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[Irish]

So, GAF, which artist has produced some of your favorite concept art? What is it in particular you like about his or her style?

I'll start with two that have worked on the Assassin's Creed series and one that has worked on God of War. First up:

Raphael Lacoste:

The two main reasons I like his work have to be the landscapes and the lighting. He makes everything seem ultra realistic and I like that.

Next, we have Martin Dechambault:

I like the angling of each piece and the types of scenes that he creates.

Finally, there is Jung Park who worked on at least GOW 3:

I really just like the scale, I guess.

These are just several of the many artists whose work I enjoy and only a select few shots from each. What about you all?

 

[iNvid02]

i just like concept art, all of it, even if its a game i have 0 interest in, staring at its art is pleasing

 

[Stinkles]

Sparth (Nicholas Bouvier)

Dunno what he's up to these days.

 

[Irish]

i just like concept art, all of it, even if its a game i have 0 interest in, staring at its art is pleasing

Yeah, same here. Oddly enough, character art is by far my favorite type of art and I didn't really include any of it in the OP.

 

[TheOddOne]

Sparth (Nicholas Bouvier)

Dunno what he's up to these days.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

Akihiko Yoshida

Craig Mullins

Daniel Conway

Thomas Scholes

Peet Cooper

Grace Liu

Daniel Dociu

Akiman

Daigo Ikeno

And a bunch more, but thats enough breaking the forum formatting for now

 

[Ricky_R]

That Project 77 one looks great. He borrowed from Star Wars a lot though. Still, it looks very nice.

 

[Vazra]

Pedro Nuñez- Castlevania Lords of Shadow

 

[Mdk7]

Andrew Jones, i LOVE his works.

 

[Shiggy]

Ed Sludden

 

[ScOULaris]

Yoji Shinkawa

Andy Park

Fumito Ueda

 

[TheOddOne]

Isaac Hannaford

 

[ElzarTheBam]

Definitely Eddie Smith.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

Jen Zee

Matt Rhodes

Some artists are hard to narrow down, for the most part its an unsung proffesion because there are tons of fantastic Monster Hunter designs, Final Fantasy backgrounds, World of Warcraft weapon props etc that are never properly credited.

 

[TheOddOne]

There a bunch of great artist on this website too.

 

[2+2=5]

Beautiful idea!
I'll post something later.

 

[ScOULaris]

There a bunch of great artist on this website too.

Woah. There's some great stuff on that site.

 

[dummydecoy]

+1 for Craig Mullins. I remember downloading everything from his website, goodbrush.com back when it wasnt flash-based.

 

[Slayer-33]

Amazing stuff on that site.

 

[Lime]

Masahiro Ito (Silent Hill 3)

Rob Cunningham and David T. Cheong (Homeworld 2)

Hong Lei, Jin Lei, Tyler Lockett, Luis Melo, Pu Jinsong (Alice: Madness Returns)

 

[Platy]

People ... lets make better use of quoting's resize !

Don't know how much they enter in the concept artists .... but i always loved the old school capcom artists ... specialy CRMK/Bengus and Kinu

Lots of crmk stuff on the link i just want to say this :

GOD DAMN!
this dude makes perspective looks like stick figure easy =P

... and kinu !

And this slightly nsfw Mai

Comparing Kinu's work to shinkiro's in the Capcom vs Snk games is a masterclass on dynamics, expression and how shinkiro's drawings are amazing technicaly but CRAP emotionaly

Kinda sad to see those atrocious Dragon's Crown designs by Kinu =/

 

[Dunan]

Some of this stuff is just begging to take its place as a desktop background. I find myself clicking on each of them and looking up their sizes in pixels!

Raging Spaniard, what is that Daniel Dociu scene supposed to be? I can't tell!

Adding to Yoshida, how about Isamu Kamikokuryo, also of Square-Enix?

Two of my favorites:

 

[Raging Spaniard]

Raging Spaniard, what is that Daniel Dociu scene supposed to be? I can't tell!

Its a big slum metropolis, from a top view, reminiscent of the slums in Mumbai, India

 

[Phandy]

Man I could post a list of about 50 concept artists that I love. :S
Anyone from 343 industries, Bungie, Arenanet, Massive Black. I love the fact that concept art is becoming a big part of the industry.

*removed because of a derp*

Isaac Hannaford
*pics

If you like Isaac check out Dorje's work. They both work at Bungie. I got to meet em once, was too awesome.
So good:

 

[Diamond]

Scott Campbell from Double Fine is pretty great.

Not a concept art but just for the awesomeness...

 

[Azure J]

Well I know one thread I'm bookmarking the fuck out of.

Also, Bengus/CRMK, Kinu Nishimura, and Akihiko Yoshida are my favorite concept artists ever. Ever.

 

[mihon]

Amazing thread! I was wondering something like this could come up.

Akihiko Yoshida is one of my favorites too.

I love environment art and level design concepts.

I wonder what great art books (illustrations, but mostly concept) ppl here can sugest for buying. (not those guide books disguised as art books with tiny sketches all over the place)

 

[Monocle]

Craig Mullins for sure. A modern master.

(His site, Goodbrush, is currently down for me. Check it out some other day for its substantial archive of paintings.)

 

[Killer Yakuza B]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Concept Artist" (art director, character designer, background designer? what?), but here's a few I haven't seen mentioned:
Senri Kita (Fire Emblem PoR & RD), Hideo Minaba (FF 6,9,12, Tactics), Sachiko Wada (Fire Emblem), Yasushi Suzuki (Ikaruga, S&P), George Kamitani (Odin Sphere, Muramasa), Ko Takeuchi (Rhythm Heaven, WarioWare), Ken Sugimori (Pokémon), Yauyuki Honne (Baten Kaitos, Chrono Trigger, Xenoblade), Takaya Imamura (Star Fox, F-Zero), plus a bunch more that I either can't remember now or don't know the names of or everyone else is going to mention eventually. Nintendo always has great art, be it Mario or Zelda or whatever else, and I love the recent return to 2d art in Mario. Their old box art and instruction booklets always were fantastic and a joy to look at. Capcom too, of course.

Kinda sad to see those atrocious Dragon's Crown designs by Kinu =/

Dragon's Crown? Don't you mean Code of Princess? Either way you are wrong, both games have amazing art xP

Also, Bengus/CRMK, Kinu Nishimura, and Akihiko Yoshida are my favorite concept artists ever. Ever.

You have good taste.

 

[Orayn]

Alex Iglesias, better known as Flying Debris.

 

[ULTROS!]

Yoshitaka Amano:

 

[Stinkles]

Amazing stuff in here. I will say that some of these end up looking remarkably similar in terms of color, tone and feel, by the time they get on screen. Which is obviously super important. Bungie in particular often executes on these amazing big concept scenes and gets the precise flavor of that right i the game and skybox.

 

[Dacon]

Looks like Matte paintings in the op.

Also a lot of these are just plain old promotional art right? Like some of the street fighter and kof ones.

 

[MiniBossBattle]

Subscribed. A great concept artist inspires and makes 3d artists lives a living hell (but in a good way).

 

[SnakeLinkSonic]

I second Yoji Shinkawa.

 

[EatChildren]

The incredible art direction of Metroid Prime can be largely attributed to the work of Andrew Jones, who was commissioned to work with Retro Studios in shaping their vision of the project. I believe the story goes that Jones, when younger, had a serious accident that left him hospitalised with minor brain damage (or something like amnesia), and throughout his therapy he played a ton of Metroid. He felt a special connection to the franchise, so getting to work on it was kind of a big deal.

I cant find any sizable versions of his impressive work, but I always liked the x-ray stuff like this.

On the fan art spectrum, Patryk Garrett's fan art for Mass Effect 2 is ludicrously good. So good BioWare hired him to do promotional art for Mass Effect 3.

 

[Phandy]

Amazing stuff in here. I will say that some of these end up looking remarkably similar in terms of color, tone and feel, by the time they get on screen. Which is obviously super important. Bungie in particular often executes on these amazing big concept scenes and gets the precise flavor of that right i the game and skybox.

Yeah its satisfying to see concept artists work get reflected properly in the actual games. They often have such good visions for the game its a shame when they don't get carried across. Its also noticeable in games where they have good concept artists and people working from them because everything feels consistent, art-wise.

We see it in indy games but I'd love to see it in bigger AAA titles, where Art Direction and the actual in-game art is really closely aligned to just 'a single artist' so to speak. So its all about 1 person vision, and the art channels that feeling of the 1 artist.

Like I'd love a game where they really channel the feeling of marko Djurdjevic old concept work. Best post-apoc characters out there imo:

 

[sixteen-bit]

Akiman, Syd Mead, Yoji Shinkawa

 

[jump_button]

Yoshitaka Amano:

he always get all the spotlight Akihiko Yoshida work should get more love

 

[Lindbergh]

Capcom's Bengus.

Ken (SF1) & Ruby Heart (MVC2)

 

[strafer]

Everyone at Blizzard.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

Like I'd love a game where they really channel the feeling of marko Djurdjevic old concept work. Best post-apoc characters out there imo:

Are those actually Marko's? The signatures dont match ...

 

[Übermatik]

So he's not a game artist, but whatever... Rasmus Poulsen:

Also, Sundragon83:

 

[Phandy]

Are those actually Marko's? The signatures dont match ...

They are names or descriptions of the characters. I'm 99% sure its Marko's work. It was his old stuff he did on this German Pen n Paper RPG called Degenesis.

Google translate tells me, the first means 'Exalted' the second means 'Sword-something'.

 

[TheFightingFish]

Sparth (Nicholas Bouvier)

Dunno what he's up to these days.

Only the finest in dong-based transportation in this future...

Seriously though, great posts here. I really love concept art for game and products. Something about the sketch based pieces really just appeals to me.

 

[Stinkles]

Looks like Matte paintings in the op.

Also a lot of these are just plain old promotional art right? Like some of the street fighter and kof ones.

Maybe not. We use Sparth (who is working on Halo 4) stuff for multiple purposes - he creates it as game concept art, and we repurpose it for posters, book covers, etc. It's never wasted work, but the more people who get to see the originals, the happier I am.

 

[zoukka]

Whoever drew those concepts for Ocarina of Time. Mindblowing.

 

[jgminto]

It's more promotional than concept but I've always liked R*'s art. Not sure who the artist is though.

 

[Hypertrooper]

Maybe not. We use Sparth (who is working on Halo 4) stuff for multiple purposes - he creates it as game concept art, and we repurpose it for posters, book covers, etc. It's never wasted work, but the more people who get to see the originals, the happier I am.

Mmh. This one is pretty:

And don't forget to mention to other guys who work with you and can be seen in Halo 4's Art trailer from the last PAX prime.


Alex Chu is amazing. I love especially this one here:

I don't have any art by him on my harddrive but Ashley Weed Wood is amazing too. Especially his MGS art.

 

[Always-honest]

A lot of these guys are just insane.. wow.
I think if Michelangelo or Da Vinci would have seen some of this stuff they'd just quit.