A day in the life of a concept artist

[BlackGuy]

I'm posting this to ask professionals what a typical day at work is like as a concept artist in the video game industry. From when you walk into the office in the morning to when you leave in the afternoon/evening, what are your daily activities and routines (even the mundane stuff). I'd also like to know the average amount of time you have to create a piece of concept art (I understand that the answer to this particular question varies like crazy, but if you could do your best to discuss the type of concept and how much time you'd probably have, that would be great.). I'd very much appreciate any answers to this, and hopefully other students can learn from it and supplement the knowledge in Seedling's threads.

[LonZ]

Bump!
I am curious too:-) I've been wanting to pursue this kind of job, but since I can't afford to to have a career shift on a sudden, I'm planning to take some concept jobs as my sidelines and to build my portfolios to.

Given of 4 hours of leisure time in every night on my regular day of working schedule + the weekends, I'm curious on how I can be productive from having of 36 hours dedication on a art conception job.

[dpaint]

Bump!
I am curious too:-) I've been wanting to pursue this kind of job, but since I can't afford to to have a career shift on a sudden, I'm planning to take some concept jobs as my sidelines and to build my portfolios to.

Given of 4 hours of leisure time in every night on my regular day of working schedule + the weekends, I'm curious on how I can be productive from having of 36 hours dedication on a art conception job.

See this thread for some of the answers
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=194343

[ArtZealot]

Hmmm... this is how my days go on average in the recent years. My day might be vastly different from someone elses out there, i usually get as much time as i ask for so i think im spoiled in that regard, but here goes:

morning: wake up, do morning ritual, cereal, coffee etc.

mid morning: get to work, pull everything up on my screen that i need to do whatever i'm doing, put all my reference on my 2nd monitor, boot up photoshop, go grab a coffee, maybe do a quick 5-10 min quick sketch/paint to get the motor running, then work work work work till about noon.

Noon: play starcraft2 multiplayer for exactly 1 hour while eating lunch.

After lunch: resume work, refill water, grab a coffee at the same time pull reference back up, work, work, work, refill coffee, work, work give updates with the people who want updates, get opinions, let my brain chew on the opinions, work, work, go home


How long everything takes (or how much time i'm given)

Research (8 hrs):
If it is an uncolored object sketch and it's in some new architecture style i havent yet studied or researched recently. If it's something totally new that i dont know much about, i'll ask for 4-6 hours just for research, checking flickr, grabbing jpegs, organizing them in folders that i can quickly navigate to.
If this is done well, then if a month later i come back to whatever architecture, whatever environment style, etc. I can dive right in and dont have to research because i've already got that step done.

Thumbnails--> Rough draft (8 hrs)
I almost always do a rough draft image, this usually is the result of a couple thumbnails, or quick sketches (30 min-1hour), redrawn several times. Sometimes part of my research time will be spent on throwaway sketches, just trying to get my brain to get a feel for the subject.
But usually I'll spend half of a day exploring my options, incorporating reference etc. until my brain feels "wrapped around" the subject, then i'll take the best of the sketches near the end of the day do a quick drawover (1-2hours?) and call it a day.

Cleanup (8 hrs):
Usually for the final stage i'll spend a day just really cleaning up the linework if time permits. Depending on complexity this might take a few hours or a full day. Usually i'll guess high and say 8 hours. This usually entails fading my 1st draft onto a transparent layer, and doing a clean draw over with linework & lighting included, usually b&w or just toned blue or sepia.


Total (24 hours)
So in total on an uncolored object, key piece of architecture etc. i'll say right around 24 hours as a high estimate. Probably 16 if the research step was done.

Colored pieces i'll ask for 16 hours. Im more comfortable painting in color than creating a draft style sketch, but in general a colored painting for me will run right around 16 hours consistently assuming i have reference and all that figured out, and by color i mean a landscape, not a key piece of architecture. Landscapes are more fluid and seem to be easier to bang out. A key piece of architecture would be everything mentioned + another 4-8 for color, but again its entirely up to how "good" the people that want it, need it to look.

The 16hours comes from 8 hours for thumbnail or speedy paint into 1st draft then another 8 the next day polishing everything up, formatting it, etc. Then as mentioned, possibly another 4-8 for color if it's a detailed piece of architecture.

I hope that gives some insight. Some places might have to do all of that in 8 hours, but i typically get as much time as i need. So 16 for a drawing/painting where i've done the research, 24 when i havent. This fluctuates depending on how "done" a sketch or painting needs to be.
The longest i've spent on a painting has been a 5-6 days, but it was a pretty key piece that had to be absolutely right and had to have all possibilities explored. It was a series of finished pieces done different ways...etc. it happens occasionally.

So, thats how my days have gone for... going on 4 years now at my current job, and thats about how long i'm given to do stuff. Again, my time and workflow might vary vastly from someone elses, but thats what i got. I hope it helps! Cheers'

[Sulphur]

Aww man ArtZealot I could actually see myself happily doing that. And San Diego is definetly somewhere I'd like to do it in too haha! Can I have your job in 4 years or so?

Do you ever dread going into work or is it as dream job-ish as it seems?

[ArtZealot]

Aww man ArtZealot I could actually see myself happily doing that. And San Diego is definetly somewhere I'd like to do it in too haha! Can I have your job in 4 years or so?

Do you ever dread going into work or is it as dream job-ish as it seems?

I love it. It's not without it's challenges, like trying to tackle a complex subject or having to do a lot of redos on something. But even then, stuff like that is good cause it keeps a person from stagnating and keeps the pressure on to be constantly sharpening the skills.

I mean, i just speak for myself on this, but i love it. I'm grateful every day to be here, and it's pretty much everything i wanted. The challenges it throws my way keep me on my toes and keep me constantly learning which is what i want most of all.

[LonZ]

Thank you! I still haven't browsed all the threads in the forums (busy multi-tasking at work. lol). Luckily, I bumped into this thread just when I am needing these kind of informations. Funny, how I could picture myself for the next Free Lancing months

Cheers!

[BlackGuy]

Wow. It's been two years since I posted that but I'm happy people are starting to respond to it!

[Diarum]

Wow. It's been two years since I posted that but I'm happy people are starting to respond to it!

LOL wow 2 years later thats must have been a nail biter

[SigonWulf]

@Artzealot Simple question, what do you wear to work? Casual? Business?

[ArtZealot]

@Artzealot Simple question, what do you wear to work? Casual? Business?

The average dress around is pretty casual. I'm usually either in jeans+ tshirt, or board shorts+flipflops and a button up short sleeve or something.

On a sidenote it's casual but to the point where its probably not cool to come in, in a tank top or old jeans with holes in them, shirts with stains, etc. While it won't get you thrown out of the building doing so, it just reflects better one oneself to not abuse the casual dress. Also i think its good to not wear flip flops if ones feet stinks.

But yeah for the most part its pretty casual.

[edit] reworded a bit.

[bara]

I guess everyone gives a different answer but here's my average day in the office... I've had this job for a year now.

-Dress code is casual. jeans, t-shirt, tophat etc
-hours are 10am-6pm but many concept artists are still at their desks at 7pm or later :p
-if I already have something to work on I just simply continue on that. If not, I ask for work. If i dont have any real work i'll just work on my own stuff until i get real work

-time spent on concepts varies a lot... some take only couple of hours, some take several days. I do environments and props. Often you get requests where AD wants a sketch or a quick paintover and it shouldnt take more than a day maximum. Not much satisfaction for the ego that wants to make pretty pictures for portfolio but truthfully this is probably most common kind of work, depending on projects. Many many quick sketches and paintovers. You could fill a truck with all the unreleased small concept stuff done for every game.

-Looking for ref can take a lot of time but is worth it... Good ref is invaluable. So for every concept I do I do as much research as I need to, which can mean most of the day even. Good to have a big ref library. google images and flickr are my friends.

-send finished concepts to AD either by email or instant messenger. wait for feedback. make revisions until AD is satisfied.

-not gonna go into process of concepting much. depends so much on what you do and everyone has their own way.

-chat with people... you can learn a lot from other artists so big ego not so cool.
-work environment is ideally informal and liberal. We're artists after all, free flow of ideas and creativity is a good thing. Having said that, stay focused and be professional

[am●na,☼nafa&Kash☉fa]

hhhmmm... so thats what you guys do.......

[ArtZealot]

tophat? lol, nice!!

[TheDirtSyndicate]

i do motion graphics. this is a peek at my typical day:
7am - alarm starts. hit snooze.
8am - get up. get ready. walk dogs.
9am - eat breakfast.
10am - get to work. look at art (all forms) for inspiration.
1pm - go to lunch.
2pm - return from lunch. put headphones on, get to work.
5pm - eat banana. put headphones back in, get back to work.
10pm - remove headphones. stop working. go home.
11pm - create personal art.
1am - go to bed.

[Randis]

Doing those jobs you learn many things.

- How to turn your chair in a way so when people come into the room don't see your face and don't notice that you are taking a nap.
- Taking a nap in a sitting position
- Making a very busy face
- How to clear browser cash and temp files, saving pics to your thumb drive and using proxy server
- you learn many useful windows shortcuts, as you have to hide the websites you are browsing quickly.
- you become a incredibly fast painter over the years so you don't have to work all day.
- you will love meetings, meetings are the best. you get to sit around, drink coffee and eat snacks instead of working, often meetings take a very long time to finish.
- lunch break, almost as nice as a meeting, best when held in a large group as it often gives the opportunity to overstretch the lunch time.
- coming late or not coming at all excuses. You will get to hear those a lot from various team members over the years. Family members died, pretty much all sorts of illness, locked out, locked in, lost keys and so on and so on, it sometimes gets very creative.
- networking and information trade, even tho the NDA tells not to reveal your salary to others, everyone will know eventually.

It usually is a very fun and interesting work, especially in smaller studios where people bond faster and are being less controlled.
In large studios often internet is filtered or completely replaced with a intranet, in some companies people have to write a short daily report about their daily progress.
There are also various clever room layout methods, such as placing the desks in a way so they face each other with their backs, this way you can not hide what is on your screen.
Some studios are more lax and you will find that team members personalize their working space with various posters, figurines on their tables, private TV with consoles, toys and other games. It is always a big plus if the studio has a team room where u can relax or take a quick nap if you have a headache.

Soft carpets are a big plus as you sometimes could get to sleep in the company during a crunch time and you will also welcome a good coffee machine.

You will quickly learn how to deal with both positive and negative feedback, chain of command and other things.
Every position has positive and downsides.
Working in a rather low end position you get to do the least creative jobs but on the other hand you will have a lot less stress and responsibility, someone else will always tell you what to do.
Working in leading positions you often will have some stress as you hold the responsibility for your team, you get to hold pep talk and sometimes the less pleasant conversations to raise the productivity.

Some studios truly live the dream of earning cash with their hobbies, working exciting and original IPs while many others have to deal with less interesting topics like porting of IPs made by others, developing products based on some stupid licensed IPs (maybe something like Barbies happy Poni Farm ) Some studios have more freedom while others have to deal with incompetent marketing departments and weird publishers.

The fan factor and your salary much depends on the company you work for.
Before taking a job you best do some research on the studios and if possible try talking with some of the employee



Ok, obviously i am not very serious here
But what i want to point out is that no matter how great one job may sound, after a couple years it will be just a job like most others.
Some are more lucky, some are less, if you work in a cool team and have a good job that is a huge plus but that goes for every sort of work out there. Just keep in mind that not all projects are exciting and not everyone get's to work on the next Final Fantasy and WOW.

[SigonWulf]

Heres a question I just thought of. Do you use pc's or mac's at work? And which do you use at home?

[Ian Barker]

Heres a question I just thought of. Do you use pc's or mac's at work? And which do you use at home?

Whichever you are more comfortable with.

[fenixx]

@ ArtZealot : I like believing that even my routine would be something like that in the future.

I wanted to add to the question a little bit. How do you guys manage to fit in personal/social lives in between all this. Talking and going out with a girlfriend(or even friends) and so. Does a concept artist's life (at least the beginner), have time for that ?

[dpaint]

@ ArtZealot : I like believing that even my routine would be something like that in the future.

I wanted to add to the question a little bit. How do you guys manage to fit in personal/social lives in between all this. Talking and going out with a girlfriend(or even friends) and so. Does a concept artist's life (at least the beginner), have time for that ?

I liked having a social life when I was young so until my late twenties art was a slow process. I ended up playing catch up in my thirties and my relationships suffered then.

So my advice is get your art chops down and get a job doing what you want and worry about a social life later; especially if you are young. If I had it to do over that's what I would do.
Once I started working as an artist and making good money my lifestyle changed enough that I ended up with new friends anyway except for a handful of really close friends.

Women came and went and while I enjoyed their company, I let them sidetrack me too much. I finally found someone that was as crazy as me and supported my choice to be an artist for a living. This last point I can't stress enough, a lot of my partners and friends resented me making twice as much money as they did sitting at home painting all day. At first they thought it was cool but after awhile they hated me for reminding them that they weren't doing what they wanted with their life. Not that I pointed it out to them but that it was always there between us, unsaid. I was no fun any more I didn't live for the weekends. I liked what I was doing and they didn't, and it is a bigger gap than you can imagine. They were always trying to escape themselves and fill a hole in their lives and I was trying to hang on to what I had.

[ArtZealot]

So my advice is get your art chops down and get a job doing what you want and worry about a social life later; especially if you are young. If I had it to do over that's what I would do.

Hah yeah this is actually good advice. I hardly went out at all during art school. Ended up actually getting a lot done, and plenty of practice time; not surprisingly.

[drey101]

I also had a question to conceptartists, one of the things I heard is that some concept artists have to move a lot to get the jobs they want, and I was wondering to what extent that was true?

[OldJake666]

Pretty much the same as a normal person, only with more drawing and less social contact.

[TinyBird]

Well, I work as a game artist and not as a concept artist, but in here there's pretty much two kinds of days...
Ones where you can't really do anything until until all the other teams/bosses figure out what they actually want and ones where you have to break your back drawing to meet the deadlines the bosses decided without consulting the game team. Everything else depends on which one of those days it is.

[Cogentesque]

ArtZealot's thanks so much for your sage words - really great to know a bit more about the PROPER day to day life of someone like you - excellent knowledge and thanks again

[onionface]

Depends if you work remotely or in-house. In a studio you have to somewhat obey the daily work structure, just so things run smoothly. Most studios are not time Nazis, they don't care whether you arive early or late, just as long as you get your weekly hours in, and as long as you do a good job, you'll be fine.

Working remotely from home, is a bit different. It involves a lot more sleep. Porn websites, masturbation, drinking, and invisible friends to keep you company.

I think I would second Randis' comments.
Basically - you don't need to work hard if you can work smart.
same as any job really.

[TheDirtSyndicate]

social life.... whats that?

jk
social life happens outside of work obviously. make a habit of things. for example: every wed night is beer night with the guys.
every sunday i go do the traveling rings by santa monica pier. there's a whole community that does this, and now i'm a part of this community. when we all get together to go to the movies or play paint ball, we show up with a crew of 50+ people.
now a few of us are getting together every thurs (tonight) to hit up the tempest free running gym. open gym doesn't start until 8pm. if i'm working that night (like i am tonight), i just tell my producer that i have to leave at 7:30.

social life is EASY man. you just gotta stick to you guns and tell your boss you aren't working late on a night that you've got something planned.

it also helps to have a big dog. i have 2 boxers at home that will eat my couch if i dont get home at a reasonable hour to walk and feed them.