Concept artist portfolio

imm0lator

Hi guys

I'm an aspiring game artist who is looking to break into the game industry. I'm ferociously pursuing this dream by drawing and improving my skills relentlessly over the last 2 years. If you are looking for a new game artist, please take the time to look at my portfolio:

https://www.artstation.com/artist/imm0lator

Thanks
Ricardo

Elyaradine

Do you only do concept art? Are you looking for feedback?

imm0lator

I wouldn't say I'd confine myself to concept art. But if you have any thoughts, by all means let me know what you think :)

kidult

@imm0lator - Your portfolio at the moment shows one piece of concept art that could pertain to game art but other wise it's mainly illustrative stuff. Not much in the way of art that would be used in games.

Are you wanting to work in a studio?

imm0lator

Right now I'm stuck working in advertising, which pays the bills but isn't where I want to stay forever! Landing a job where I can create art for games everyday instead of ads would be rad.

dammit

@imm0lator Great to see you add your portfolio to the site. I think the next step would be for you to get involved in some game projects. Take a look and see what prototypes some people don't have art for an offer some assistance OR practice redoing some art that's already in a game - share it and get some feedback. There are loads of artists on this site that take their time to give their feedback with is super valuable given that they're industry experienced!

Elyaradine

To my knowledge (which, I'll admit, isn't exhaustive, because I keep discovering people who do amazing work in a vacuum!), there are something like 5 people in the country who do (or have recently done) concept art full time (rather than being generalists who occasionally do concept art -- something that I believe is very common, which also makes getting work locally on only concept art really difficult). So... maybe check out what your competition is doing, and the kind of quality/standard of work that's been able to get people work as concept artists.

Some links (all local):
http://marcelvanvuurendesign.blogspot.co.za/
https://www.artstation.com/artist/jeanroux
https://www.artstation.com/artist/nicollazarus
https://www.artstation.com/artist/lyntonlevengood
https://www.behance.net/danclarkeart

I think in their work you'll find a whole lot more design happening, where there are explorations of things (blueprints, different drawings of the same subject from orthographic views), generation of options (many creatures or objects from the same world/environment to flesh out a world, or the same character with many different options of outfits, variations), colour/mood boards and so on.

Alternatively, if you're open to branching out, then perhaps move beyond concepts and do some in-game work, maybe 2D sprites, backgrounds and stuff, or some 3D.

In terms of your work itself, I was also personally pretty put off by your depiction of women being very one dimensional. I'd like to see more examples of sensibly-designed clothing, and clothing that obeys physics, and women of archetypes other than "strong and sexy".

I also felt that there was a huge difference in quality in pieces, especially between those that are copies of other artists/photographs, and those that are your own original work. In my mind, you've been able to develop a decent eye for observation, but I feel like you're not really understanding what it is you're drawing, so that when you draw your own things you don't benefit as much from the copies that you've done. Something I do sometimes when I do studies is to do a copy, but with something fundamental changed so that I can't copy things straight up: for example, move the light source/direction, or move the camera. It makes me have to take the 2D image I'm observing, figure out the form/light/colour as a 3D object in my mind for understanding in order to re-light or re-position it, and then translate it back into 2D. The process is a lot slower than straight-up copying, but I think the time spent allows for much faster improvement, and a lot more of 3D form is committed to memory, making future drawings that could use this as reference significantly easier.

Hope that helps!

imm0lator

@Elyaradine thanks man. Working in isolation is tough so it's great to discover the local SA community here where you can get feedback and connect with other game creators.

I really love what Marcel van Vuuren has done with his work. Nice display of design with multiple view points. Some examples of how a character can move/interact with an environment. Nico Lazarus has some fantastic work. I love his use of colour.

I basically know I have a lot of work to do. But everything on my portfolio has been only a year's work so I'm happy with what I've managed to achieve in just 2015. Give me another year learning new things and I'll be a lot more well rounded :)

Elyaradine

Great, I look forward to seeing you grow! :)

kidult

@Elyaradine - I'm not quite concept arting full time, I do a variety of stuff now. Illo work, concept stuff and in game assets. And DAYUM, how did I not know about that Marcel guy???

@imm0lator - Check out this article, very helpful in the concept art department: http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/2014/02/lets-get-real-concept-art/

Elyaradine

He studied at FZD. :P (And I believe he's working on leaving for Europe :()

imm0lator

@kidult Thanks for the share! I didn't know about that site. That article is very insightful and gave me a better idea of what a concept artist does everyday. There looks like a lot of other great content to learn from here. Awesome!