Concept art is the catch-all term for the early visuals used to hint at worldbuilding for stories that don’t exist yet. While directors and cinematographers often get the bulk of praise for the worldbuilding in a movie or television show, it’s amazing to see the early art for a piece of media you love, and realize how much concept artists are responsible for shepherding so many parts of those worlds into existence.
Looking at Jim Steranko’s early concepts for Raiders is like staring into a weird, cigarette-friendly parallel universe. That’s obviously Indiana Jones, but that’s also Not Indiana Jones. All the pieces are there, but on a different character, with a different vibe, swashbuckling through a different world. (Considering the original casting choice was Tom Selleck, maybe you can picture it.)
Hinting at larger worlds
Ron Cobb contributed concept art and designs to multiple sci-fi and fantasy films that defined my cinematic childhood (Dark Star, Star Wars, Raiders, Conan the Barbarian, The Abyss, Leviathan). Some of Cobb’s early work for Alien didn’t make it into the first movie, but the aesthetic implied a larger world with a rich history we’ve been exploring through the sequels ever since (even crossing over into the Predator franchise, and influencing the lore there).
I wonder how much of the built worlds we experience in the films we love can be traced back to one or two key images from the mind and hand of an imaginative, inventive concept artist?
Sometimes those artists don’t just design one or two elements to jumpstart the creative process — their style and visual language permeates entire films.
Floro Dery’s concept work on Transformers: The Movie (1986) essentially reimagined the original 1984 character models. His redesigns, along with the creation of a dozen new characters for the film, became the visual guidelines for nearly every Transformers comic book and animated appearance since. Dery single-handedly defined the look and feel of the entire Transformers universe.
(My 6yo son is grateful for his contributions to the visual landscape of our home.)
Hellboy creator Mike Mignola’s concept and production design work for Disney’s objectively amazing Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) is another example of one artist’s work shaping everything that followed.
If you go back and watch Atlantis, much of it, especially what’s happening in the backgrounds, feels like a Mike Mignola comic book come to life, with all his intricacies, unique character designs, weird proportions, and love of folklore.
I wish more Disney films leaned into the individual styles of artists instead of a less risky brand of house style.
Don’t make it fuzzy
I’ve started incorporating more of a concept art mentality into my brand identity design practice and the projects I self-initiate. It’s one thing to throw together a moodboard or write a short summary for the boardgame or graphic novel I’m working on right now (both super helpful tactics). But it’s another thing entirely to draw concepts for them, and try to render a world before there’s a world. To see it before anyone else can, and wrestle something tangible and knowable out of the ether, ex nihilo style.
Ansel Adams said, “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” But what about sharp images of rad concepts? Concepts full of possibility and imagination? There’s nothing better. Concept art can hint at bigger worlds and deeper histories, and draw from wider-ranging topics to spark new ways of approaching the things we’re making.
What’s he building in there?
Back to Ron Cobb — this is his first cover for the July issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959. For those counting, that’s exactly a decade to the month before a human walked on the surface of the moon.
On the cover we see a red planetary rover — sort of reminiscent of the giant arctic snow cruisers of the era, but also a little alien — with a crew of tiny astronauts examining a crack in the surface and… lights below? What’s down there? What does it mean? Why is it on a grid?! What’s happening?!!
That’s the power of concept art, and the artists behind it. I hope we don’t lose that magic in the current wave of bad AI art (which on its best day can only fever dream interesting concepts by remixing and regurgitating the imaginative work of artists).
Maybe eventually AI will be a tool that helps us imagine new and better (or worse!) worlds as a tool for artists, not a replacement for artists. In the mean time, here’s to the conceptual images that bring about real worlds, and the real artists who create them.