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        <h1><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b><i><a href="../../index.html">loonygames</a><br>
          <font size="1">a <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com">blue's news</a> 
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<p>&nbsp;</p>Vol. 
                2, Issue 2<br>
                November 18, 1999<br>
                </b>
              <b> 
                </b>
              
                <b><i>Painting 
                  on Polygons:</i></b></p>
                <b><i> 
                  Conceptual Art<br>
                  Part 1 </i></b></p>
                by 
                  Rick &quot;Flatness&quot; 
                  Grossenbacher</p>
              
              

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               After 
                a busy summer it&#146;s great to be back writing this column again. 
                Since loonygames is starting its second volume I&#146;ve been 
                tossing around ideas of my own for making this column better. 
                What I came up with is that I&#146;d like to write it to better 
                serve you, the reader. So, I thought it would be cool to have 
                a little Question &amp; Answer or Critique section at the end 
                of every, or perhaps every-other installment of Painting on Polygons. 
                So send me in a graphic you are working on or an art question 
                you have and I&#146;ll post an answer or short critique. Or if 
                you have a general question about getting into an game-artist 
                career or just what it is like behind the scenes (or whatever). 
                Oh... if you do e-mail me a file, please limit file attachments 
                to a meg or less in size. Thanks, and send all e-mails to flat@iserv.net.</p>
              </p>
              Before 
                I start, I&#146;d like to get a few things out of the way for 
                any new readers of Painting On Polygons. In the simplest terms, 
                this column is designed to help artists learn some of the ropes 
                of creating video game art. Since there are so many different 
                interests and styles out there, I try to keep this column a broad 
                as possible using several different programs. Occasionally, however, 
                I will probably go into topics that aren&#146;t video game related 
                -- but are related in art -- and are things that I feel are important 
                to note or in some way may connect to the video game industry. 
                I certainly don&#146;t know every answer to every art question, 
                or the ins and outs of every single art program out there, but 
                I do have a good deal of experience in this field and am always 
                happy to help people become better artists.</p>
              </p>
              With that 
                said... on with the new tutorial!</p>
              </p>
              Since 
                this is sort of a new beginning to loonygames and my column, I 
                decided to start at the beginning of virtually all game design 
                dealing graphics: conceptual art. This is the most fundamental 
                necessity that a good game needs at the early design stages. Period. 
                I&#146;ve never seen or heard of a game that didn&#146;t use conceptual 
                art to some degree -- weather be simple pencil sketches or a full-color 

                drawing or even a high quality 3-D render. Personally, I&#146;ve 
                always loved looking at the conceptual art for games, and I think 
                it is a great way to study how other artists capture images and 
                the techniques they use to capture those images. For example, 
                here are some pictures of mine that are simple examples of what 
                a piece of concept art might look like for a game. </p><br>
              In part 
                2 of this article which will come out about two weeks from now, 
                we&#146;ll come back to these drawings and I&#146;ll explain some 
                things about each of them individually. But first, let me break 
                down concept art into a series of categories so you can understand 
                how it is applied in the design of a game.</p>
              </p>
              <b>Concept 
                art is used...</b></p>
              </p>
              <i>1. 
                To help create the mood, feel, and style that the game will have.</i></p>
              It is 
                important for the game to have a sense of its own unique style 
                -- or at least a style that is appropriate for the game. By having 
                an artist come up with a series of images at the early stages 
                of the game-making process, it can be a good framework for the 
                game designer(s) to conceive how the game with be presented to 
                the player. This type of concept art can be, and usually is, a 
                cast of characters, objects (such as weapons or items to be collected 
                by the main character or characters), and scenes (such as landscapes 
                or architecture).</p>
              </p>
              </p>
              <i>2. 
                To capture a sequence of events that will or might occur at some 
                point in the game.</i></p>
              Putting 
                this more simply; a storyboard. Many games these days have full 
                motion video or a complex plot that requires drawn out storyboards 
                for the game designer(s) to visualize certain sequences as a whole. 
                Storyboards generally are fairly quickly drawn or sketched out 
                by an artist simply due to the volume of artwork that is needed 

                in a short period of time to keep the design process moving smoothly.</p>
              </p>
              </p>
              <i>3. 
                For other artists on the team to follow a consistent style throughout 
                the game design process.</i></p>
              You can&#146;t 
                very well have a team of artists guessing how everything is suppose 
                to look in the game. With a key visual or set of visuals for the 
                other artists to work from can help give the game a sense of flow. 
                Consistency of style is definitely key.</p>
              </p>
              </p>
              <i>4. 
                For the 3-D artists to have a visual representation to work from.</i></p>
              This is 
                basically an extenuation of point number 3 from above. Many 3-D 
                Artists and Level Designers are not always skilled 2-D artists 
                themselves, but rather skilled at the craft they do; which is 
                create objects or characters in 3-D space. This is why a good 
                drawing may be necessary for them to base their 3-D models off 
                of. This type of conceptual art can also be used to toss around 
                ideas to other members. For instance, once I was working on a 
                dungeon texture set and wanted some inspiration to help me think 
                of what kinds of things I might want to put in it. So, I went 
                to the concept artist and had him draw out a sample dungeon. From 
                there, I was able to base my textures off the kick-ass sample 
                he drew, and make myself a cool texture set. </p>
              </p>
              Those 
                four points pretty much sum up what concept art is and how it 
                is used in the game design process. In part 2 of this article 
                I&#146;ll get more into the creation aspect and explain some good 
                drawing pointers to follow.</p>
              In the 
                meantime, keep drawing and also send in your questions to me so 
                I can start building out the Question and Answer section of Painting 
                On Polygons. </p>
              </p>
              See you 
                in a couple of weeks!</p>
              
              <i>- 
                Rick &quot;Flatness&quot; Grossenbacher works on Gameboy Color 
                games for Vicarious Visions. </i></p>
             <br><p>&nbsp;</p> 
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<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Print CGI is 
  &copy; 2000 <a href="http://www.square8.com">Square Eight</a>. Used with permission. 
  Article is &copy; 2000 its original author. All other content is &copy; 2000 
  loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. You got that??</font></i></p>
 