CONCEPT ART

INTRODUCTION
CONTENTS

Introduction
01
What is concept art?

02
Interface

03
Brushes

Fundementals
04

I N T R O
Studies

05
Colour and light

C H A P T E R Perspective
06

07
My aim for this PDF is not to be a tutorial or a For the best learning experience I would Composition
step-by-step of how to paint or draw but instead recommend following each of these
to answer the question that we all have the chapters in chronological order and being
beginning - what do i need to know to improve? confident with the topics before moving on. I have
structured the book in a way that you will always Application
be building on the knowledge that you have just 08
Exploration
been shown, meaning if you skip a chapter it
may make it much harder for you to learn and
you will be missing out on crucial information. 09
Environment Design

10
Character Design

Masterclass 11
 INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS
CONCEPT ART?

Let’s start right from the beginning. I get to draw
pretty mountains and trees and people make it
into games... that’s concept art right? Wrong.
Well, kind of. Concept art involves drawing
pretty things that people like to look at but
that’s not technically the purpose of it. The fo-
cus is on ‘concept’ more than art, a concept is
an idea. A concept artists job is to visualise and
communicate ideas of yours and others. An
illustrator can do this too but the artwork is the
final product - concept art is the beginning stages
and often may never be seen - the final product
is the game / film / toy / etc that is inspired by it.
multiple times to get the ‘best possible’ result for
the job. There is a great article on this called
‘Let’s Get Real About Concept Art’ which will give
you a good base of knowledge on the subject.
Whilst concept art is all about the idea - it is
certainly not false to say that the attractiveness
of the concept art makes it easier to communi-
cate / sell to the viewer (or art director...). This
is human nature, especially in our more con-
sumerist society we go for what is most pret-
ty. We certainly cannot ignore this but we also
can’t allow it to over-ride good design, this
means there is always a balancing act going on.

This means that concept art takes many forms

and is not always the same for every studio or
contract. These tasks include and are not limit-
ed to paintings for inspiration, paintings for di-
rect reference, line drawings, storyboards, 3D
greybox paintover, reference sheets and more.
Any job that involves 2D artwork and is used
to inspire or direct other aspects of produc-
tion will often be taken by the concept artist.

Feng zhu has a very good video on this sub-

ject - but remember that everyone has different
experiences and concept art is so vast that not
one concept artist has the same skillset. Freelance
> in-house job roles can also be quite different.
Because concept art is not the ‘final product’ it
can often be a little less finished or pretty - of-
ten the art you see in ‘art of’ books for games
and films have been polished up for the book
publishing. The process of concept art (thumb-
nailing, silhouettes, sketches etc) are just as, if
not more, important then the final result - this
is because the idea is explored and refined

INTRODUCTION
INTERFACE
There are many features and menus in photo-
shop that you may never use - remember that
photoshop is just a tool and was originally de-
signed for photo manipulation - digital painting
has always been a side focus for the software.
1. The standard menus. The important ones
are Edit, Image, Filter and Window. Most of
these can be easily accessed through short-
cuts such as undo, redo, copy, paste etc.
ed. The brush tool for example will allow you to
change opacity, blending modes and flow - the
same as layers but for the brush. If your paint-
ing is looking very washed out then its very like-
ly your brush has been set to a low opacity.
3. Your list of tools available to you. Self explana-
tory.
4. List of your brushes.
INTRODUCTION - INTERFACE
QUICK
TIPS
Masking
Image > Adjustment contains many useful tools
Masking can save lots of time and there are multiple ways to do so.
such as Levels, Curves, Brightness / Contrast
‘Preserve transparency’ is the first way - this means that you cannot
and more - These are some of the more power-
paint outside the pixels already on that layer. This would be useful
ful tools of photoshop - take advantage of them,
if you have a shape and don’t want to paint outside of it. Similiarly
there is no shame in adjusting your colour or val-
you can create a new layer above your current one, hold down ALT
ues using these tools. Use the Window menu
and press the line between the two layers (you will notice your cur-
to find any windows / panels that you need.
sor icon ill change). This will lock the layer to the pixels of the lay-
er beneath. This is the same as preserve transparency but because
2. Tool Settings bar. This section of the UI chang-
you are painting on a seperate layer you can easily erase anything
es depending on which tool you have select-
that goes wrong. The last way is to add a ‘mask’ to the layer us-
ing the layer mask button at the bottom of the layer pallete. this al-
lows you to paint in black / white to hide / show parts of the layer.
Value Toggle
Values are extremely important in making sure that the image
reads correctly - if your values are too consistent all over the im-
age will appear flat and boring, if everything is too high contrast it
can look offensive and hard to understand. This trick can allow you
to work in colour whilst easily checking your values, painting in black
and white and colour simultanously (almost..). To set this up go to
View > Proof Setup > Custom.... then change ‘device to simulate’ to
Dot Gain 25%. From now on if you press CTRL+Y your canvas will
appear in values (greyscale). If you colour pick from your image
whilst in values it will turn to colour once you press CTRL+Y
again. This allows complete control over both colour and value
management in your painting.
6. Small icons. ‘collapsed’ versions of the other
windows.
7, 8, 9. Optional. Navigator is helpful to have an
overview whilst you are zoomed in. The colour
pallet allows you to change your colours with-
out extra effort. Layer window is always good
to have open as they are very often added, re-
moved, altered. Of course work out your own
configuration and see what works best for you.

INTRODUCTION
BRUSHES
Brushes will not make you any better. But they
can help make the process smoother once you’ve
already gained a certain level of confidence with
your painting skill. Below are some tips and
theorys about good uses of custom brushes.
One of my favourites is perfectly summed up by
Jaime Jones, in one of his demos he mentioned
that he uses 1 brush per 1 material or object
type. So if i use one type of brush for painting
the sand i’ll use another brush to paint the wood,
and only use those brushes on those types of
materials. The reaason behind this is that each
brush influences not only the look of the brush-
stroke but also the way you paint with it. If you
use one brush for the whole painting it may look
reptitive in the shapes and textures you are us-
ing, but if you use one brush for each material
each part of the image will feel different and you
will also paint it in a slightly different way because
of this. You can more easily distinguish the dif-
ferent materials within the image other than for
the obvious reasons. Of course this is not some-
thing you MUST do and is not something I always
use - but it is a sound technique and a great way
to get you used to thinking deeper about how
to approach differerent materials and textures.
Another good tip i have found is if you aren’t sure
which brushes you like or should keep - open up
a new canvas and one by one pick a brush and
paint random shapes with it. Straight lines, curved
lines, circles, squuares, textures, glows etc - after
spending a moment with that brush you should be
able to tell if you are comfortable with it or if it’s fight-
ing against you. I have found this to be very help-
ful, some brushes are just more pleasent for me
to use - and it varies from person to person, so try
them alll or yourself and use your own juudgement.
I very rarely create my own brushes - usually
becuase there are already so many good tried
and tested ones free to download from other
professionals. If you wish to create your own
brushes then of course you can do this fairly
easily. Start by making a shape (can even be
a part of a photo or painting if you wish) ad se-
lect it with the lasso tool (or CTRL+click the lay-
er to make your selection) this will enable the
option to create a brush using this shape and
add it to the endo f your brush list (edit > define
brush preset). You can then select the brush
and go to it’s options (window > brush options).
INTRODUCTION - BRUSHES
QUICK
TIPS
Brush Organisation
I prefer to view my brushes as ‘large list’ - this shows both the name and
the shape of the tip. You can also make a new ‘1px brush’ and name it
to be used as a header such as ‘----- Basic Brushes -----’ to allow you to
categoerise your many brushes. An easy way to set this up is to down-
load Jonas De Ro’s brush pack, he uses this method and has some
great brushes to get you started. Others prefer to use the ‘stroke thumb-
nail’ mode as this shows a preview of the brush settings - if it has scat-
ter, transparency or any other variations. Try which works best for you.
Transfer vs Opacity
The first method is to set the ‘transfer’ option of your brush to ‘pen
pressure’ this means that the opacity of your brush is controlled by
the pressure of your tablet pen. If you press lighter the stroke will be
more translucent, harder it becomes more opaque. This allows you
to control your strokes in a more natural and dynamic way - similar
to when you draw or shade with a pencil. Another method is to in-
stead control the opacity of your brush through the ‘brush opacity’
option at the top of the screen or You can also simply press the numbers
on your keyboard. This mimics traditional painting, you apply paint to
your brush - this starts out very thick and opaque and then you apply more
water (just like changing the opacity) to change how translucent the paint
stroke should be. I have used both methods and bounce between the two.
How to achieve a painterly look
Many digital artists use the hard-round brush exclusively and are
able to achieve impressive results yet i find it results in a ‘digital’
look due to the lack of texture from the brush. My favourite brush-
es are those which have react with pressure sensitivity and have a
very chalky texture when pressing lightly, pressing harder gives a
much more opaque but still slightly textured stroke. This diversi-
ty allows for full control over your values and blending whilst giving
some more spontaneous texture so give the natural painterly look.
My current favourite brush is ‘Texture Brush’ in Jonas De Ro’s brush
set. Remember this is all down to personal preference, try it my way
but use your own opinions and search for what works best for you.

F U N D A M E N T A L -
C H A P T E R
Now that you have learned more about the in-
terface of photoshop and explored different
brushes and become more familiar with digitial
painting it’s time for you to learn Fundementals.
This next chapter will teach you all of the key
skills so that you will be able to draw anything
without issue - after lots of hard work of course.
Each page starts with a chunk of text that will
give a brief insight and overview of the specif-
ic topic aimed to prepare you for further learn-
ing. There will then be 3 tipics and tricks that
you should be able to implement into your work
without much prior knowledge but will have a
FUNDAMENTALS
big impact on your work if applied correctly.
Once you have practiced the topics and
techniques, on each page there are also links
to books, webistes and videos that others have
written on the subject. I have been careful to
pick only the best sources - each will be writ-
ten by a professional and someone who has a
good teaching ability to make sure that you are
able to understand each key skill with as little Make sure to pick up a wacom tablet ! It is a must have and a good
challenge as possible. Many of these links are idea to start out with the entry level Intuos tablet. It will take some
also ones in which i have used myself and per- getting used to but give it time and it will soon feel natural.
sonally found the most accessible. I have giv-
en a very brief description as to why each one
is useful for you so hopefully it should be clear.

FUNDAMENTALS
STUDIES
The technical skills known as ‘fundamen-
tals’ aim to provide you with all of the knowl-
edge required to depict believable and realis-
tic artwork. The main fundamental skills are:
Colour / Light
Perspective
Composition
The best way to learn these skills are from
studying and observing life. Although the ex-
act methods for you to learn best are very per-
sonal to you - your tastes, personality, hab-
its and lifestyle. I will do my best to show you
multiple ways in which you can begin studying.
When discussing the topic of studies a few
names come to mind - Algenfpleger, Miles John-
ston and Alex Negrea. These are people who
have been very prominent within online com-
munities and became famous for their prolif-
ic studying habits. All three of the above art-
ists have 100+ page sketchbook threads on
conceptart.org that you can still view today.
Miles started when he was only 14 (in 2007)
and by the time he was 18 he was already a
full-time professional artist. This is down to his
years dedicated to studying art fundamentals.
These sketchbooks are great sources of in-
spiration as well as to provide hints of how you
might want to spend your time - certain topics
to study and how to approach them. You get to
see where they started and how much better
they became once they dedicated the time to it.
FUNDAMENTALS - STUDIES
QUICK
TIPS
As i mentioned before, studying art is a personal
journey just as much as a technical one. I highly
recommend trying every form of studying that I
have described on the opposite page and those
you find in the previously mentioned sketchbooks
- try everything and see what works for you.
I have been on this exact same journey, i have my
own sketchbook thread where i did many stud-
ies - but i personally found that hardcore studies
weren’t the way that i learned best. It took me a
long time to realistic but i work best by observing
as i create my own artwork. I always have ref-
erence images open so that if i need to draw a
mountain i have them right in front of me - instead
of simply copying them i will recreate them for the
context of my painting. This is in theory the same
as a study but just in a different form which works
best for me, i can do this for every work that i cre-
ate instead of forcing myself to do a specific study.
But before trying it my way I urge you to try
everything and devote a good chunk of time What should I study?
to it, find the way in which you learn best, it
will take time but you will become a stron- There are many ways to study, but first you must have an idea of what you aim to learn - to get the
ger and more confident artist because of it. most out of a study you must analyze the subject as best as you can, knowing where to look will help
you very much here. Still life paintings and drawings are a good general starting point - set up some
One word of caution - it is very easy to spend simple objects such as an egg, apple, banana. Try to paint or draw these as close as possible to real-
months on studies and not actually ‘learn’ any- ity - focus your attention on how the light produces the form of an object - where is the core shadow,
thing. I have seen this happen to many friends the bounce light, highlights. Why is the light and shadow transition very soft? why is it sharp ? how
and to myself. After every 1-2 studies you must or why does the object look hard instead of soft, rough instead of smooth? Asking these questions
then either try to redraw that same thing from forces your brain to look deeper and question why things are happening. Slowly you will want to fo-
memory directly afterwards, or at least something cus on specific things that you are finding tough, such as how to paint cloth folds or different types of
of a similar theme. By doing this you are testing textures - set up a new still life with objects that have these qualities and study them - with the focus
how much you actually learned from the study and on those areas. When you have learned what you set out to learn, a study will be finished, therefore
by stressing your brain right away with these new some will be quick and some will be slow but i highly recommend taking as much time as possible.
skills it helps to solidify them even more and also Other forms of studying include photo studies, drawing from educational books (most notably for anat-
point out the flaws you should study next. We learn omy), copying master paintings or even painting using a film screenshot as reference There are also
through failure so a study should never be easy. websites such as pixellovely which provide timed reference images that you can challenge yourself with.
 INTRODUCTION - STUDIES
QUICK USEFUL
TIPS LINKS

Am I Improving?
You will notice that your first drawings will look good to you, you are [website] [video]
unable to see the mistakes at first but this is good. Keep ALL of your Alex Negrea Sketchbook Anthony Jones How to Study
drawings or paintings, save them all somewhere you can find them Example for how to study / proof that it works. Good insight on how to study.
later. It is very important to look back at these drawings when you have
done 2-3 more of them, you should notice a difference and you should [video] [video]
be able to spot mistakes in your previous drawings that you couldn’t at Alex Negrea Photo Study Material Sphere
the time - this is 100% proof that you are improving, which is something Some of his latest video studies. Example of one way to practice material painting
that is easy to miss.
[website] [video]
Miles Johnston Sketchbook Vilppu Drawing From Imagination
Example for how to study / proof that it works. Valuable knowledge of gesture drawing

[website] [video]
Algenfleger Sketchbook Vilppu Drawing Demo
Download all of Algenflegers study. Valuable knowledge of gesture drawing
Film Studies
[website] [video]
One very important and helpful source of study are screenshots from Noah Bradley Master Studies
films. Photographs allow you to replicate life but cinematgraphers
My Sketchbook
My thread for comparison. Guideance on how to create master studies.
build upon this by composing, lighting and staging a shot in a way
that informs and enables storytelling. This is all very valuable infor- [video]
[website]
mation for a concept artist - as we utilised all of these skills also.
Knowing how to better inform each of these job roles specifical for CTRL paint How to use a manequin
Massive collection of painting videos. Advice on how to improve your character poses.
films and games is a major bonus over just simply creating a pretty
picture. The same as you would do so for a photo study you must
[website] [PDF]
break down the image and ask questions - why is the scene lit this
way, why are certain colours used, why are the characters stood Pixel Lovely Vilppu Drawing Manual
where they are stood? everything is a choice and has a purpose. Timed character reference challenge. Best book on drawing human poses through
gesture.
[website]
Pose maniacs [website]
Timed anatomy reference challenge. Material Spheres
More examples of material sphere practice.
[website]
Blu-ray Screenshots [website]
Collection of good cinematography for study Androidarts Tutorial
Extremely valuable tutorial on many subjects.
 FUNDEMENTALS - COLOUR & LIGHT
FUNDAMENTALS

COLOUR AND LIGHT QUICK

TIPS

Colour and Light (also known as value) are not there to back it up and bring everything back into
Light and Shadow
only one of the most important aspects of making a believable realm. Learn the rules and then you General rule is that if you have a wam light you have a cool shadow
a belieavable and interesting image they also play can break them sucessfully to make your mark. and vise versa. Best shown at sunset during golden hour when the
a key role in leading the eye towards focal points, light is very strong - it becomes more apparent yellow/orange (warm)
balancing a composition and communicating the There are many different aspects to colour and and the shadows appear more blue / purple (cold). This doesn’t mean
form and setting of an image. Without the correct light both individually and combined. A few key light should always be yellow and the shadows always blue. It can be
colour and light combination it is harder to know the words that are worth researching into are: Colour much more effectve to use greys within your colour scheme (as men-
temperature, time of day and mood of an scene. temperature, Reflected Light, Hue, Value, Specu- tioned below in colour comparison) A grey has 0 saturation and takes
These don’t have to look ‘realistic’ neccessarily, lar and Local Colour. Of course these aren’t all the vibrations from other colours around it. If you have a warm tone (even
fantastical and wild colour and lighting combina- important aspects of colour and light, but knowing very sublte) the grey next to it will both enhance the intensity of the
tions can all be used but there must be enough what they are and how they work will be important warm but it will itself also feel very cold. The same goes for grey next
within the scene that is believable, to allow the for when you come to look deeper into the theo- to a cold tone, it will feel very warm. Play with saturation just as much
viewer to understand how and why it could work rys as these keywords will come up very often. as hue and value. Linran explains a great theory for how to mix co-
- otherwise it can become disorentating and will lours and easily adjust colour temperature using RGB, linked below.
make it much harder to sell your concept. De-
spite this, it is best for newcomers - and those less
confident - to start by learning how to use light,
shadow and colour to replicate ‘realistic’ tones,
values and lighting situations. Aiming for realism
makes it much easier for us to know when you
are right or wrong and to find feedback for how Colour / Value Comparison
and where you can improve as we see these con-
Our eye and brain see colour and light through comparison to their
ditions on a daily basis. I will provide some basic
surroundings or context. In the famous ‘Check Shadow Illusion’ we
concepts and theorys but i strogly recomend you
have a checkerboard which has a cylinder casting a shadow over half
to study and read through the many books written
the board. The ‘light’ checker in the shadow is actually exactly the
on the subject, most notably James Gurney’s co-
same value as the ‘dark’ checker outside the shadow. This is because
lour and light which is one of the best books you
of local contrast, when a value is surrounded by darker values it will
will find on the subject. Another book that you
appear to be lighter than it is and vice versa, it would appear darker if
must read and follow is Scott Robertson’s ‘How to
surrounded by lighter values. The same goes for colour temperature
Render: The fundementals of light, shadow and
- a grey value surrounded by warm colours will appear cooler than
reflectivity’ - this is the bible of all fundementals of
it is, but the same value surrounded by cool colours will feel warmer
light and it covers everything you need to know.
than it actually is. Understanding why / when and how this works will
improve your work massively - naturally if we want to have a very cold
Once you have more knowledge of realitic values,
environment we think we need to add lots of blue, this isn’t neccesar-
colours and how light works in the ‘real world’ you
ily the case and can look amateur and unanatural. Instead we can
can begin to break the ‘rules’ and stretch these
utilise greys into the pallette to offset the other tones and make our
theorys further to create more stylised and artistic
colours feel much more punchy and inense than they are oriignally.
inerprations of reality. Ruan Jia and Theo Prins
are one of the many perfect examples of how you
can infuse wonderfully wild and unrealistic colours
into your work yet have them still feel ‘right’ bec-
uase the values and other fundemental skills are
 FUNDEMENTALS - COLOUR & LIGHT
QUICK USEFUL
TIPS LINKS

Too Much Black!

Unless it is a conscious decision (which should be quite rare) you will [website] [book]
always want to stay from pure black and pure white. This comes back
to the importance of value and balancing composition - you will want to
Itchy-Animation Light Theory / Tutorial Bold Visions, the Digital Painting Bible
Detailed tutorial on light. Good introduction to all fundemental skills.
have the full range of values to make an interesting and dynamic feeling
image however using pure black and white too early on will mean that
[website] [book]
you cannot go any higher than that so everything will feel very contrast-
ed and hard to read. If you start with a smaller value range (25-75%) Checker Shadow Illusion Digital Painting Tricks & Techniques
you can then start to increase intensity - going more towards black and Good example of colour / value comparison. Further reading for all fundemental skills.
white - and these values will now feel much more punchy and intense
compared to the rest of the image. I will go further into this in the composi- [website] [book]
tion section. (Research the ‘halfway to black’ theory for further reading) Lin Ran Tutorial on Light and Colour Digital Painting Techniques
Goldmine of information for mixing colours in Further reading for painting techniques.
RGB.
[website]
[website] Androidarts Tutorial
Lin Ran mini-tutorial Extremely valuable tutorial on general painting
Small tutorial on his workflow and how he ap- knowledge and skills.
plies this information.
[video]
[website] The Art of Colour and Light
Lin Ran Portfolio Extremely valuable tutorial on general painting
Examples of Lin Ran’s work to see how he ap- knowledge and skills.
plies these theories.
[website] [video]
Theo Prins Portfolio Foundations of Light and Shadow
Perfect example of how you can use crazy co- Great video series of fundamental light and
lour if values are right. shadow theories
[website]
Ruan Jia Portfolio [video]
Perfect example of how you can use crazy co- Colour Tutorials
lour if values are right. Another great video series of fundamental colour
theories.
[book]
James Gurney colour and light
Regarded as the best book on colour and light -
MUST READ.
[book]
Scott Robertson How to Render
A complete course of the fundementals of light -
MUST READ

FUNDAMENTALS
PERSPECTIVE
Perspective is the fundamental skill that
allows you to create depth within an image. The
most simple way of creating depth is by making
objects smaller if we want them to appear fur-
ther back, larger if we want them closer. This
effect is much more apparent if the objects are
identical or similar in shape, If that shape is
repeated smaller our brain will treat it as be-
ing further away, a powerful trick to utilize.
The most taught version of perspective is using
the horizon line and vanishing points to calcu-
late object placement. By establishing a hori-
zon line we can tell where the viewer is looking.
The area above the line is the sky, below is the
ground. There are 3 versions of perspective:
1 point: All objects converge at the same
point on the horizon and those facing us are al-
ways parallel including the verticals. This usu-
ally only exists facing something straight-on.
2 point: In this type of perspective, which
is most common, there are two vanishing
points. The only paralleled lines are the ver-
ticals. This allows for objects to be seen from
different angles and is a more dynamic shot.
3 point: Same as 2 point but the verticals also
recede to their own vanishing point above or
below the horizon line. This simulates the dis-
tortion that happens when we look up or down
long distances. Very powerful if used correctly.
Fox-orian has a very good step-by-step
tutorial explaining 1, 2 and 3 point perspec-
tive which i would highly recommend, it was
one of the first tutorials that allowed me to un-
derstand perspective atleast to a basic level.
There is also the draw-through method’ which
helps you to think in a more 3 dimensional way.
I highly recommend Scott Robertson’s ‘How
to Draw’ book where he covers this technique
among others, i have given a full description of it
in the ‘Masterclass’ section at the end of this PDF.
FUNDEMENTALS - PERSPECTIVE
QUICK
TIPS
Atmospheric Perspective
As mentioned previously, objects will lose contrast as they fall
back into the distance as there are more air particles between the
viewer and the object. As a general rule they will take on the sky colour -
as this is the colour of the atmosphere in most cases. For a very simple
atmospheric perspective you can sample the sky tone and wash it light-
ly and evenly over backgroud objects to make them feel further away in
comparison to foreground objects which are left to their original lo-
cal values. Atmospheric perspective is more intense depending on
the different partiles in the atmosphere. A desert, snowy, rainy, misty
or foggy day will likely have much heavier atmosphere meaning you
can ramp up the effect. You will want to be careful not to make all of
your scenes feel foggy, remember to be subtle and look for reference.
Horizon Placement
The first step of perspective is placing your horizon line, when doing
so try to consider the mood and context of your end shot. Placing the
horizon line lower will give you more sky and you will see under any
objects that are high up - this can be good for showing scale, that
the environment is larger than the viewer. Placing the horizon line
higher up will show more of the ground and usually give the effect
that we are looking down onto something. This is often used for larg-
er environment shots when you want to show a large area or when
we are to be looking down from high up. Out of an areoplane, down
from the top of a building for example. Tilting / rotating the horizon
line can also change mood and add a more dynamic feeling, ex-
periment to see which works best for what you are trying to convey.
 FUNDEMENTALS - PERSPECTIVE
QUICK USEFUL
TIPS LINKS

Distorted Perspective
[website]
It will take time to understand and build confidence but be aware of how far apart you place your Fox-orian Perspective Tutorial
vanishing points on the horizon line. . When using two-point perspective It is most common to feel Detailed tutorial on the basics of perspective.
as though you must have both on the page (or canvas) however this will often distort your perspec-
tive. It tends to work best when you have at least 1 point outside of the page, this will stretch it into [website]
a more natural perspective whilst leaving 1 point on the page to direct the depth into the image. The Perspective Tutorial
Another detailed tutorial on perspective.

[website]
Scott Robertson How to Draw
Best book on perspective and how to apply it -
MUST READ

[PDF]
Loomis Successful Drawing
Advanced Perspective, not neccessary but good
to have an insight.

[video]
Atmospheric Perspective
Overview about how to create atmospheric
perspective

[website]
Androidarts Tutorial
Extremely valuable tutorial on many subjects.

FUNDAMENTALS
COMPOSITION
Composition is the glue that holds all of the piec-
es together, allowing all of the elements to work
with eachother to portray the story, mood or mes-
sage that you are aiming to communicate. There
are many elements to a sucessful composition
but one of the most important is how you lead the
eye around the image. Placing objects too close-
ly to the edge of your canvas, arrow-like shapes
point out of your image or too many interesting
elements will lead the viewer out of your artwork
or confuse them as to where they should look,
creating an uncomfortable feeling. This is also
linked to another important aspect - focal points.
You should have aleast 1 focal point in your im-
age in order to give a purpose. A focal point is
the point in the iamge that should have the most
importance - where you want your viewer to look
to first, or end up looking at the end. You can
have more than one focal point but they must be
less important the more you add - so that you
don’t add too many and confuse your viewer.
As with anything else in art / concept art you
must first think carefully about what you are try-
FUNDEMENTALS - COMPOSITION
QUICK
TIPS
Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds and golden ratio are theorys that have been with
us for hundreds of years, this is becuase this ratio is pleasing for us
to look at - it works. Rule of thirds is very simply that you must never
place your focal point in the middle or at the edges of your image. In-
stead you can split the image up into 9 equal parts and let your focal
points sit at the intersecting lines. It is a very simple concept, but look
at part 2 of ‘The Secret Composition’ below for more in depth advice.
Leading The Eye / Focal Points
ing to communicate, what is the story? what is It will take time to understand and build confidence with this but there are
the mood? what feeling do you want to portray? A many ways of directing the eye to your focal point - reserving higher or
very busy composition is usually a bad idea - but lower contrasts to the area around your focal point so that it stands out,
you can utilise his chaos and balance it with your framing the focal point with objects, arrange elements to point to your
colour and values to control that chaotic feeling. focal point, use negative space as a guide for the viewer to look and
If you are aiming to communicate the chaos and allow space for the eye to rest. Take a look at the link below ‘The Secret
business of war for example this may be a good Composition’ for a more in-depth guide to all of these points and more.
choice. Without making these choices however,
you can end up with chaos that doesn’t work,
can be jarring to the viewer and put people off
looking at your work. This also wouldn’t work if
you are aiming to create a peaceful mood, of
course. Analyse other artists work to see how
and why they are making you feel a certain way
whilst looking at their work. Cinematgraphy is
also a major inspiration and reference for com-
position - turn off the sound and see how much
you still understand and what emotions and sto-
ry beats are still coming accross. As i mentioned
in the study section, taking screenshots from
films with good cinematography and trying to
recreate them can be a very valuable excercise.
 FUNDEMENTALS - COMPOSITION
QUICK USEFUL
TIPS LINKS

1, 2, 3 [website]
3 Is very much the golden number. Every successful image has a good 1,2,3 read. 1,2,3 can refer to fore- Fox-Orian Composition Tutorial
ground, midground, background but can also refer to balancing your composition - 3 being the larger shapes, Detailed tutorial on the basics of composition.
2 being the smaller shapes and 1 being the smaller details. You will want more big shapes, less medium
[book]
shapes and even less details. If you have more details than large shapes you will end up with a very hard to
Ian Roberts Mastering Composition
read image or design. You will want to balance these so that, just like your composition, it will be interesting
Great comprehensive guide to composition -
to look at but still have resting places. This theory can be applied to individual objects and even characters. MUST READ

[book]
Dream Worlds
Great insight into master disney artists and their
work on many well loved films

[website]
The secret Composition PT1
Extremely valuable tutorial all aspects of compo-
sition, part 1.

[website]
The secret Composition PT2
Extremely valuable tutorial all aspects of compo-
sition, part 2.

[video]
Composition for Artists
Great information on rule of thirds and golden
ratio theories.

[video]
Nathan Fowkes Composition
Extrememely experienced information.

[website]
Androidarts Tutorial
Extremely valuable tutorial on many subjects.
 APPLICATION
A P P L I C A T I O N
C H A P T E R
I have structured this PDF in a way so that by the
time you get to this section you should already
know the majority of the technical skills required
for environments, characters and props. Now
it is time to apply these skills. First you will want
to start out by deciding what you want to create.

Resear ch & Refer ence

Explor ation

Envir onm ent Concept

Char acter Concept


APPLICATION
RESEARCH & REFERENCE
As concept artists i highly recommend taking the
time to figure out what it is that you are aiming to
create and then spend even more time research-
ing and finding suitable references, especially for
important projects. Concept art is all about design
and communicating that to people so they can
recreate it in another form wither that be phys-
ically or digitally. Of course if you have a very
tight deadline you will have to be much quicker
with your referencing but as much as possible -
especially when you are creating personal work
- spend atleast an hour researching and gath-
ering reference before you start your painting.
Aside from all of the technical drawing and paint-
ing skills, In order to create believable designs,
scenes and moods you must know your sub-
ject matter. If i asked you to paint a newfound-
land dog at sunset would you be able to do this
from your imagination? Would you know the
exact shape and details of this breed? would
you know how light reacts when it hits fur or
the effect it has on colours within the scene?
By doing your research you will now know the
type of dog breed, it’s body type, length of fur
and typical colouration. You will know the usu-
al colours that come with the sunset time of day
and you will know how the fur looks when hit
APPLICATION - RESEARCH & REFERENCE
QUICK
TIPS
Visual Library
Don’t underestimate research and reference gathering. Each time you
go through this process - and spend a good chunk of time doing so - you
will be retaining this information, especially if you end up having to paint
similiar topics over and over again. you will be building up something
called your visual library - this means next time you come to paint a dog
or a sunset you will already have some knowledge that you can build
on, you will get closer and closer to achieving the best result possible.
This is why professional artists seem as though they can draw almost
anythng with ease - it’s because they have done it before and studied
their reference for years - it’s in their visual library. Starting building
yours up early on and you will find your art will become much easier.
by direct sunlight, how it creates a rim-light that
glows against the rest of darker body of the dog.
Whilst doing this you can collect images of
these specific things, multiple variations so
that you can understand the full spectrum and Flickr Advanced Search
not just one examples. You can display these Flickr is a very powerful tool for you to find high quality photographs
images as a reference sheet and have them to use as reference. I suggest using the advanced search feature and
laid out in front of you whilst you paint to make at the bottom select ‘Only search with Creative Commons-Licensed
sure you always have this information at hand. content. This means the images that become avaialble will be free
to download and allow you to modify them in your work. You can also
This process is most important when a client do this within Google image seearch and i would highly sugget using
requires you to create a concept based on a this also - but in general the quality tends to be much higher at flickr.
real topic such as costume designs for a peri-
od drama - you must get all of these details as
accurate as you can otherwise your client won’t
be happy and you will be to blame - no matter
how well you painted it, it must fit the purpose.
Going through this process can also conjure
up new and interesting ideas that you may not
have thought about - look at any of your favou-
rite designs from games or films. For example
The Last of Us fungal disease is actually based
on a real fungus - just exaggerated and manip-
ulated in a way that fits it’s purpose for the sto-
ry. This basis in reality can make your otherwise
fantastical concepts feel believable and realistic.
 APPLICATION - RESEARCH & REFERENCE
QUICK USEFUL
TIPS LINKS

Imaginative Realism
James Gurney’s book on Imaginative Realism is a complete guide on how to paint what doesn’t exist - it [website]
covers everything from composition and colour and light but it also delves into how to conduct research and Flickr
how to find reference. He even talks about how to create your own reference - he will very often construct a Great source of high quality and free to use pho-
macquette out of realworld objects / materials and shine lights upon it to see exactly how it would react. This tography.
is of course a very long and hard way to get your references but thinking in this way can allow you to come to
much deeper and meaningful designs and imagery. I highly recommend grabbing a copy of this book and [website]
giving it a read through, it will help to open your eyes to the possibility of taking your art that step further. Pinterest
Use search to find hundreds of already collected
reference photography.

[book]
Imaginative Realism
Great book with lots of advice on how to paint
what doesn’t exist.

[video]
Visual Library PT1
Great informational videos on how to develope
your visual library.

[video]
Visual Library PT2: Memory
Great informational videos on how to develope
your visual library.

[video]
Visual Library PT3: Applied
Great informational videos on how to develope
your visual library.

APPLICATION
EXPLORATION
Exploring your ideas is the main aspect of concept
art. We can great beautiful finished artwork but
this only serves part of the purpose of our job. The
majority of the time we are sketching and drawing
out every design solution possible. Why do we do
this? Two reasons. One: The theory is that as you
draw an idea you will be creating generic designs,
because they are our first instinct - the more you
draw the harder it becomes, causing your brain to
work harder and you will come up with more cre-
ative solutions for the design problem. Two: We
aren’t producing work for ourselves - these designs
need to be given to other members of the team to
direct and influence other products. If we provide
many solutions for a problem then it allows the
art director or lead artist to give you better feed-
back and suggestions, it can spark ideas in the
rest of the team which can lead to you ending up
with a better result. A more ‘finished’ peice of art
has less room for building upon and could halt the
creative process before better ideas appeared.
VIDEO
EXAMPLES
Click the video thumbnail for a playlist of carefully chosen videos on the subject.
Environment Thumbnails
Environment thumbnails are a very efficient way
to experiment with compositions and experiment
with possible directions for your scene. Keep them
small, no more than 2 inches wide (on paper), this
will make it harder for you to add details and force
you to focus on the scene as a whole. This can
be harder if you are using Photoshop as you can
zoom in no matter how small the sketch is and
you can alter the size of your brush more than you
can with a pen or pencil., meaning you can always
add details. A good way around this is to section
your page into multiple equal boxes, have them
all on screen at the same time and draw an envi-
ronment into each box. This is where you use the
knowledge you’ve gained from your fundamental
studies. Start out by placing your horizon line -
this will be the first step of establishing the type of
shot you are creating and how we experience the
scene. A lower horizon line will give more space
in the sky for us to add taller buildings - a higher
t
APPLICATION - EXPLORATION
horizon line will mean more ground in view, per-
haps looking down from up high and may serve
better for a distance landscape shot. Keep to the
larger shapes, make the composition work with
these shapes first and it will still look as good when
you make it larger and add the details later on.
Use thumbnails to also experiment with mood
through lighting and colour. If using Photoshop (or
scanned thumbnail) you can duplicate the layout
linework and sketch in a new lighting scenario for
each thumbnail, try different colour schemes and
values. Because these are still small it won’t take
long to create new variations - keep your brush
larger and squint your eyes. When you have a
thumbnail that works small - enlarge it and con-
tinue to refine the smaller shapes and details.

VIDEO
EXAMPLES
Character Sketches / Sihlouettes
Just like with the environment thumbnails you
will want to keep your silhouettes small and draw
multiples on the same page to force you to stay
zoomed out. Start with the larger shapes to estab-
lish the general overview of your character - chop
into the shapes and add to them, pay attention to
the negative shapes, such as the holes created
under arms or between legs, as they can add lots
of interest to the form. Once you have an estab-
lished shape, continue to chop into it with smaller
brushes to create smaller details such as implied
cloth folds or accessories that will break out of
the silhouette, this provides a deeper understand-
ing of the materials and specifics of the design.
Take advantage of the speed and efficiency of
this process, as soon as you are happy with a
shape duplicate it and continue working, even if
it is earlier on in the design. Creating duplicates
of successful shapes and then tweaking them will
allow you to keep building on successful designs
and attempting different variations. Also take ad-
vantage of working digitally - using the lassos tool
to select sections of your silhouette and distort
them using transform, this can be a quick way to
create variations from existing designs and cre-
ate ‘happy accidents’. Keep in mind the type of
character you are aiming to design - is he likely
to be fat and short or tall and skinny, think about
the style of the end output, should it be realistic
or stylised? These restrictions will help when nar-
rowing down which design is best for your goal.
Design Sketches
Design Sketches cover a wide variety of sub-
jects which i believe are most heavily focused on
their piratical use such as objects / props / as-
sets, weapons, vehicles or armour. These must
of course look appealing and be interesting but
must also be designed toward their purpose - a
cup that can’t hold water is not a very good cup.
If you are designing for film and the prop needs
to be built in reality then you will need it to be
much more functional - designing for games or
CG means you mostly just need to make sure it
looks believable as it won’t need to be handled
for real. Again keep your sketches small and mul-
tiples on a page to keep you focused on the main
shapes and features and not the details. Keep in
mind the purpose of the object and make sure to
do your research and find reference so that you
aren’t guessing. Starting with a generic design
can help you to know key features and general
patterns to build from, to make sure that your de-
t
APPLICATION - EXPLORATION
sign is based in reality and making it easier for
it to be believable. Once you have shapes that
interest you it can be useful to sketch the design
as if it were being used so that you can visual-
ize and test to see if the design looks function-
al. For example how does the pot hold water and
what happens to that water when it’s poured. How
does the driver sit within the vehicle? Can they
reach the controls comfortably? It can be good to
quickly sketch out the design in a flat orthograph-
ic view to quickly communicate the overview of
the object and then redraw it again from a more
3D perspective to check if the design works from
all angles. A good angle for drawing objects is
from a 3/4 top down angle - this allows you to
see the front, top and side of the shape. Perspec-
tive is hard to figure out - draw loose and quick
until you have a design that you are comfortable
with before investing time on the final drawing.
 t

APPLICATION - EXPLORATION
USEFUL
LINKS

[Videos]
John J Park Gumroad
Cheap videos from one of the best teachers and
Prop / Mech artists.

[Videos]
John J Park Sketchbook
Glimpse into John J Parks stunning sketchbook.

[website]
Let’s Get Real About Concept Art
Great article on misconceptions of concept art.

[website]
Sihlouettes in Concept Art
Great article on Sihlouettes in concept art.

[video]
Mark Molnar character sihlouettes
Great article on misconceptions of concept art.

[website]
The Skillful Huntsman
One of the best concept art books - focus on
the actualy pre-production concept art stages -
MUST READ

APPLICATION
ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT
Ask yourself questions - where is this environ-
ment? Which real-world environment is it inspired
by? Who lives here? Which type of animals make
this place their home? What is the climate like
here? What is the general mood of this location, is
it meant to be scary or welcoming? Am i trying to
tell a story or just visualize the location? What is the
purpose of this environment, are people looking
for a mood, colours, lighting? or are they wanting
something much more refined they can build from?
By asking yourself these questions you can make
a checklist of what you require for the scene (ei-
ther literally or just in your head) You will now
have a much better idea for what th environment
should and be able to visualize it in your head in
some form. This will also help with the next stage
- gathering references and doing your research.
Take note of the answer to each question and re-
search all of these topics. If you have decided that
eskimo’s live here - or a fantasy race wth simil-
iar traits - you can now conduct some research.
What clothing do they where? Why does it have
fur, and why is it placed in certain places of the
clothing? What skin colour do these people have
and why is it this colour? Even if you aren’t go-
ing to include characters it can still be good to
analyse who would live here theoretically - the
design choices of clothing can give you ideas for
their shelters, architecture and other purposes.
You can then conduct research into everything
else - snowy mountains. Do we actually know what
they look like? How does the snow fall, does it have
any patterns when it sits on th mountain tops? how
much of a mountain does the snow cover and why?
Collect references of each of these things
and create a board. You now have no excus-
es. You already have the skills to paint - you
know how colour, light and perspective work
and you know how to compose an image us-
ing composition. You also now know exactly
what the mountains in our image should look
like, the people, their homes, the ground, the
sky colours, the amount of atmosphere etc.
Even if you are creating a fantasy environment you
don’t have and shouldn’t just copy these referenc-
es - analyse and study them. There are many pat-
terns and reasons to why things are the way they
are. By looking at a snowy mountain and a snowy
rock and i can paint any shape rock with any
amount of snow on it with some level of believability.
VIDEO
EXAMPLES
Fully Painted Workflow
This can be an effective way of injecting style and
character into a scene which may be harder to
achieve with photos or 3D. There are many ways
to get started with a painted environment. You
can start out with a line sketch - this can be more
accessible for those with less painting experience
who want to get into environments - you can eas-
ily figure out composition and even communicate
values and atmospheric perspective through line
weight. These can be very loose and quick - like a
napkin sketch - or very refined. I personally don’t
enjoy takig my line sketch too far as i feel too re-
stricted when i come to paint it, causing it to feel
like a colouring book instead of a painting - but
you must go with what works best for you. If this
isn’t for you then another methood known as find-
ing forms in chaos. Start by painting ‘random’ cha-
otic shapes, a quick way can be to use very noisy
and randomised custom brushes. Change your
values and colours as you go. Once you have a
good range of shapes on the canvas you can start
looking for shapes and patterns that jump out to
you, like in ink blots. Continue to refine the image
APPLICATION - ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT
and be inspired the shapes, go with the flow and
bring it forward into reality - creating elements we
can relate too such as sky, mountains and ground.
I personally find this technique hard to pull off as it
relies heavily on experience and confidence with
painting.. and a big chunk of luck. The last meth-
od is to simply start off by painting the environ-
ment, similar to starting with line but by defining
value ands forms from the start. No matter which
method you use you will always want to define
the horizon line, the sky and the ground planes as
soon as possible. This gives you the base to work
from - you will know the angle from which we are
looking at the scene, the rough value and colour
range from the sky and the base for all other com-
ponent to sit and the perspective from the ground
planes. Remember your knowledge of how to
depict forms, define the top, side and front face
of objects to bring them into the scene quickly
ready to be defined with details and textures later.

VIDEO
EXAMPLES
Photobash Workflow - Realistic
The photobash workflow is quite different from
painting from scratch. First you must spend even
longer on the referencing stage and find as many
creative commons photos as you can and at a
high resolution (above 1024px), if you can find
them with a more even lighting scenario, similar
to an overcast sky, that would be perfect as it al-
lows you to add your own lighting to the objects
instead of being restricted to an already specific
or extreme lighting condition. Depending on how
much of an idea you have for how the environment
should look you will either want very specific pho-
tos - or example they would need to be the correct
time period and geographical location. If you are’t
sure exactly what you need to be creating then
vary your references to a wider range of subjects
to spark your imagination. One you have a good
range of photos you can get started. Select one
that will serve as your ‘photo plate’ - detirmining
your photo plate comes down to a few factors; it
may have the correct sky type and colours that
you are aming for or it may be the same sort of
environment that you are trying to create. The
main point is that this plate must be at the right
viewing angle, or close to the one you are trying
to achieve for the final scene. You want to get the
correct sky into your scene as soon as possible,
if the sky in your plate is wrong you can mask out
the original sky and replace it with the new one,
you may need to colour match your plate to the
new sky to help the two meld together better. The
sky will determine the atmosphere and general
colours of the scene. Place new photos into your
scene and skew them into perspective as best as
you can - use masks to extract the objects from
photos, this means you can always alter the mask
at any time. If you are trying to add patterns to
objects or textures to walls or floors you can take
the photo, skew it into place and then use blend-
ing modes such as darken, lighten or overlay /
soft light to merge the texture on to the surface
beneath. To maintain the photo-realistic look you
will want to avoid painting onto the image - use
selections and sample the colours to make sure
the painted areas match the photo if you must.
Photobash Workflow - Stylised
You can still use photos in your workflow yet end
up with a more stylised or painterly result. This
is my favorite method. You can do this by simply
overlaying photo textures onto your fully painted
environment. Or you can use the same process
as the realistic photobash workflow but with mre
painting and altering of the photographs to take
them beyond what is already in the photos. With
this method you can be less sensitive about your
photo plates and references, drop them into your
scene and skew, rotate, scale them - alter their
values and colours using colour match and adjust-
ment layers. Use blending modes and masks to
merge photos into each other. The joy of this work
flow is that you can experiment as much as you
like and come to results in a very quick way - how-
ever it does still rely heavily on your fundamental
skills, your composition and perspective knowl-
edge will still determine the outcome of the shot
and your painting skills will need to be on point
to match well with your photos. You can reduce
the details in your photos by using Blur > Surface
Blur, this won’t always work well but it can help
APPLICATION - ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT
to blend your paint and photos together quicker.
Use filters sparingly and be subtle as their effects
can be quite easily noticed and can look amateur
if used too much - you don’t want to end up with a
blurry mess. As-long as all of the photo elements
are colour matched and their values work togeth-
er you can start to paint over the whole image.
Sample the wide variety of colours on the canvas
already and use paint to turn the photo base into
something that works better for you and your de-
sired outcome, but don’t be afraid to leave parts
of the photos showing - this is the power of the
workflow, photo details and shapes with painter-
ly imagination and style. You can use adjustment
layers to change colour schemes using hue / sat-
uration, replace colour, colour lookup and others.
You can also change lighting conditions by making
a brightness / contrast adjustment layer and turn
the brightness all the way down - paint out (black)
into your mask to reveal the light beneath - light the
scene how you want to with this powerful method.
 APPLICATION - ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT
USEFUL QUICK
LINKS TIPS

Colour Match
[Videos] Edit > Image Adjustments > Colour Match is a very powerul tool. When on the layer you want to
James Paick Gumroad adjust the colours for, open colour match and select your document from the source drop-down
Cheap videos from one of the best teachers and menu and then select the layer with the colour and value that you want to transfer. I’ve found
environment artists. that it’s always worth scrolling through the layers and seeing how each one effects your current
layer - sometimes there can be unexpected results you might prefer. You should try to avoid using
[website] a source that has too much colour variation as you will end up with a rainbow effect - you can al-
ways cut a selection from an image to use as a source if the full image isn’t working well. You can
James Paick Portfolio
always use adjustment layers to such as hue/saturation or colour balance to further adjust the colours.
Portfolio of James, wide portfolio.

[Videos] Mixer Brush

John Sweeney Gumroad The mixer brush can be very powerful in aiding a painterly re-
Cheap videos from a Naught Dog concept artist. sult from photobash work-flows. You sample a section of the im-
age - similar to the clone stamp tool. But instead of stamping it
[website] you paint with it, the colours merging into the brush stroke. You
John Sweeney Portfolio can also adjust the settings so that the brush mimics traditional
Stunning use of shape and colour, storytelling. painting from watercolour to oils. Lastly you can still use any of
[Videos] your custom brushes with the mixer brush which all react differ-
Maciej Kuciara Gumroad ently. I would advise not using the mixer brush too much until
Cheap videos from a Naught Dog concept artist. you are comfortable with digital painting as it is a more advanced
tool and can have an opposite effect if not used with confidence.
[website]
Maciej Kuciara Portfolio
Stunning range of styles and workflows.

[website]
Steve Messing Portfolio
Beautiful range of concepts and storytelling.

[website]
Noah Bradley Portfolio
Great concept artist, illustrator and storyteller.

[website]
Conceptart world
Great collection of concept art.

APPLICATION
CHARACTER CONCEPT
The same as we dId for envIronments
I recommend that you do your research and ref-
erence gatherIng fIrst. ThIngs to consIder are;
WHO Is thIs character? What Is theIr job or pur-
pose? Where do they lIve? Under what condItIons
do they lIve? What Is theIr personalIty? Are they
easIly angered? TImId? Cute? Tough? Scary?
What tIme perIod does thIs character resIde?
What the character’s job role I purpose Is wIll un-
veIl what they would be wearIng, theIr accesso-
rIes and costume. The tIme perIod would also help
determIne the style of these thIngs. For exam-
ple If he Is a lumberjack In modern tImes he may
have stIll have the typIcal checkered shIrt, burley
arms, haIry body and other traIts of a stereotypIcal
lumberjack but he would lIkely have a chaInsaw
rather than an axe and maybe have harnesses
and gear to help hIm clImb trees. A formal lady
from VIctorIan era would have a corset, drapIng
fabrIc and maybe a feathered hat. WhIlst a formal
lady In modern tImes could well have a fItted suIt.
If the character Is meant to be cute there are
many stereotypIcal traIts that come along wIth It
- perhaps they wear ‘cute’ colours such as pInks
and lIght blues. They may have oversIzed cloth-
Ing and accessorIes to accentuate theIr small
sIze. They may have larger eyes and certaIn fa-
cIal expressIons. All of these would be dIfferent
to a character that Is meant to be scary or strong.
Stereotypes are often seen In a negatIve lIght
however they can be one of your strongest skIlls
If used correctly. They are stereotypes for a
reason - when we see any cue from a known
stereotype we wIll Instantly have those assocI-
ated feelIngs that come wIth It. If I see a large
pInk bow and a raInbow lolly pop on a chaIr I
mIght assume they belong to a small gIrl. If I see
chopstIcks and rIce graIns left on a table I would
assume thIs was an asIan household. Just lIke
APPLICATION - CHARACTER CONCEPT
VIDEO
EXAMPLES
Fully Painted Workflow
any other ‘rule’ you wIll not want to follow It too
closely and to use It all the tIme as thIs can lImIt
creatIvIty and orIgInalIty, but In order to break the
rule must fIrst know how to use It. A very pow-
erful method can be to use juxtaposItIons - use
stereotypes that are meant to perceIve one thIng
and make them gIve you the opposIte. A very
common example of thIs Is the cute gIrl In pInk
dress used In horror fIlms to actually make you feel
very scared - If our guards weren’t down from the
cute stereotype we mIght not have been as afraId.
UtIlIse your references, just lIke wIth envI-
ronments, to open your eyes to those small
features that wIll help your desIgns to be be-
lIevable and engagIng. One of these feature
often overlooked Is the amount of colour and
texture found In skIn, especIally around the face.
HavIng reference open wIll gIve you a dIrect guIde
to thIs and allow you to utIlIse It In your work.
Similarly to the painted environment work flow pose and then refine it, add the anatomy and fig-
Other features to keep In mInd Include how there are multiple ways of approaching charac- ure out any extra costume details through the line
clothes are made - where are the seems, ters. After you have finished with your silhouettes art. You can then paint in the values and colours
buckles and joInts. Make sure your cos- and sketches you should already have a good knowing that the design is already figured out. The
tumes look man-made and unrealIstIc. idea of how your character should look. If your last approach, as always, is to paint the character
silhouettes are already developed to a level that right away - straight into colour, values and forms.
you are happy with them, you can take enlarge This of course is the hardest way as you have no
one and use the ‘preserve transparency’ lock type guidelines to fall back on - it can be wise to create a
to make sure you can’t paint outside of the silhou- very quick sketch to paint over depending on your
ette. Then either draw lines inside or paint forms confidence - references will help you a lot here to
directly to refine the further details of the char- help visualise what you are painting. When paint-
acter. This process allows you to figure out and ing on either on either of these process i would
troubleshoot the character design through the start by placing the base colours, the local values
silhouette and build on an already successful of everything - skin, clothing. this can help eval-
shape. If you have chosen to skip the silhouette uate a good combination that will work. You can
process or started with a sketch instead you can then use these local colours to figure out your light
reduce your threat to a lower opacity, create a and shadow colours to build up the forms. Figure
new layer above and start to refne your sketch out your cast shadows - these are shadows that
by drawing more precise line art based around are cast onto the body by the body itself such as
the sketch below before adding the base colour an arm casting shadow onto the torso - this helps
below the new line art and then painting over the to communicate where each object is in space
top. This gives you the opportunity to start with a and grounds the design in reality more solidly.
very loose and dynamic sketch to figure out your

VIDEO
EXAMPLES
Photobash Workflow
This process is similar to the environment pho-
tobash workflow - instead of starting with line art
or painting you start by finding a photo that suits
your needs. If your character is human you can
simply find a human with similar proportions and
body type to your brief - if you are creating an
alien or another humanoid design different to hu-
mans you can find a human photo base and use
either puppet warp, liquify or other transform tools
to stretch the base into your desired proportions.
This won’t give you the most accurate of results
instantly but it will provide a good starting point.
Assuming that are creating a human character we
start with our normal human photo and it is best
to decide early on what the focus of the charac-
ter design is - is our focus on the costume or the
anatomy / head / face of the character? - it is best
to find a stock photo that is evenly lit in all cases
but most importantly you need something that is
closest to what you are trying to achieve. If you
are aiming to create a costume design the face
won’t be as critical but still best to find something
close to the character that will be wearing it. In this
case the body type is most important, the clothes
will be designed to match the frame so start with
an accurate body first.. If you are aiming to design
a character through it’s face and anatomy you will
need to find photos that will be the best base to
work from - for example if your character is a fat
gamer you won’t be using a skinny athletic base.
Once your base is ready you can start by layer-
ing new objects on top - replace body parts, add
clothing and accessories. Don’t feel too restricted
to your photos, you can lasso sections and stitch
them together to Frankenstein a new design. As
long as you match the values of each of the pho-
tos and make sure the lighting is consistent the
new design will feel believable. This is very use-
ful for fantasy and sci-fi designs. Of course if you
are having to create something in a modern time
or historically accurate you will have your limits
to how crazy the new designs can be. Making
sure you do your research and find the correct
photo reference will help you massively here.
3D Paintover Workflow
One last approach to create characters is to start
with a 3D base. This has become much easier
with the rise of Zbrush. If you are experienced
with maya or other 3D software you can create
game-ready character meshes. Once they are at
a good stage you can take a render or screen-
shot into photoshop and paint over the top, add
photos to explore the design - because you are
basing it from your current 3D base you can then
go back into 3D afterwards and directly create it
from your concept, ready to be put into a game.
As a concept artist in a studio you may be sup-
plied with these 3D renders from another member
of the team. If you are not as confident or have
no interest in 3D from a technical perspective
you can jump into Zbrush. Zbrush mimics clay
and allows you to sculpt a face or character with
ease (once you have overcome the interface and
tools). You can start from scratch, sculpt on top of
your own base mesh or ue one of the full-body or
APPLICATION - CHARACTER CONCEPT
bust meshes that are in Zbrush to use as a start.
You can take the sculpt as far as you like and
can even use polypaint to add texture and colour
to the scupt before taking it into photoshop. You
can also render out different passes and materi-
als - there are good guides to this online - which
you can comp together and play around with in
photoshop. The power of using a 3D base is what
you can provide to the other team members. You
can give them multiple angles by taking multi-
ple screenshots - much quicker than re-drawing
each one. You can also provide the 3D artists
with this 3D concept which they can take clean
up and build on to create the final mesh for the
game and speeding up the process. This will also
give you practice with 3D skill and methods which
will improve your worth to a studio and give you
more job options. This workflow is also used for
environments and the process is mostly the same.
 APPLICATION - CHARACTER CONCEPT
USEFUL
LINKS

[website]
Wesley Burt Portfolio
A fantastic and prolific character concept artist.

[website]
Brad Rigney
Another fantastic and prolific character concept artist /
illustrator.

[Videos]
Anthony Jones Gumroad
Cheap videos from one of the best teachers and character
artists.

[website]
Street Peeper
A good collection of street fashion from different cities.

[website]
Pinterest
Search for collections of armour, weapons, clothing from
different time periods.

M A S T E R
C L A S S
If you are serious and dedicated to improving
your art would highly recommend following this
masterclass that i have set out for you. It will
teach you every skill that you need and they will
be provided by professionals and great teachers.
Stage one covers general drawing skills, getting
you comfortable with using your pencil, drawing
confident lines, the ability to draw forms in
perspective and an introduction to anatomy and
human proportion.
Stage two will build on these skills and apply
light, shadow and colour to help build depth and
life into your drawings and will also help you to
transition into painting.
Stage three will teach you how to take all of
these skills and create a beliavable and interest-
ing scene out of them using composition. The
last book will also introduce you to ideas of how
to apply these skills for real-world work and help
you to add more creativity ino the pipeline.
I would advise taking one or two days per week
to dedicate yourself to this masterclass. Don’t
burn yourself out and remember to keep apply-
ing the theorys and technques in your own work.
If you are not confident enough to get started
right away i would suggest going through all of
the sections i mention in this PDF and doing
standard studies alongside your university work.
MASTERCLASS
1
STAGE
ONE
SCOTT ROBERTSON HOW TO DRAW [book]
Confidence with drawing forms in perspective
I recommend working through this book step-by-step.
Imagine it as a classroom, each section is a lesson. Get out
your sketchbook and the tools that he recommends in the
first chapter. Read all of the text and draw along with him
- copy what he is doing and relate it back to what he is say-
ing in the text - think about why he is telling you to do this
instead of just blindly copying it. You may want to go over
each section more than once until you feel confident that
you understand the theory and techniques. This book will
teach you how to DRAW and you will be introduced to other
fundamental skills such as perspective for both objects,
vehicles and environments. It will also improve your gen-
eral confidence with a pencil and drawing confident lines.
FIGURE DRAWING FOR ALL IT’S WORTH [book]
COMPLETE GUIDE TO DRAWING FROM LIFE [book]
Anatomy and proportion for characters
Next i recommend that you learn anatomy skills, this is the
one subject that Scott doesn’t cover in his book series.
Similar to the Scott Robertson books i would ‘draw-a-long’
with these, have your sketchbook open and a pencil ready.
It is best to at least skim through the information that is
provided to give you further knowledge of the subject
matter and not just it’s face-value. The understanding
is the key to studies, if you don’t understand then you
are wasting your time. Sit and copy all of their drawings
over and over and over again - coupled with the knowl-
edge you gain from the reading, you also gain muscle
memory - you will be understanding why certain proportions
and shapes exist and where in the body, your hand will
follow suit and draw them more comfortably from memory.

2
STAGE
TWO
SCOTT ROBERTSON HOW TO RENDER [book]
Confdiently add life an depth to your lines
This is a more intermediate book and will show you how
to take your line drawings and give them form, depth and
life through knowledge of how light and shadow work and
how they are effected by different materials and surfac-
es. Just like before i recommend that you read all of the
text and follow along with all of the tasks and challenges.
By drawing you have to think and observe much more
closely allowing the information to sink in. The knowledge
you gain from this book will likely feel restricted to vehicles
and industrial design (which is Scott’s primary field) but as
long as you are understanding and practicing the theories
you can apply this knowledge to any thing you wish to paint.
JAMES GURNEY COLOUR AND LIGHT [book]
further knowledge of colour/light
Scotts book will teach you the broad aspects of light and
materials. James Gurney’s book on the other hand will take
this information and inject mood and purpose. Focusing on
Colour and Light this book will walk you through a variety
of different lighting conditions both artificial and natural and
offers a detailed approach for how to tackle each one.
Unlike the previous books i would not recommend
studying the example images by just copying them.
Instead i would suggest to read through the book
thoroughly and analyse the images matched with the text
until you really understand the concepts. Then create your
own paintings using the theories in the book to guide you,
applying the theories in a more practical way. I always have
this book at hand and use it as my go-to guide for any
lighting or colour situations that i find myself having to
tackle, it’s not the only reference i will use but it helps to provide
solid information to get me started and to keep me on track.
MASTERCLASS
3
STAGE
THREE
IAN ROBERTS MASTERING COMPOSITION [book]
turn those objects into meaningful scenes
By now you should be able to draw objects in perspective
using line, know the correct shape and proportion of the
human body and able to paint them in full colour under
different lighting conditions. Now it is time for you to learn
how to compose an interesting scene My suggestion to learn
from is Ian Robert’s ‘Mastering Composition’ it is well-liked
by many and has been highly reviewed as being a good book
for both beginners and experienced artists - it is also one of
the books i started out with and i found it extremely insight-
ful. I recommend reading every chapter of the book but un-
like the previous books i would suggest that you create your
own personal painting or drawing for each section using the
theorys mentioned - this will force you to compose a shot and
not just copy his examples, you will learn and create new
work. Remember to pay attention to why these things are
important, this is the valuable information to take with you.
HANS BACHER DREAM WORLDS [book]
focused and practical compositions
The last book of the masterclass is Dream Worlds by
award-winning Disney artist Hans Bacher. This book pro-
vides composition advice in an actual production setting
instead of just simply to create a pleasing image. This will
take you one step further into knowing how to apply all of
this knowledge to be used for a product. An example for
games would be knowing how to design your environment
in a way that stages the interactive objects in an interest-
ing yet not completely obvious fashion, making the envi-
ronment feel impressive to navigate or simply to evoke a
mood or feeling to the player. Each of these aspects are
focused around events outside of the single image. Read
through the book over and over, analyse as best as you
can why they successfully communicate their message
and why they help production. Create your own paintings
whilst using this book as a visual aid and you will be-
come more aware of storytelling and creative expression.