Defining concept art

Before we begin our journey on our final project, I think it's only fair to give a definition of what "concept art" means in the case of this book. In my mind (and professional experience), there are two "types" of concept art:

• Very rough block-ins for characters, environments, or visualizing key moments of a video game, movie, commercial, or another visual project. This can be as quick as a sketch on a napkin during lunch with a client, or a set of multiple options of an item, person, or location for our client to choose from, such as "mood paintings" (which is what we'll be making) or "turnarounds," where we create a front, rear, and side view of an item or character to assist team members with other specializations in a company or team environment (such as 3D modelers, technical artists, and lighting artists, for example).

Here is an example of a conceptual "mood painting" that I created...