Art
History:
Creation:
Videogame art began its roots in the mid-1970s when the first videogame; Pong (Atari, 1972) which was originally created in the 1950s by physicist William Higinbotham (Tretkoff, E., 2008), was created by Atari. The first videogame artist wasn't actually artists at all, they were programs this was due to the fact that the capabilities of the visual design were extremely limited so the majority of early games were simple colored pixels that had no animations or in detail designs.
In the 1980s videogame artistry took off with games like Street Fighter (Capcom, 1987) and Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1985) that used more in detail character designs, backgrounds, and repeating animations. in modern games, artists now produce works of art in different styles that could be considered life-like with games like Assassin's Creed: Odssey (Ubisoft Montreal, 2018) being praised as games that manage to create worlds in astounding detail.
Roles:
In the field of art, the responsibilities include anything relating to the visual aspects of the project from the bugs on the floor to the backdrops that can be seen for miles. These can be divided into nine roles:
Art Director:
This role is responsible for overseeing the other aspects of the art department so that the product reaches the correct level of quality that the client has envisioned. They also are the ones who have the main say in the style of the art developed thus the overall message that is expressed. But this is not the only task that they are expected to undertake, they also control the logistics of the department like budgeting, managing the staff as well as presenting concepts for the client's approval.
Most art directors have at least five years of previous experience in a related field with a portfolio showing their abilities and achievement to be reviewed before they are hired.
Notable Art Directors:
Christopher Barrett
Chris Barrett has been working at Bungie since 2014 and is known for being in the development of Halo 1-3, Halo: Reach (Bungie, 2001), and Destiny and Destiny 2 (343 Industries, 2017). He is noted to be extremely attentive to detail and always willing to go the extra mile when it came to his work (Barret, C.)
Kevin Mcdowell
Kevin Mcdowell worked in multiple jobs involving the art of games for the past 20+ years and is currently the art director for Total War: Warhammer (Creative Assembly, 2016). Kevin is said to be "Incredibly professional" and has an "ability to steer an entire art department consistently" displaying his attentiveness to the people working under him (McDowell, M.).
Concept Artist:
Concept artists develop the very first iterations of characters, items, and environments which is then refined by them until it is passed onto the various other parts of the art department so that the designs can be further developed by the more specialized artists. This role is considered the most popular due to the creative freedom that it allows, this is also the role that's work will be discarded the most, due to not quite being able to achieve what the art director envisioned and thus having to redo a lot of their work until it has reached the art director's vision.
Whilst most employers do not require a concept artist to have academic qualifications, they try to find persons who show high creativity and possibly have a bachelor's in some artistic discipline.
Notable Concept Artists
Ralph McQuarrie
McQuarrie has worked on some of the most well-known media, including Star Wars (1977-1983), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and E.T (1982) but retired in 1999 say he "had run out of steam". in 1975 Ralph was asked by director Hal Barwood to produce some artwork for a project that he was working on which end up lending to the style of Star Wars. McQuarrie unfortunately passed away in 2012 at the age of 82 (McQuarrie, R.).
Feng Zhu
Feng Zhu studied architecture at UC Berkeley and industrial design at the Pasadena Art Center. Feng began his art career in 1997 designing backdrops for Sci-Fi movies, he then moved to concept art for the Wing Commander series (Origins Systems, 1990-2007) until 1999 when he joined Liquid Entertainment to do concept art for the game Battle Realms (Crave Entertaiment, 2001) (Zhu, F.).
Environmental Artist:
These artists specialise in designing the world that the player journeys through from the trees to the mountains, they are all developed by the Environment artist. Typically they will receive work from the art director that has been created by a concept artist, they will then build upon the art given building up the envisioned world using 2D or 3D art design. some programs that would be used by environmental artists are Terragen developed by Matt Fairclough and TerraRay by RoarStack.
Most employers expect an Artist to at least have a qualification in sculpting and an exemplary ability with 2D artwork.
Notable enviroment Artists
Alexander Alza
Alexander Alza is the lead environment artist for Bethesda Softwork and is credited for working on COD: Modern Warfare (Activision, 2019), Destiny 2 (Bungie, 2017), and God Of War (Ready at Dawn, 2018). He has been working at Bethesda since 2006 and specialises in Maya, Mudbox, and the Unreal Engine (Alza, A.).
Todd Foster
Todd Foster is the Environment artist for Naughty Dog since 2009
and is most known for his work on big titles like Uncharted 3 (Naughty Dog, 2011), Uncharted 4 (2016). The Last Of Us (Naughty Dog, 2013) and The Last Of Us 2 (2020) (Foster, T.).
Character Artists:
Character artists design the look and aesthetic of the people and creatures that the player will meet throughout their playthrough, like the environment artist the character artist will receive early work from the concept artist and will further develop the look of the character, to help flesh their backstory through the different aspects of their clothes, armour, and weapons. Character artist can be one of the greatest story telling assets that a writer can have when it comes to a character's background or personality giving more depth and allowing the rule of 'show not tell' to be more effectively applied.
Notable Character Artists
Shaddy Safadi
Shaddy Safadi has a lot of work that has been used in major games in recent years, like The Last Of Us (Naughty Dog, 2013), he also has worked for Stormfront Studios as a concept artist for Dungeons & Dragons (Gygax, G. 1974).
Cedric Peyravernay
Cedric Peyravernay is credited as the character artist or Dishonored (Bethesda Softwork, 2012) and Dishonored 2 (2016), his unique art style has also spilled into Might & Magic: Dark Messiah (Arkane Studios, 2006) (Peyravernay, C.).
Character Animator
Animators bring the characters to life, they control everything from bugs crawling along the floor to dragons fly through the sky. Animators are essential to totally immerse the player in the world they are traversing since animations that don't line up with each other or incorrectly positioned hitboxes can make or break the visual quality of a game.
Notable Character Animators
Bud Luckey
Bud Luckey was an animator, voice actor, and director for Pixar since 1992. He is most well known for being the animator for Toy Story (1995-2019), A Bug's Life (1998), and Monsters Inc (2001). In the 1970s Luckey wrote and animated multiple shorts of Sesame Street (1969), including 'Penny Candy Man (1971)' and 'The Alligator King (1975)' (Luckey, B.).
Nick Park
Nick park created the characters known as 'Wallace & Gromit' (1989) when he was working on his film course but was not able to produce the first short until 1987. Until that point, he had been working Aardmans Animation to be an animator for Pee-Wee's Playhouse (1986) (Park, N.).
