Lately I’ve been going through a lot of different concept artists looking for stylistic inspiration and just like, out of curiosity to see how that scene has changed over the years. While I extremely admire the skill of a lot of contemporary concept artists, I feel like a lot of new stuff tends to be in the same ballpark visually (I guess that’s just because videogames have been going in the “idk, realistic?” direction for a while now? I dunno), while art even 12+ years back is a lot more distinct and memorable even if it isn’t executed fantastically.
There’s a lot of gorgeous stuff out there, and recently I’ve been mining Akihiko Yoshida’s work on Final Fantasy Tactics for stuff to incorporate in my own work. It’s also really weird to think that in roughly this same time period people were turning Chris Metzen’s notebook doodle level drawings into wildly successful video games. I also love Yoshitaka Amano’s work, but I can’t work watercolour at all so it all just feels like magic to me.
This kind of stuff interests me a lot as a visual artist and I usually don’t get to hear people talk about what clicks with them! So what’s some older concept art that has left an impression on you, for better or for worse?
