Concept Artist:

Concept artists are people who create artwork sketches / Visual art pieces for companies, like animation companies, game companies and film companies. They create drawings of characters, environments and objects that need designing for the company. They also work with the other artists to help them create the proper mood for the artwork. When working on characters they design the characters to fit in the world of the game or animation and draw up sketch sheets to show of the important details. When creating characters a lot of people who do this job do several diffrent sketches of facial expressions to go with a full body drawing of the character to show off what looks they can express.

 

The common duties of a concept artist are as follows:

• Create Concept Images - Draw concept images for artwork appearing in various mediums. 

• Design Spec Sheets - design spec sheets showing dimensions and calculations that can be used by other artists and animators.

• Draw Artwork - draw various types of artwork, such as architecture, furniture, environments, clothing, and characters. This may include drawing artwork that adheres to a certain style pattern or particular brand image.

• Collaborate - collaborate with other members of the art team to share ideas and criticisms on various pieces of concept art.

• Design Presentation Packages - design presentation packages showcasing pieces of concept art to share with the rest of the art team and/or the art director.

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The required skills and qualifications for this job are:

• Artistic skills – concept artists use drawing, illustration, modeling, and animation skills to create art.

• Computer skills – concept artists use various art software programs to create art.

• Interpersonal skills – to work in a highly collaborative environment with other artists and designers.

• Attention to detail – concept artists create art that is used in many different visual mediums.

• Communication – concept artists use artwork to relay messages, evoke emotions, and convey concepts.

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Visual Artist:

Visual Artists are people who use their artistic talents to create pieces of artwork for a company, a lot of the time they are tasked with making posters and promotional materials however sometimes they have to create backgrounds for use in projects as well. Visual artists have to be highly creative as the job is generally very independent but good communication skills are required when talking to a client. A Lot of Visual artists are freelancers and move around alot from job to job. 

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The common duties of a visual artist are as follows:

• Develop Ideas - Before starting a project, a Visual Artist must come up with a viable idea. Visual Artists also create sketches and project plans to help them stay on track and ensure the finished piece meets the specifications of the client or employer.

• Create Graphics - Some Visual Artists create graphics for use in marketing materials and advertising campaigns. To ensure the graphics complement the rest of the campaign, a Visual Artist works closely with creative directors, advertising writers and marketing experts.

• Build Visual Presentations - Sales departments often rely on Visual Artists to produce presentations for pitch meetings, business expos and other sales events. Before working on a presentation, a Visual Artist must meet with sales personnel and determine the overall goal of the project.

• Select Project Materials - Visual Artists are responsible for choosing the right materials for each project. To choose the right materials, a Visual Artist must take several factors, such as where the finished piece will be displayed, into account. In some cases, Visual Artists use several materials to create mixed-media pieces.

• Modify Materials - While creating a sculpture or model, a Visual Artist may have to modify raw materials. Molding clay and bending metal are just two of the tasks a Visual Artist must perform when working on sculpturing and modeling projects.

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The required skills and qualifications for this job are: 

• Sketching diagrams and illustrations

• Transforming raw materials into paintings, sculptures, illustrations and other works of art

• Collaborating with cross-functional teams, such as advertising, marketing, and sales professionals

• Managing creative projects from start to finish

• Understanding the principles of effective marketing and advertising

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Web Graphic Designer:

Web Graphic Designers create how a website will look, from layouts to how images are used to create a useable and aesthetically pleasing website. They may also work on creating the images for the pages and logos as well. Recently the line between graphic designers and web designers have become quite blurred and now many web graphic designers need to know the fundamentals of HTML and CSS for their job. 

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Common Duties of a web graphic designer are as follows:

• Design and layout page elements - One of the primary responsibilities of a web graphic designer is designing and placing elements on a web page, which can include logos and images as well as textual elements. 

• Edit images for websites - Web graphic designers also edit images that are used on websites. This aspect of the job can involve resizing and cropping images, correcting colors, and ensuring that images are correctly formatted and optimized for mobile and desktop web browsers. In addition, the web graphic designer may create images from scratch and save them as vector images that can be repurposed throughout the site.

• Meet Directly with clients - Web graphic designers meet directly with clients to determine website specifications and collaborate on its overall design and aesthetic. During this process, the web graphic designer may create sketches showing the overall flow of each page and ask questions regarding image placement, font choices, and other elements that will contribute to the look of the pages and drive user engagement.

• Collaborate with Developers - Throughout the design process, web graphic designers work closely with developers to ensure that front-end and back-end elements work together as expected. 

• Test and Deploy Websites - Web graphic designers also test websites for usability and ensure that page elements are present and functional when the site goes live.

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The required skills and qualifications for this job are: 

• Composition – web graphic designers need excellent composition skills to determine where to locate page elements and balance the overall look and flow of the page

• Typography – familiarity with typographical principles and practices is also essential in this role, as the web graphic designer needs to consider font choices and sizes and how they work within the page

• Image editing – in this role, web graphic designers frequently make changes to a page’s images that range from cropping and resizing to optimizing images for desktop or mobile browsers

• Web coding – web graphic designers manipulate a page’s CSS, HTML, and JavaScript code to change how the page looks and behaves, so they should have a strong grasp of these web coding languages

• Communication skills – written and verbal communication are both vital in this role, as web graphic designers need to collaborate with design and development teams and communicate with clients

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Companies that work with 2D, 3D and motion graphics

 

 The First company that I thought of while looking at the brief was Riot games. Riot games is the company that makes the game: League Of Legends, LOL for short. In LOL there are many diffrent characters with diffrent 3D models, many unique animations, animated into screens that change regularly and 2D flat images of the characters called splash art. While they don't technically specialise in one thing over the others, they have many diffrent departments within their company that covers each department and they all work together to create their intricate characters. 

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They have diffrent departments for each of their many diffrent project types which all work together to create a character, I decided I would talk about the character Neeko which at the time of writing this was 2 champions ago. They wanted to create "a chameleon Vastayan" a race within their game. Her original concept art had her very wild looking and dark. If you compare it to her current design, she looks a lot more civilised and human like. Once her design was finalised they sent the sketches off to the 3D modeling team who created the 3D model and then sent it on to the animation team who created the animations for her, once they created each animation they would then send it to the art lead on the project who would say if they liked it or not and if it wasn't approved it would be sent back to be redone. 

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Most game companies work in the same way they departmentalise the work yet they all collaborate to create the end project. The people they employ generally specialize in one aspect and work in that department, yet when they envision something they can go over to someone in another department to ask them about how possible it is or suggest new ideas to other employees. Riot also outsources work to other companies to make music videos for their games as well as animations they add to their youtube page. They have hired other youtube animators, Digic Pictures, P.A. Works and Fortiche Prod to name a few. Riot Games Concept Artist Salaries. The typical Riot Games Concept Artist salary is$90,618. Concept Artist salaries at Riot Games can range from $50,521 - $126,824. I personally play the game made by this company so it would be quite fun to work for them.

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My second company I decided to look into was nintendo. Nintendo is one of the biggest game companies out there. They are based in japan and was founded in 1889. They started as a playing card company. Nintendo has worked with a few companies to help develop their games all around the world, the best known one would be game freak as they helped nintendo create the pokemon games, a beloved series of games for many children. The average salary for an employee working at the Final Fantasy studio is 21,680,000 yen. That's roughly $273,000 a year.  I have played nintendo games all my life, and I honestly love the games, they are mostly child friendly and as someone who doesn't really like gore their games are good for someone like me. 

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Career Plans 

Out of all jobs i've looked looked at, both concept artist and visual artist would work well for my specaliam of 2D artwork however their hours wouldn't work for me personally, due to this reason I would take up freelancing homework to deal with medical problems and sleep problems that would hinder me working in an office. This would be beneficial to me as well due to the fact I get to choose if i decided to take the clients requests or not and if I don't feel like my personal style would work for client I could decline the request that way. 

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There are many freelancers out there and the work is sustainable once you become popular, however there is a chance I may have to have another job on the side to be able to afford to eat so I may become a Character designer as that is where my passion truly is, I love drawing people and creatures. It is however very hard to get a job as a character designer. 

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