Make Your Concept Art Valuable

Deliver value in your art and people will pay you for it. For aspiring professional artists, this one mindset change can completely transform your portfolio into industry gold. When I felt lost as an artist, this is what worked for me.

0:00 - Intro
1:08 - Art as a Business Input
3:57 - What is Visual Problem Solving?
6:26 - Clever Little...Whatever
9:03 - World Building
13:52 - Painting Pretty Pictures
16:17 - Where to Next

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PAINT YOUR WORLD
Hardy Fowler is a professional Digital Painter with work seen in productions for Disney, Magic the Gathering, and Games Workshop among many others.

Hardy's online academy, Digital Painting Studio, teaches the master-level skills, process and mindset he's learned from decades of experience as a professional digital artist.

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Friends of the channel and awesome artists and teachers:

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[KayKojiArts]

I love that the baby birds next to the parent are just as tall as the guy riding. You always find ways to give a cool sense of scale, even without a background to compare to.

[BTT]

I think Concept Art is that combination of thinkiing, but honing the skills to sell the visuals with pretty pictures. A big part of that is the design stage BEFORE we get the pretty pictures...the Ideation phase, loose sketches that show a progression in the ideas as well as shape design and style to fit a narrative. Eventually you get to the polished, pretty paintings we see in all of the "Art of" books, but the grunt work in the trenches comes first.

[KronoXP]

I’ve just gotten in a rut because I’ve felt like my art is lacking in a solid use or purpose. This videos timing is impeccable

[GeoffroiRidel]

This Feng Zhu video tremendously resonated with me too: Substance holds greater value than surface-level appeal. People remember ideas before they do representation, even though it is part of the sell.

[Norman_Peterson]

Your words are always an example of professional seriousness, and wisdom. You would be a fantastic teacher. A happy Christmas, and good luck to you and your family for 2025.

[joehynes]

You never fail to impress, Hardy! Awesome art and advice!

[jayta]

I saw that video!! That point stuck out to me too; having fun creative ideas as the backbone of your work! Great video hardy!

[DesignDuels_JakePleshe]

Killer video as always! Definitely what a lot of artists that want to get that first job need to hear.

[FTotox]

Galarian zapdos looking cool in this one 😂

[brokendraw]

super informative video from someone looking to step foot in the field. Thank you.

[AdamDuffArt]

100Kkk!!!
My brother, I’m feeling this victory with you - I’m so stoked that you hit this amazing landmark

Now go contact YouTube for your plaque!! (Cause you need to ask them for it)

[SavMortem]

As a personal project to practice pushing my creativity and designing around world building I have actually been working on a "lizard rider" concept. Love that this video came out around the time I'm trying something similar so this video has a lot of value to help me with that 😁 thank you!

[OH.A.M.]

Would love to hear you speak about creating a character that would sell worldwide and be the next character hahaha. Thanks

[Apedesigns]

This was awesome I didn’t really think of making art to solve problems you’re right I always make art for me and what I like never crossed my mind like oh I need to solve someone’s problems

[torrentthom]

The Giant-iss Ostridge farmer will be happy with your work :D

[TexKimball]

Excellent video, this is sort of where I'm at in my career. I have lots of cool paintings and have been on a few concept art jobs for indie games, but I need to show my process and thinking more if I want bigger jobs, and have my work feel a bit more intentional in the concept art sense.
A question I have is how often you find yourself using 3D for your concept art, if at all? It seems a lot of job postings I see, even for 2D CA roles, call for at least mid-level knowledge of software like Maya and Zbrush, it's either required or highly desired.

[chentieunicorn]

This Video is awesome!! Btw do you have your brushes available for use?

[sleeper]

One problem I face with my art is coming up with ideas

I have ideas for a thousand of designs, I have built a whole world around that idea (as you mentioned) but when I finally go and try to bring that idea, that world to life, I get stuck, is it my skills that are lacking? What if i mess up? What if i destroy this idea?

I have seen that the best of my works are those where I didnt went in with a plan, where i just painted with a general idea, like my current work I just thought "I wanna draw a cool scary tree in dark" which came up with something (at least to me) beautiful and pretty

[INKQUADRO]

ain't easy to get a placement or position got stick the path some time its too late... thats why they wish lucky it about lucky too.. dont expect too much thats the key man, do what you love..

[ziyadpepe]

Can you make a video about face planes?.

And how to spot the face bones under the skin, which is in the light and which is in the shadow.