BUT.... that's not to say that there was nothing for us there, far from it. As a designer and 'artist' I am required to know how the industry works and know the roles of the people I will be working with, in addition to this I need to be able to do some concept work myself as it could be that I may need to use it in the smaller companies, or the larger ones even, to put my ideas across.
I particularly liked this because we did not do any high level drawing in the whole day, concept art is just that... concept, it's not polished work, it's not illustration (which we spent a bit of time going through pictures pointing out the difference between the two). We were taught the whole process of getting ideas down and getting from just a brief to having a solid concept idea.
First you start with a mood board; so go on the Internet, this is where Google becomes your best friend, and just type keywords related to your brief and pick out pictures which are relevant to what you want to be designing, such as architecture, shapes, people... this really depends on what you are concepting.
Then you create some thumbnails. This is just plain black and you are silhouetting shapes of what you are trying to design, and you do lot and lot of them. Keep them neat and fill the whole page so that it doesn't look inadequate. Another method you can use is to just start drawing out random shapes, just plain black shapes, doodles. It doesn't have to look like anything. Another way you can do is to use a piece of software called Alchemy, this is just absolutely brilliant. It's a software designed to help draw out random shapes, because it is too easy as humans to draw what we know, this allows you to draw those shapes with a degree of randomness. Check it out, it's free and really easy to use. Then with shapes it's just a case of sitting there looking at them and trying to make out shapes from them, don't forget you have lots and lots of these.
Then you take that shape into photoshop and you use your tablet to brush on some highlights to bring out the shape and give it some depth and to try to show what it is that you can see.
Then you can either sketch is in 3D, top, left, front views if you know exactly what you want to do. OR you can use another free piece of fantastic software from google called google SketchUp.
The guys from Codemasters then basically went through some portfolios online which have been submitter for job applications, and he literally went through these amazing portfolios with very nice pictures but just scrolled straight past them all. Basically if your portfolio consists of amazing pictures of trolls and other disgusting things, you won't get a look in because these exist ALL OVER the Internet. You need to do something with amazing composition, or a subject that makes you stop as you scroll past. Just a tip for all you concept artists out there. Also include your rubbish sketches, the ones that show thought process, different facial shots showing expressions, thumbnailing, these are the things they are looking for.
So by the end of this day I was VERY happy. I had learned that despite my obvious lack of drawing abilities I could still get by as an environment artist, I learnt that your portfolio really has to be different from everything out there, and it needs to only show examples of what you are applying for (for example I have 3D characters I modelled and animated, but i would not include them in my portfolio if I was applying for concept artist or environment artist as it is not relevant, no matter how good the piece of work). And above all, despite them being concept artists, I have gotten myself my first contacts within the industry (other than my lecturers who also worked on big projects for big companies).... fantastic!!
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