What People Get Wrong About Concept Art

What exactly is Concept Art? I find a lot of people misunderstand what it means to be a Concept Artist. So maybe I can clear up some things about concept art and talk about this art book a little bit as well. Is Space Battleship Yamato any good?

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Lakey Inspired - Midnight Bounce

Chapters:
Intro: 0:00
Some Context: 3:33
A Misunderstanding: 5:10
What Concept Art Isn't: 6:30
What Concept Art Is: 8:26
Some Bias is Involved: 12:08

[karabii]

Thank you for making this. I was starting to feel discouraged when i glanced at my portfolio and all i saw was.... vertical slices and almost scientific illustration of how mechanisms worked. I loved making them, but i got scared because they werent illustrations.

[emd]

So to put it shortly, "concept" art is more like "process" art? Work created in the process of creating a finished work that fleshes out and figures out the mechanics of certain assets (in this case machinery, aircrafts, etc). It's a behind-the-scenes look not necessarily made me to be pretty.

[bemlok]

The problem is that a lot of people think that art has to have perfect rendering, needs to be pretty, but it doesn't. I can make an art with a super realistic face but not rendered body, still art.

Other thing is, technical drawing IS ART. Publicity illustration for example still art. Is technical, you have a clear objective, and still art.

Concept art is to make the art of the concept, the art of the idea. If is going to be detailed or not, it depends of the objective.

[perevision]

Half my books are artbooks hahaha. But being in production and illustration I do need to get a good handle on my settings and characters before drawing the story, so I’m grateful there are so many masters to learn from!
My favourite concept art books are Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind and Mad Max Fury Road - it’s amazing when the director is the one drawing the majority of the concept art because their vision is so clear. Miyazaki and Miller do beautiful machines that look like they’ve really seen some use. The Lord of the Rings artbooks are also wonderful because the main concept artists Alan Lee and John Howe have had a lifetime as professional fantasy illustrators, so the way they approach the work is so different from most artists in the industry. James Gurney’s Color and Light and Imaginative Realism are basically bibles for me. My favourite non-concept art book is Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust because the shadow boxes full of fantastic things make my imagination go crazy.
Sorry for the long answer but this is kind of my passion! I loved the original Yamato series and didn’t know there was a remake, so thank you for sharing this great book with us!

[weeshaakh]

I have always found myself moving towards turning my sketches into illustrations before giving it multiple revisions. For the past few days I’ve been trying hard to break away from that habit and this video was really helpful.

[MilesanVictor]

As a working designer and concept artist I see a shift in the younger and less experienced generation. Concept, storyboard or a wireframe that was more than sufficient 5-10 years ago to start a production, now is not enough. Instead I'm asked to do full renders and illustrations (still called concepts). It seems to me that due to the cultural changes and sort of symbol illiteracy people stop to understand visual/logical shortcuts and arches (ie. in my last task arrows on schematic did not explain the movement despite being an exact motion path, with exact text description. And only animated asset made it go through).

[MM-dwir]

The only art book I have is the The Illustrated World of Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve and Jeremy Levitt. The series is all about giant moving cities, and there’s a looot of machinery, huge cities, and science fiction-y illustrations and concepts, as well as characters!

[crowofcainhurst]

I think the idea of concept art between westren and japan is kinda different. Whenever I buy a concept art book of westren games it's always just pages and pages of fully rederred hyper realistic illustration with so little text to explain what's going on in the design. While the japanese game concept art book always just full of sketches and drafts and bunch of texts that explain the idea behind the design.

[mf--]

Star Wars Art Ralph McQuarie is among the best (big wide hardcovers with two volumes with around 800 total pages of his art). So much of the artworks are sketches working out the problems before moving to more rendered illustrations that prop, set, lighting, and costume designers would use later in production. Probably the most undermentioned part is how much work does not get on screen.

[enrikwolf]

It's like you read my mind then you post a video I've been researching on this for a couple of days and you conveniently post the video on the topic

[KanaNyctous]

Love this, thank you 😭 Perfectly shows why I've always loved concept art so much (more) 🔥 I definitely got fooled into thinking concept art was pretty (digital) paintings etc. as a teenager which ultimately really affected how I viewed my art & myself as an artist. Whether it was my own drawings or at school: I always much prefered the idea design process over making an illustration. Even when I watch videos or look at art online or in books, the concepts speak much more to me than the "pretty drawings". Your words here encourage me to stick to what I enjoy & not try & bend myself just because "generally", "full" illustrations, sculpts, costumes etc. are considered "better" & I guess "harder" to do. Each piece has its place & is valuable 💕
I have two "Art of" books: one from the game with my favourite costume designs, Horizon Zero Dawn & the other from my favourite game, God of War- I freaking love how they got to the Valkyries' designs 💙

[Reefflux]

Wow that artbook is beautiful! My favourite artbooks currently are the splatoon ones, partly because the aesthetics of splatoon really speak to me, but also because there's a lot of character design, and finalised designs for all the different gear in detail you don't see in game. They're also SUPER CHUNKY books which is fun.

[xample]

the best videos are thw ones that you can watch over 2 days and still know what is going on. well this is one of those

[dareimagine]

Starblazers, which was the American English dub version of Space Battleship Yamato, was the first anime I was introduced to way back in the 1980s. It had/had the very best theme song of any cartoon.

[divinesolstice]

My favorite art book is "The Drawings of Henrich Kley" I love sketchy rough looking art. looove seeing the process more than the finished piece most of the time. love line art.

[rasamasala]

Great video! Whenever people ask me what I'm studying to be, I always tell them that I'm studying Entertainment Design--the creation of conceptual designs for TV, Video Games, and Movies. It gets the point across fairly well and its not misidentifying them.

[ryufromleupus]

My favourite art book is The Art of Howl's Moving Castle! Mainly because I love how much fleshed out the mechanical parts of the castle was in the book and the combination of watercolour and pencil was so effectively communicating the ideas but at the same time really vibrant to look at. For a more character design heavy one, I liked the Guilty Gear (2000-2004) Collection and Gadgetry-Miwa Shirow Character Archives!

I'm a pretty japanese leaning since i grew up with a lot of illustrators from there but please check them out if you can!

[lakikakku]

I love love love the art and concepts in Splatoon, so by extension looking at it's artbooks is really fun and interesting.

[denyspohomii]

It may sound ridiculous. But these drawings have so much common with architectural sketches.
All in this book serves the main purpose - explain to others (and even to yourself) how things should work. From space as a whole to bolts and knots in the end.
As a person who studied in architecture school I'm really surprised to see such similarities. This reminds me of the days where we made tons of pencil drawings and talked to each other not with words but with ideas.
Yes, you are right, it's pure design.

[pixelcat]

i want to thank you for this video, you examining and voicing your thoughts really unclogged my brain about concept art and gave me back some of my drive about creating
keep doing what your doing man, and thanks again