The difference between concept art for Games or Film.

I have had some wonderful luck (opportunity) to work on both film and games as a concept artist.  Here is the difference from my perspective as a remote location guy.

Thinking about concept art'ing for Film?

Film is less forgiving.  An error in time management or networking can spell the end for a lot of potential projects.  Time lines are shorter, schedules are tighter, and turnaround is quicker.  The opportunity for revision is fleeting.  Projects are measured by hours, days or maybe on the rare occasion weeks, rather than months.  Risk is higher in this case.  You need to nail the piece in three rounds and deliver a great value or expect to 'miss' the call next time.   ..that said, the reward is higher than working in games, and more quickly turned around.  Pay for a good film project ranges to 50-100% higher than games, and you will see your work on screen much faster than you will see results of your preproduction on game shelves.  Usually remote guys are brought in to fill project gaps, and usually that happens during the crunch of the project end.  Expect that the 'big studios' or the union gigs to be rare so make the most of each as they arrive.  These projects can cherry pick the industry and people will gladly re-locate to collaborate with well known directors, art directors, and scripts.  Remote folks are the last to arrive and the first to go, so make the most of every moment.  Film artists are widely held in high regard.. Noteriety is possible to achieve and in the long run can present more opportunity to cherry pick concept art jobs.

Thinking about concept art'ing for Games?

Games offer wide breadth of design opportunities.  Usually, the vision is wider, and once the key image is established there are many more moments of discovery available.  Compared to film, which often brings you to perform a specific and exacting reproduction of the directors vision.  Personally, I find concepting for the interactive industry more relaxing.  Sheer waves of asset generation and environment generation will offer a lot of ways to improve, discover, and mature as an artist.  It will also allow you to discover the projects vision over the course of a couple tasks rather than have to nail it on the very first image.  Project cycles range longer and getting in a pre-production spot can keep you busy for a good while.  Games are also more remote savvy, they are not thrown by using tools like dropbox, hipchat, skype, and file sharing.. Generally projects leads in games are more informed about working remote and less inclined to need to see your face while you paint.  Pay in games is pretty tight, but it's a bit more regular.  The industry does not rely on remote guys as a stopgap measure, so they don't have to pay a premium for overnight work with 2 hours notice.  Game studios seem to embrace the model especially for their more visible art work.  Expect artists with a lot of notoriety to appear as regulars as pitch pieces, or marketing pieces are needed.

In my opinion, a well rounded remote artist should try to work, and be well geared for both industies.  Film is a great test to see how you perform under pressure and widely varying circumstances on individual tasks.  Games is a great way to really dig into discovering how you would concept an entire fleet of ideas with wide set collaboration.

-cheers

Concept Art and the favorite sandwich.. advice for beginners.

This is best read and intended for folks who are thinking about getting into design.

.. So you got something to design?  Ohh, something that's 'cool' 'neat' 'never been seen before!'.. Arrr, if that is direction you got, I am not envious at all.  Just imagine all the directors you will come across, and how each would perceive what 'cool' means..  Cool, is shorthand for 'make something I will like'.  Bless you if you can do that every single time without more feedback, haha.   When you go into a design, you need to watch for shorthand terms that are common pitfalls that will cause revision, lost time, and worst out of all of those, the dreaded favorite sandwich.

Rather than settle for 'Cool, neat, awesome, better, more better', as feedback, be specific in asking for feedback that will help you the most when shooting for the hero design.  I commonly ask about texture, lighting, mood, scale, palette.. most of all, what caused the director to be inspired for the design.  Understanding these few criteria will help to rule out a lot of miss-communication and a lot of revisions.

Do this, and hopefully you will never have a favorite sandwich....

Whats a Favorite sandwich?  I like to think of the design team as sometimes trying to make the perfect sandwich.  With the right combination of ingredients, you can have the most amazing sandwich!.. with the wrong ones..  Well, this is the moment when you have more than one vision.  .. and in very bad cases, several visions.  Picture this, the design you are trying to achieve is a sandwich.  The director started, and he said, I like Swiss cheese and bread.  You came along, and think that salami might go well, so you add salami..  Well, a few days later, the lead designer comes along and he really needs anchovies...  They are not everyone's favorite, but they have to go in.  Then after that, the Art Director came back from a meeting and said, he likes mustard, but marketing says peanut butter sells 2 to 1 over mustard..  Your doomed, the next thing you know, nobody very much likes the taste of your sandwich...  Even though everyone gave you great feedback..   The point is, you need to be armed with your design criteria, so you can always be aware if an item fits in your sandwich..  Had your design goal been, make the best, 'Bronx themed sandwich', you would have been much better off than trying to design 'the best sandwich ever'.  .. and the problem is, that it really is your fault if you get stuck in favorite sandwich mode.  The concept guy needs to be able to qualify the design criteria and also be armed with the ability to kick it back for feedback if needed before it heads into design production.

All that said, it is easy to say, yet hard to practice..  When you are starting, you often don't have the foresight to head off peanut butter on your salami sandwich.  Even still I come across forehead slapping moments, when a director says 'I just don't like the color orange'..

-R