“Board” to Death: A Day in the Life of a Concept Artist

Whats was it like to be a conecpt artist at Ensemble Studios? Aloysius today published a new article on the HaloWars.com website detailing the expierence of Bart Tiongson. The concept art team at Ensemble were responsible for some fantastic pieces of art much like this one below:  (click to enlarge)

You might think that in order to produce such fantastic art the team at Ensemble would be under alot of stress but ho ho ho.. you might be mistaken! Ensemble Studios was well known for being a great place to work. But having too much fun means not so much work… so how did the team deal with work vs play? Well.. about 50/50 actually – sounds like a good ratio!

You can find out more by reading the insigtful blog post below:

“Board” to Death: A Day in the Life of a Concept Artist

In a nutshell, that is what a concept artist does. Quick, clean and summarized in a tidy little paragraph with enough time to spare to go watch the NBA playoffs.

Then I thought about it again. And I realized that it wasn’t that simple; at least not on Halo Wars and definitely not at Ensemble Studios.

You see, in order to create artwork at the highest level, you not only need a team that is talented, dedicated and stays on schedule, but you also need a team that meshes with each another. For that team to be successful in what they do, they need to have chemistry. So instead of writing about our daily tasks and attaching images of artwork, I decided to talk about what the team did that wasn’t on the task list and include photos that illustrated the “chemistry” that we had.

Throughout the studio there are white boards that are used for a variety of things like jotting down tasks and ideas, descriptions of units and keeping track of deadlines. The artists, on the other hand, had a different use for them. The concept guys would draw caricatures and create “inside joke” drawings on a daily basis. I would walk in the office and at the end of each day there would be new and often inspiring drawings on the white boards. While these boards’ original purpose was to have drawings, diagrams and written statements to help keep the team on track, the random imagery, humorous and often non-work-related material, probably kept the team more focused than unit descriptions or schedule dates and deadlines. It wasn’t long before other artists joined in on the fun as well. It wasn’t unusual to poke fun at each other, or crack a joke at someone’s expense. The ratio of laughing and having fun to drawing was probably an even 50/50. I absolutely felt that this dynamic was essential to create the top notch artwork that was done on the project. There were a lot of late nights and long hours, and without a sense of humor the team probably would have driven each other insane.

I’ve always felt that if you enjoy what you are doing and who you are doing it with, success will ultimately follow. Take a look at the art-work in Halo Wars and I think that you’ll agree that we were successful in what we set out to do: create a beautiful looking game. Laughing the whole time.

During my short time leading the concept guys on Halo Wars, I realized something- I did a heck of a lot more learning than I did teaching. Thanks to the Halo Wars concept team.
-b

Below are some examples of the crazy pix that these guys did… I’ve “edited” a few of them. 😛