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Breakdowns from the school curators: composition and perspective, colour theory, proportions, stylisation. And separately on the profession — how to build an ArtStation portfolio, what art directors ask at interviews and what an artist actually does at a game studio.
Armour follows the body: plates part at the shoulders, elbows and knees, or the wearer cannot move. Before you draw armour, work out how your character will walk in it and raise their arms. Then the materials, the decoration and why every fighter's plate armour is different.
First you pick a direction — painting, graphics or digital illustration. After that it is the same for everyone: set the movement of the hand, learn simple forms, perspective, building volume and light and shade. Plus a plan for that period and how not to quit in the second week.
Surface quality is the character of the material itself; texture is the pattern on it. How to convey wood, metal, fabric, glass and skin with stroke and mass, how matte differs from glossy, how to draw transparency and how surface works in a composition.
Proportions are checked with a pencil at arm's length, and there are two methods — both shown step by step. Then the canon of the human figure in heads, the layout of the face, how a child's proportions differ and the tricks that catch an error before the drawing is finished.
Hands are drawn from construction, not from contour. First the box of the palm and the wedge of the thumb, then the proportions of the phalanges, then the muscles, joints and folds. A hand built this way holds up from any angle and does not fall apart when the gesture changes.
Colour study describes how colours behave next to each other. It all rests on three properties: hue, saturation and brightness. Then the colour wheel, warm and cool, the psychology and symbolism of colour, and how a palette makes a project recognisable.
Alexandra Tarnavskaya answers with a five-point checklist. The piece holds the chosen style, fits the deadline, the composition is resolved, the execution matches the skill you have today — and you stopped before you started reworking it in circles.
Digital painting changes the tool, not the rules: the same composition, colour theory, light and materials. The order is the usual one — form and value first, then colour, then texture. Which skills to build first and which books to read are in the text.
A game runs from idea and prototype to release and support, and each stage brings in its own people: concept artist, 3D and 2D artists, animator, sound designer, game designer, programmer. Who is responsible for what and when they join.
