ways that a character could block attacks okay maybe he has bone arms that kind of are shaped like a shield and he thrusts them out in front of himself or maybe he actually just has a big honking huge shield in which case how does that affect his build is he gonna have you know huge yoked shoulders is he gonna have a large massive body type or is he using some kind of magical ability to use that shield i can think of 50 different ways right off the top of my head that you could solve that problem and that takes training your brain to be able to do that i've been doing this a long long time so i already think this way but it's something that if you're sitting there and thinking well i don't i don't really know where ideas are going to come from i don't have any ideas well then maybe concept art isn't the thing for you or you have to start training your brain to think creatively and that could just be derived from some of your formulas in fact i've talked a lot about some of the formulas that i use for creativity in my latest workshop the character design workshop because concept art is such a competitive field and it's expected that you turn around a lot of high quality renders very quickly it's going to be important that you train your brain to start thinking efficiently and start thinking in terms of how you can how can you save a lot of time reusing textures or really utilizing the deeper deeper levels of the software that you're using i specialize in photoshop primarily for my concept artwork because there are so many deep systems that save tons and tons of time it's also going to be beneficial for you to have some understanding of some kind of 3d software such as uh blender which is a free 3d software or something like maya or 3d coat a lot of times the concept artists will work out the rough geometry of an object in 3d and then trace over that 3d geometry to save tons of time and to make sure that it's accurate when it's rotated so that when the final 3d modeler actually starts to dig into it they will not have a hard time understanding your designs in fact when we were working on fortnight my art house did a job working on the coral castle for fortnight and we literally built high-res 3d models in 3d code and the internal development team was able to just take our 3d models and optimize them so our concept art was really just coloring over the 3d geometry it saved everybody a ton of times it was super efficient you're going to also need to learn to render different types of materials and they're not all treated the same and if you're working in a specific genre for example like dark fantasy the material treatment is very different than if you're working on something that's more cartoony like a ratchet and clank type of a game and if the style of your concept art doesn't match the style of the game you're applying to you will not have a chance they will not hire you it is extremely unlikely unless if they just really like your personality or they know you personally speaking of rendering even though i said there is a huge difference between concept art and illustration the two do go hand in hand and you are going to have to improve constantly your understanding of color theory and of lighting and whether you accept it or not uh and it can be a point of a lot of frustration but a lot of times when a director or a non-artist is evaluating your designs they're not even really paying attention to the design itself they're looking at the rendering quality particularly in american studios so i realized that a lot of these things aren't being taught in concept art courses at universities i get tons of messages from people saying oh i i'm i feel like i've got the skills but i can't get work and then i look at their portfolio and it's like there's very little actual concept art in those portfolios so i've created my biggest workshop yet this is the gothic night character design workshop like if you're serious about being a character designer or a concept artist this is going to be pretty essential that you learn from somebody who's been doing it for 20 years it's highly nuanced and these workshops dig deep into the actual process that i've done at these studios that i've worked at and it teaches you a lot of the techniques a lot of my personal formulas that i use for creative solutions the videos are mostly real time and they're designed to get you unstuck if you're not getting work and you're wondering why well this should help you to put some really nice character design pieces in your portfolio by the time it's done i'm still running that hot summer sale so use the code on the screen for an extra 25 off on that and if you're unfamiliar with my channel it's all about art it's all about a career in art so feel free to ask questions in the comments below and don't forget to subscribe or ring the bell and dudes i will see you in the next video which is at least every friday and sometimes more until then ciao

Channel: Trent Kaniuga

Views: 619,725

Keywords: Trent Kaniuga, how to draw, photoshop tutorial, time lapse, art, sketchbook pro, art process, how to, sketchbook, fantasy, artist, art tutorial, digital art tutorial, speedpainting, drawing tutorial, Concept art, game artist

Id: WVPwtsQ-RzI

Length: 12min 33sec (753 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 10 2022