Concept Art-Reasons behind it

Concept art report

Concept art is one of the most important parts of planning out a game, it’s used to rough out an initial idea for the game, helping people understand and decide on the colour schemes and designs needed to set the mood that the designers are trying to portray throughout the game. Making sure the scheme matches the mood is insanely important. It helps people to connect with the game and understand the emotions they should be feeling, good concept art leads to a good game, meaning more games being sold.

Concept art also helps with idea development. Not many games stick with the initial concept art for characters and environments, seeing the character on paper can lead to changes, and helps to develop the idea into a full game.

A good example of concept art leading to development is Sora from Kingdom hearts, his original concept saw in with lion ears and tail, he appeared to have a more upbeat and somewhat cheeky looking appearance. Far from the final concept where he has a more innocent, kind appearance.

Here you can see Sora's (Kingdom Hearts) original concept, he is seen grinning, with baggier clothes, and a chainsaw like saw instead of the infamous key blade. He is seen with a crown and a lion symbol hanging from the weapon, another noticeable change is the Lion ears and tail, here he seems more childish but also has a somewhat mature look compared to his final concept art.

Here we see the final concept and straight away you can see the difference. He looks slightly older, and more human looking but has more tight fitting clothing (the shorts are puffier) they seemed to also have added more chains to his clothing. The art style has also slightly changed between the two pieces of art. The second one somehow is more of a cartoon style, with larger feet.

We also see the key blade in the final concept, different from the chainsaw weapon we saw in the original concept. You can tell by both how they were trying to communicate an over the top look, even without colour and that they wanted a fantasy looking design due to the irregular clothing choice and with the original concept there was the ears and tail, very fantasy looking.

Concept art is also used to help plan environments, the environments in the game are just as important as the characters, and they can change throughout development again.

Here we see an environment from concept which never made the final cut of the Kingdom Hearts games. We see a very comical version of Sora in a somewhat morbid looking environment, which didn’t fit the light-hearted with hints of darkness mood which Kingdom Hearts portrays. This is clearly set in a graveyard like place and you can tell even without colour it was supposed to be morbid and scary and also underground as you can see the main protagonist trying to climb out.

Concept art can also be used to help set the atmosphere by the colour pallet, many characters and environments go through concept art pallets to find the right colour and hues for the atmosphere they are trying to set, a good example of this is by looking at one from Final Fantasy nine

By just looking at this I can tell that they were trying to get across a cold setting, where it looked magical and the character seemed small to the environment, without the colour you wouldn’t be able to tell that it is cold, it’s the blue that makes you assume that. Whereas if it was yellow it would look warm.

Once the concept art is finalised and they’re happy with the characters and environment it gets sent to the modellers, concept art is useful when modelling, they have something to follow so instead of remodelling (and having to pay the modellers) multiple times, the modellers can get the characters and environments right first time, saving vital time and making sure the game stays on track and is published in the time they have planned, concept art helps to keep the modellers in the loop, and it helps to keep everyone on the same page.

Many pieces of concept art of characters and environments never make it to the final game, but this doesn’t mean they're never used, many pieces art get reused in other games, or even in sequel of games, Rikku was originally designed to be in Kingdom Hearts, but never made the final cut, however her concept art came in handy because she was introduced in Kingdom hearts 2, now as a fairy however rather than a human which her original concept saw her as. But it isn’t only Square Enix who decide to reuse concepts, it is common in the gaming world, another good example is Final fantasy’s 12s sequel Where the game was scrapped completely, then then however used many of the concepts from the now scrapped game in the new game being created, saving time and sending them forward into modelling quicker.

Here is the concept art for Ashe in final fantasy 12 (square Enix), where they explain where they got certain parts of the design to help other artists understand, they also show her with different styles of the same dress and the approximate pallet for her to help the final concept artists to create a final design close to what they have been given.

Concept art won't just go into the bin after the modelling is complete, most final concept art usually ends up on posters or reused in creative ways, back to Final Fantasy X, Yuna’s first concept draft was finalised and turned into the logo on the cover. Other pieces of concept art can be turned into an art book, sold separately or with limited editions versions, many fans like to buy the art book and learn about the development of their loved game. Bringing in more profit for the gaming company out of something which has always been so important throughout the process of making the game.

Concept art book examples, where we see the concept art reused for entertainment purposes.