Unit 72 Vehicle concept art

What is concept art in vehicle design used for?

Concept art is a key stage in the design process of vehicles. It allows the designers to have a clear image of what the vehicle will be used for, it is the process that brings the vehicles to life and shows the other members of a games design company exactly what its meant to do. There are many different forms of creating concept art, including digital manipulation programs such as photoshop and illustrator, and drawn methods.

Todd Marshall

Todd Marshall is a vehicle designer who focuses mainly on futuristic, robotic looking vehicles. He makes his designs by using hand drawn methods, and adds depth in to give a shadowy effect on parts hidden from direct light. despite the fact that some of his drawings are quite simple, his designs are easy enough to notice hidden detail while still looking like a great piece of artwork.

Here is another one of Todd's concept arts, he states on his website that he started the concept with a graphite under-drawing and then added detail and colour in photoshop cs2. He has added the opposite side of the model's legs as a transparent layer to give the reader the vision of what the model would look like, but to add effect and blend in with the background, he has left the layer transparent. I like Todd's work. He creates an interesting style of designs while utilizing photoshop's various manipulation features.

Vadim Sverdlov

Vadim is a Russian concept artist who mainly specializes in military style vehicles based on desert and jungle warfare. He creates some nice effects using shadows and textures like sand and dust which add an image of what the vehicle might be like in the field. Vadim now works for an Israeli company Gravity which specializes in graphic design.

Here is another one of Vadim's art pieces, I couldn't find a name for this piece but I can quite clearly see from the image that this vehicle is for mobile artillery shelling. He has added a small man in the middle of the piece to show how large the vehicle actually is and also give the image more of a realistic effect. This piece of art shows more examples of Vadim's use of particles; at the edge of the barrels there is a light and dark cloud of smoke which demonstrates how much firepower the cannon has, while in the background, there is a small sand cloud, which could either be from the recoil force of the cannon, or the terrains natural climate change, possibly a small sandstorm.

Adam Burn

Adam Burn is another artist who focuses on Sci-Fi style futuristic vehicles, he uses straight angled lines in his artwork to create a stereotypical style of vehicle that would often be associated with Sci-Fi films. Adam creates a perfect story background to his designs which when reading can be clearly noticed in the image. For example, this piece shows the Leviathan DSi which roams the moon to mine for precious minerals. He noted in the description that the vehicle leaves a large trail of dust which takes a large time to settle, as seen in the image, he brings his creations to life by adding a thin light layer of crushed moon rocks. I like how Adam has used different shades on the top left of his image, it shows the moons atmosphere and lights from the near by mining equipment whilst also creating the vast nothingness of space.

To sum it up...

Concept art is an important part of the design process in many industries such as the games industry, films industry, and even the music industry. Without this artwork, the visual masterpieces we see today, such as Avatar and Mass effect would not exist. Even if concept art is made to add to a portfolio or even just for fun, it will always remain a vital part of the modern day media.