How much freedom do you have in the concept phase?
TL;DRConcept artists are told to make things look good first and the team will figure it out, but they still consider zones, movement and lore, and some rules can bend while others can't.
I mean, Gage actually does have quite a bit of say, because the armor needs to function like an armor, because if you have a solid piece of metal here, then...
Oh, yeah, so Jeremiah, they'll send stuff over midway through the phase, so that when they're fully done I don't look at it and be like, I can't do that, dude. Go redo all this. Take that off.
Yes and no is the answer to that question. So technically, I would say, what Corey and Gage, Sean Tracy, and Josh tell me is to do whatever you want and just make it look good, and we'll figure it out.
Aesthetic first, really?
Aesthetic first. But I think, as a responsible concept artist, something that I personally do is try to take into consideration, for instance, the basic knowledge of zones and also just basic movement and animation. I try to think of it. But there have been times when I just was like, you know what, I just want to put this thing here. In case you'll be like, that's not going to work...
They'll make it work. And sometimes, yeah, if the look is important enough, we can always push. We can bend.
There are rules that can be bent, and there are other rules where we just have to say that's not going to happen.
But then the thing is, freedom creatively, yes, but if I was tasked to make, I don't know, a Xi'an armor, I'm not going to make a human burger-flipper costume. I would still have to communicate with design and with writers to get the correct lore.