Crafting a Killer Concept Art Portfolio: Tips to Get Your Characters Noticed

Character art is the most popular (and hence most competitive) of the concept art specialties. And it should be - character art is completely awesome! With over a decade of professional experience in this area, I'm excited to share with you some portfolio-changing best practices that will help you stand out from the competition.

In this video, we'll discuss key priorities, practice tips, and break-in strategies that can take your character concept art to the next level—for a portfolio that not only gets noticed but also gets picked amidst a sea of talented artists.

0:00 - Intro
1:19 - Painting People
6:07 - Character Grounded in Reality
9:38 - Choose the Less Obvious
13:10 - Character Culture
15:26 - Make Valuable Art
17:00 - Finished Product / Full Tutorial Link

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PAINT YOUR WORLD
Hardy Fowler is a professional Digital Painter with work seen in productions for Disney, Games Workshop and Neon District 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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#conceptarttutorial #conceptartist #environmentdesign #conceptartenvironments #worldbuilding #photoshoptricks #photoshoppainting #digitalart #digitalpaintingtutorial #digitalillustration

[deadpixeldesigns]

Hey, Hardy. I was a student of yours at Skillshare and I learned so much from your classes. I used them time and time again and I still do. The characters, creatures, vehicles, environments and portraits classes that you taught made me a better artist. My portfolio has become much better in the last 3 years. I have become faster and still meticulous towards the end of a piece. I downloaded the briefs you had provided so I could use those as portfolio pieces. The point is that even though I've seen you do this technique dozens of times, you say something new every time, and I still learn something new every time. I still get rejected because IT IS competitive, but I don't (always) get bummed out anymore.😔 Anyway, thank you very much.

[artfreakguy]

Wow, thanks man! Awesome advice to stand out in this crowded sector of the industry :)

[The_Warden]

Developing a library of poses is so smart! Thank you!

[infragames_studio]

Thanks a lot for your videos and precious advices ! I am really struggling about how to make my portfolio, feelling blind, and your content is really a light in shadows, precious help ! Thanks a lot again ! : )

[zerosandrawsandsketch]

another very informative video. Thank you so much for this.

[catfangsart]

Thank you for helping out! 🥰 Great video!
You mentioned the "fake it till you make it" principle - true, tbh. I am so scared of applying for a character concept design job, I cannot get rid of that thought of "but it says to have 5 yrs of experience at least" aka wouldn't they wanna know what I did before? What do I write in my application if it's the first time in a creative field? 😱 (come to think of it, I might be prone to overthinking 🤣)

[jesssworn]

As I'm trying to return to doing art again I struggle with the switch from traditional to digital and being creative in digital which makes the process of creating a portfolio a challenging task.
Thanks for sharing this with the struggling artists here. 🎨 🙏

[justinbobb]

Thanks for this invaluable information Hardy!

[Fyingfuji]

Hi, Hardy. Thank you so much for the video. I also bought your course at Udemy. They helped me a lot. I'm a newly graduated concept artist who's looking for a job in the game industry. I have been doing it for two months. I found that nowadays they're looking for senior-level artists more. It's really hard to find a junior job.

[michaelrasmussen]

Fantastic video Hardy! There are insights here that I'll definitely keep in mind moving forward.

I feel I may have been a little over exuberant coming out of the Academy and pushing character art as my main focus. As you mentioned in the video, and is evident by the sheer lack of response I've received from the dozens of inquiries I've put out, Character Art is incredibly competitive. It's kinda the Ferrari of the Industry, and I should probably try to start with the SUV or the maybe the Coupe. ie, props and environments... certainly no less important than the characters, and they do a lot of heavy lifting for a story... just not as flashy.

So, quite literally, it's back to the drawing board for me. 🙂

[SpiritLVE]

u helped see a new way of desiginig my characters I hate making faces so I used to give them mask every time I designed my own charecters

[natreaper]

I find your style and process of painting character very interesting - especially the red base for skin and very dark backround, it feels like it make you more open-minded while rendering. What brush do u use? I suppose is something like a hard brush, but could you correct me if I am wrong?

[johnpacheco]

Do you think you can post some of your older art or art that you see mistakes on of your own that you can point out what you see as a mistake and how you fixed it or would have fixed it?

[steelflexy]

excellent video as always hardy! im curious ive been out of college for 2 years now i mainly studied animtion in 3D using maya but i had a decent base at drawing before hand the degree took 3 years and i never really fell in love with modeling like i did with the concept art for my modling work so back on point i have been cracking away at your courses on udemy for the past while and while i love doing it that way im a better learner when somebody can look at my work and point blank tell me what areas need improvement is there any place out there that do portfolio reviews that you would know of by industry professionals? the big thing in this industry is confidence i feel and so many artists are more than likely good enough but put off by the daunting fact that companys look for Minimum 2 years in the industry!

[S-I-T]

I find it fascinating you use reds to begin shading skin. What's the reason for this?

[nicopuriii]

how did you learn to paint like that? the technique is beautiful

[HisLilyPrincess]

This is just me asking because I'm learning. Based on how long her arms are, she seems a little on the taller side. Shouldn't her head be a little taller/larger? Again, this is me just being curious 🤔🤨

[bonster]

your style reminds me slightly of disco Elysium. Love it

[doragon]

What do you do if the human character you draw has purposely weird anatomy? I have some characters from a story project I am working on, they are human but in the story their anatomy has been drastically altered to be long and lanky. How do I make it clear to people on first glance that I drew their anatomy like that on purpose because I feel like upon glance most people think I can't draw anatomy.
I do have a silhouette of a normal human with normal proportions next to my characters for comparison, is that enough or do I need to do something else?

[fuzzydragons]

I have so many ideas going threw my head now!!😀