Concept Painting
- visual development
- key art painting
- colour key
A fully painted still made early, to fix what the finished thing should feel like.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
It is made to answer a feeling rather than a fact. Nobody needs to know what the door handle looks like, so the painting spends everything on light, scale and mood, and that concentration is why concept art often reads better than the film it describes.
How it works
Paint with no line, worked in broad strokes that stay visible. One light source. A small palette. The figure is placed small against something large, which is what creates the scale. Detail is spent in one place and withheld everywhere else.
When to use it
Use it for a hero image, a cover or anything that has to communicate a world in one picture. Avoid it when the subject is the character design itself, because a small figure in a big space tells you nothing about how it is built.
Told apart from its neighbours
Rotoscope keeps a drawn line over a real body. Storyboard Frame is rough and made to test a shot. Model Sheet strips the setting out entirely and shows the construction.
Where it is used
It carries a landing page hero, a book cover, a pitch deck opener and any image whose job is to make somebody want to see more.
- Visual development for animation and games
- Art books and pitch decks
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own character, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
<character>, concept painting style, fully painted in soft edged digital gouache with no outline anywhere, broad confident brush strokes that stay visible, the figure small in a large atmospheric setting, one strong light source doing all the work, a tight palette of four or five colours carrying the whole picture, detail only where the eye should land and everything else suggested
What goes wrong
An evenly detailed, evenly lit illustration comes back with the character centred and large. Ask for one light source, a small figure, and detail in one place only.
Leave out
an ink outline, even detail across the frame, a full palette, a flat background, a centred figure
Watch for
Ask for the figure to be small and the detail to be uneven. Concept art earns its atmosphere by leaving most of the picture unresolved, and a model finishes everything unless it is told not to.
Questions
Draw it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
