Vol.
2, Issue 2
November 18, 1999
Painting
on Polygons:
Conceptual Art
Part 1
by
Rick "Flatness"
Grossenbacher
fter
a busy summer its great to be back writing this column again.
Since loonygames is starting its second volume Ive been
tossing around ideas of my own for making this column better.
What I came up with is that Id like to write it to better
serve you, the reader. So, I thought it would be cool to have
a little Question & Answer or Critique section at the end
of every, or perhaps every-other installment of Painting on Polygons.
So send me in a graphic you are working on or an art question
you have and Ill post an answer or short critique. Or if
you have a general question about getting into an game-artist
career or just what it is like behind the scenes (or whatever).
Oh... if you do e-mail me a file, please limit file attachments
to a meg or less in size. Thanks, and send all e-mails to flat@iserv.net.
Before
I start, Id like to get a few things out of the way for
any new readers of Painting On Polygons. In the simplest terms,
this column is designed to help artists learn some of the ropes
of creating video game art. Since there are so many different
interests and styles out there, I try to keep this column a broad
as possible using several different programs. Occasionally, however,
I will probably go into topics that arent video game related
-- but are related in art -- and are things that I feel are important
to note or in some way may connect to the video game industry.
I certainly dont know every answer to every art question,
or the ins and outs of every single art program out there, but
I do have a good deal of experience in this field and am always
happy to help people become better artists.
With that
said... on with the new tutorial!
Since
this is sort of a new beginning to loonygames and my column, I
decided to start at the beginning of virtually all game design
dealing graphics: conceptual art. This is the most fundamental
necessity that a good game needs at the early design stages. Period.
Ive never seen or heard of a game that didnt use conceptual
art to some degree -- weather be simple pencil sketches or a full-color
drawing or even a high quality 3-D render. Personally, Ive
always loved looking at the conceptual art for games, and I think
it is a great way to study how other artists capture images and
the techniques they use to capture those images. For example,
here are some pictures of mine that are simple examples of what
a piece of concept art might look like for a game.
A dragon!
Fairly simple and straightforward. (Click
to enlarge)
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