How did you get started as a concept artist, and what kind of things are you looking for when you're hiring a concept artist?

Well, for me personally, obviously the style definitely helps. I've been at CIG for a little over five years now. I helped establish, at least on the character front, the style and the look. As long as Chance and I are confident that the people who want to join the Star Citizen team can execute in that specific look and style, then that's where we like to start the conversation of potentially working with us, because there is a specific look. As much as I love the Disney and the animation style, and I think some paintings that people do are gorgeous and are super inspiring, that probably won't translate well with the realistic look, sci-fi look that we have for Star Citizen. There's that. The second thing that I look out for, when concept artists do art, when they work on their portfolio, is how far did they think into the functionality of their design? Is it just cool, or did they actually think about the little details? Concept artists have to be, in a weird way, great storytellers, because you're telling a story through whatever your character or the scene is that you're trying to paint. Those are little things that I look out for when I look at a portfolio and stuff like that.

Jared, you were asked in the last question about what we look for in concept artists. I can speak to that a little bit. One of the things that I've mentioned when I went to GDC and reviewed portfolios and stuff is that I think too often concept art gets confused with illustration. And this is a really important thing: making beautiful illustrations, that's one thing. But concept art is about the ideas, right? And what I love to see in a portfolio is, show me all the steps from the first round to the thing getting created, right? And that really helps me know how this person is as far as just coming up with cool ideas, right? Versus, you found reference and you painted, you did a pretty painting, you did a pretty illustration. That's not concept art. Concept art is coming up with all of the great ideas. And then, to Jeremiah's point, what's the thought behind them? How would they work? That's really, really important. If I see a sketchbook or portfolio where you see tons of really different and cool ideas all around towards finalizing the concept, that shows me that that person is going to have a lot of value when you really ask them to, hey, come up with something cool. Many, many times, if you have a concept artist working on something, I love it when I'm pleasantly surprised by something: oh, man, I wasn't even expecting that. That's awesome. Let's go down this thing, right?