I just wanted to write something about my role in this student film production, or any other production for that matter. When you meet new people they tend to ask you about what you do for a living. By default my reply to that questions is “I study to make movies and games and stuff”… I came up with this default reply because “I create ROBOTS and MONSTERS and VILLAINS!!” was a bit excessive, but as a matter of fact its not that far off.
I am a Concept artist
I create new designs for creatures, heroes, villains, robots, and so on and on and on. You tell me what you need, and I’ll make it shiny.
If you so wish, I will take that design into 3d space for you to animate and render, so that you may play it in a game or watch it in a movie.
Our production is built up by many different roles. You have:
The Director/Production manager
The Writer
The Concept artist
The Storyboard artist
The Texture artist
The 3d Modeller
The Technical crew
The Animator
The Lighting artist
and last but not least
The Post production crew.
My role in this? Usually, when I come into play,the general idea is allready there. But it needs refining. I sit down with the Director and we talk about how he envisions this idea. This gives me something to work with, a design to chase. Depending on my deadline I will approach this design in different ways, but I allways make several attempts at the same design to make sure the director has a wide selection to choose the right one from. After this I will go through a detailing process, in which I’ll make variations and adjustments to the chosen design until the director is fully satisfied. I use Photoshop and Zbrush for this part.
Example of a small character progress sheat
A concept artists job doesnt always have to stop at drawing,painting or modelling. In my current production it extends to the characters personality, how he moves, how he talks, reacts. We cooperate with Animators and Riggers in this part. For example: If you design a creature noone has seen before, and that usually IS your goal when designing a creature, you need to communicate to the animator and rigger how it behaves. If its ears shake violently when it’s angered or if he uses that extra arm to… I dont know… pick his nose, tell the animator and he will have more to work with and you’ll end up with a better result.
If my character have special abilities, like magics, I might take a shot at doing a small animation of the visual effect it has and how the character interacts with it.
The character draws a material up from the ground
and forms it into a projectile ( Psyonic warrior power)
When it comes to passing on the concept to a 3d modeller, my own experience as a 3d modeller comes in handy! Depending on my deadline I’ll pass on a 2d turntable pose-sheat ( The figure in a neutral pose at different angles), or a finished Zbrush sculpt for him to build topology on top of. But if I would have worked on a major production, I would most likely ask if I could have the time to produce a sculpt to enhance the detail of it. The last option leaves less room for interpretation of form as you allready have it in 3d, which for some modellers can be a blessing and for others a curse as some modelleres like to be creative in that interpretation.
As a Concept artist I might also be asked to do matte paintings as a backdrop for a scene. This requires cooperation with Post Production. I work in photoshop, and keep my layers clean, so that their job gets alot easier when compositing the different elements. Dialogue is as important here as it is with the other sections.
To sum up, as a Concept artist, you can involve your work into many of the other production roles. In my opinion, a great concept artist does. I guess I COULD restrict my work to 2d illustration and concept creation, but I personally feel its more rewarding to involve myself and expand my responibilities to that of animation, visual effects, 3d concepts and perhaps texturing.
