Concept Art

Concept Art

Concept Art is an important part of the early stages of developing the game because it helps alot with the creation of characters/environments in the game. When you have the concept art sketched out, you can look back at it whilst using 3D programs to create the scene. It's much easier as if you're just trying to think of the scene you're creating in your head, you generally have a hard time. So if you have a drawing of your scene/character, you can basically re-create what you have drawn in 3D using a progam like 3DS Max, Sketch-Up, Blender, etc.

Games are very diverse with artistic styles nowdays. For example, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on Nintendo Gamecube used Cel Shaded graphics, which make the 3D graphics in the game look very cartoony. The cartoony style to the game changes the mood drastically as compared to other Zelda titles like Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. Games like Fallout 3 has a limited pallete of colours (pretty much dark and grey colours) which works in contrast with it's post-apocalyptic environment. Borderlands, like Wind Waker, uses Cel-Shaded Graphics but instead it goes for a more comic book-style approach unlike Wind Waker's cartoony style.

Fallout 3 is set in a Post-Apocalyptic Washington D.C. in the future. But the twist was despite being in the future, the style of the game is based on the culture of 1950's America. To be accurate with the environment and style, the designers would have to research Washington (monuments, notable streets, etc) aswell as 1950s culture.

Despite all of this, a developer who sets a game in a famous city could only be focusing on the well known areas. For example, ZombieU on Wii U is set in London. It is meant to be a horror game but it's hard to take seriously when it's all set in the more touristy areas of London whereas theres alot of gritty places in London in real life. For example, more rough areas like the east-end of London (e.g. the borough of Hackney) which are known for council-estates which are extremely grim and bleak. And a bleak setting like this would work better for a horror game.

I am going to talk about Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64 and compare it's artistic style to No More Heroes on Nintendo Wii. Paper Mario was the 2nd Role Playing Game in the Mario series (after Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars on the SNES in 1996) Paper Mario was first released in Japan in 2000. This game had very unique artistic features as the character's and item's were 2D sprites in a 3D gameworld. The reason why were because the 2D sprites made the characters resemble paper, which was what they were aiming for in the game. This makes the game's style feel like a pop up book as compared to No More Heroes comic book image.

No More Heroes is an Action/Hack and Slash Video game for the Wii first released in 2007 in Japan. It's artistic style is much more different than that of Paper Mario. It's a fast paced action game with violent and mature themes which is aimed for teens and adults. It uses Cel-Shaded animation (like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Borderlands). Like Borderlands, it goes for the comic-book theme instead of the cartoony theme which is featured in many games which use Cel Shading. And as we all know, Comic Books are renowned for being associated with excitement and action. This makes the artistic style for No More Heroes perfect for it's plot and gameplay. It's set in the USA, but it takes a unique twist in style as the character's are based on anime which makes it an interesting blend between Japanese and Western culture.

Whilst both games have rather cartoony graphics, the difference between them would be that Star Fox Adventures is cartoony in a more of a CGI animation way and No More Heroes is like a comic book or animated tv series. This works out well for both games as their style will catch the attentions of gamers who like that kind of stuff and could find themselves more immersed within the game due to it's style.