Research

Concept art.
Concept art is to visualise your dreams and idea on paper by making quick sketches and ideas on paper with pen and pencil or use Photoshop and illustrator and create innovative ideas. The rules of concept are to keep it rough a good concept artist can hide there own artistic idiosyncrasies to convey the style of the game needed by the designer. Also be able to above rendering skills and define the problem and then formulating a creative solution and new idea.

The use of concept art in games in stretched across many different styles and topics such as landscapes,characters,buildings etc. Many games use concept for showing large area of a game or the featured characters in the game, this gives the audience a look at what is to come for the upcoming game. Audience like myself enjoy seeing the concept art of games to see where the ideas originated and how they got to the finished render and also for advertisement.

Constructed world
This image below is one of the many concepts made by the new MMO guild wars 2 which really enjoys using concept art even in the game by making the map look like its concept until you discover the are and it becomes a final render of the map plus their loading screens are all presented with the concept art they made.
This image is of the "Black Citadel" in guild wars 2 it 's the main area of one of the races and a very large landscape, it's very similar to that of the death star in Star Wars and this shows a good example of people getting idea and encouraging it in their own work, The proportion and scale of the "Citadel" is enormous and the shape of it is circular but with sharp edges pointing out showing that is a industrial place with colours of high and low value brown and a sort of futurism look.

When they showed the audience before it was released and people where ecstatic with the result and made them more exited for the game. This is a great example to what concept can bring to the table of gaming for the audience and good overlook of what's to come for the game and see the progress in the game. The art itself is produced on Photoshop using a brush in the effect of watercolours to show a more unfinished look so they improve later on. This image show very dark place in the middle of a light happy are to hint at a evil race live there I think to show that off more they could show maybe some rough fire or dimmer lights.

Natural world
This image below is from the game Crysis which concentrates on New York and Manhattan but in it's own way by giving it an overgrowth and several damages to the surrounds and buildings. The concept artists has needed to take ideas from the structure of New York to show realism but then gone on to draw his/her look on the overgrowth and damage in the city.
What I really like from this art is the flood through the town making the area look more like a jungle than a city and the small amount of space given showing a lot of obstacles included.The viewpoint of the art work shows a great sense of feel towards the game for first person view, it's hard to tell but the artist has actually used some photo compositing along with some water colour effects on Photoshop for again that rough look and also maybe a render in Maya or Vray to express the exposure of the lighting. The balance of colour is great using mostly dark mossy colours such as green and brown to give the effect muddy areas and plants and vegetation.

This is a lot smaller scale than the one above but this is more for showing a structured and one way level in a game to give the audience a look at what they could be venturing through. Overall the art looks quite grim and dirty but with the light source it make look as it gets progressively happier and brighter. This shows a different style and way of creating concept art with the photo composition technique.