conceptart

[pnokia]

hi my friend
i've researched about history of concept art
but i can't see who r that men to improved this for the first time
or which movie made concept have been more effective for the first!
can we say George Lucas is that one ???
my meant is the best movie or animation in new age history !
first movie!....??

[Zazerzs]

well the history of concept art for entertainment is fairly new.

Are you asking where/when it started?

[kingkostas]

in general i would like to mention leonardo da vinci, as a great concept artist
:)

[pnokia]

i think nobody knows when it was!
but i told about the best move or body for explaning this art(for hiistory of concept art)( for starting concept art seriously)!can we say George Lucas is that one ?????
maybe my english is so week....!

[Elwell]

i think nobody knows when it was!
but i told about the best move or body for explaning this art(for hiistory of concept art)( for starting concept art seriously)!can we say George Lucas is that one ?????
maybe my english is so week....!

I think that is part of the problem. I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what you are asking.

[Ivory_Oasis]

The first concept artist....

http://sweetsweetlife.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553feb2ab88340120a89d4fe5970b-800wi

[pnokia]

my meant is the best movie or animation in new age history !
first movie!....??

[OmenSpirits]

New age?

Then I'd not refer to history then, because movies and concept art in its earlier form has been around as long as moving pictures and human society. Just not called as such.

[Zazerzs]

Today's form of concept art should not be confused with other art forms. .. meaning sure there was preproduction for paintings, schematics for inventions, ect but the role of concept art is for a specific reason that did not exist then.

This question has come up before..Disney would be a good guess...but it gets real blurry

[Meloncov]

Production design for stage precedes film by quite a bit, and that's a form of concept art.

[Zazerzs]

or is that stage design, and is stage design or any design for that matter now concept art?

Im going with wiki on this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_art

Concept art is a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in movies, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. Concept art is also referred to as visual development and/or concept design.

[JeffX99]

I'm guessing by "new age" the OP means "modern era" (whatever that may mean - post electric?) - but just a guess. Many epic films and TV shows predate Star Wars and all employed concept artists for sets, props, costumes, creatures, spaceships, etc. I would not put George Lucas in the category of concept artist at all. Though I do think Ralph Mcquarrie's work for Star Wars was so above and beyond that it was the first time a concept artist's work had been celebrated in it's own right. The major success of Star Wars probably had a lot to do with bringing his work to light as well.

Oh, I see you asked about the first movie...I would go with "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang from 1927 as a major film pushing concept art: http://www.kino.com/metropolis/gallery5.html#gal5

[bhanu]

DUNE?? how old was that movie?

[sombertwin]

I am just learning what concept art really is. I have never thought about it until just yesterday when someone commented I had conceptual skills.

I have taken a bit of my morning thinking about concept art and what exposure I have had to it.

In answer to your question G. Lukas was not the first of the movie concept artist. If you can there are a series of CDs that you can purchased through Amazon called Unseen Cinema or Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s or Unseen Cinema: Picturing a Metropolis or Product Details
Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1893-1941

Metropolis a 1920's film I think qualifies for among the first of the concept films There are other European films that are earlier.

[Raoul Duke]

Alfred Hitchcock (http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/Hitchcock_Gallery:_storyboards) used concept art. Hitchcock was an artist himself and would fit a story to sketches he'd done. King Kong is another great example. Metropolis as JeffX99 pointed out was loaded with concept art. Before movies I'm sure plays and operas employed more concept artists than the videogame industry does today.

[Ilaekae]

What we know as ConceptArt in the media sense actually started within days of the very first motion pictures, and many of the techniques were adapted from the field of photography. This example may sound crude, but synthetic alterations to actors other than basic makeup goes all the way back to when photos took up to 15 minutes to expose, and the first porn shots had to use a carved wooden penis because the real thing just wouldn't "hold up" for the exposure time. Keep in mind that two of the earliest "motion pictures" were Edison's "Frankenstein" and the First Trip to the Moon thing, both of which relied on special effects and reality-manipulation.

In this case, you could say that ConceptArt is as old as motion pictures.

[JeffX99]

or is that stage design, and is stage design or any design for that matter now concept art?

Im going with wiki on this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_art

Concept art is a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in movies, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. Concept art is also referred to as visual development and/or concept design.

Great definition Zazerzs, except Wikipedia left out an important, larger category: concept art for consumer products such as vehicles, cell phones, electronics, coffee makers, etc. This area of concept art falls under "industrial design" which is further broken down into transportation, electronics, consumer products, etc. Toy design is another discipline that falls under industrial design but the focus is on comic, toy and entertainment properties so it lives in both worlds.

Personally I go with a more broad definition: Concept art is illustration which defines the design and appearance for something that will be created in another form.

Basically whenever you design "something else" you are creating "concept art"; ie: when you design a painting/illustration/sculpture/logo you are designing that thing, so it would just be painting, illustration, etc. But when you are designing a car, a costume, a new soft drink bottle, you are using illustration to visualize what it will look like when it becomes realized.

I use that definition because it includes everything from stage design to costuming, architecture, vehicle design, toy design, entertainment design, etc. Various aspects definitely break down into specific categories but they all fall under concept art (for me anyway).

I checked that Wiki article you linked - yeah, really needs to be re-worked.

[JeffX99]

The first concept artist....

http://sweetsweetlife.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553feb2ab88340120a89d4fe5970b-800wi

I don't think so. Not that they aren't dealing with "concepts" here but you have to consider the purpose; they aren't really "designing" or illustrating these animals as a plan to make them in some other form. Their purpose was likely much more spiritual, emotional or perhaps even somewhat educational.

[OmenSpirits]

I don't think so. Not that they aren't dealing with "concepts" here but you have to consider the purpose; they aren't really "designing" or illustrating these animals as a plan to make them in some other form. Their purpose was likely much more spiritual, emotional or perhaps even somewhat educational.
Or representational of a moment in time.

[dpaint]

Joseph Urban was one of the earliest designers for Movies. He worked on 'When Knighthood Was in Flower' 1922 Designing the sets and backgrounds.
He came from Theater set design; many of the early films had set designers and stylists as they called them back then, Disney had Tenngren, Hurter Noble. Nc Wyeth was brought in for some early films according to his biography. The fact that people call them something different now doesn't change their contributions. The old set designers would paint huge canvases for backgrounds to be used in frame before computers or even matte painting came along.

[pnokia]

tanq u so much!my freinds!

[Meloncov]

or is that stage design, and is stage design or any design for that matter now concept art?

Im going with wiki on this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_art

Concept art is a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in movies, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. Concept art is also referred to as visual development and/or concept design.

Except later in the same article, it talks about concept artists in the automotive industry. I don't see how a sketch of what a stage set will look like differs fundamentally from a sketch of what a film stage will look like.

Now, the concept artist, as a separate position from a stage designer who is responsible for drafting schematics, is probably more recent (though I wouldn't be surprised if there is a long history of a master stage designer doing concept art, than handing off the drafting to an assistant).