Gilles Beloeil is a concept designer for Ubisoft and a teacher at CGMA. He is best known for his work and concept design in the video game series Assassin’s Creed and For Honor. Beloeil’s artwork consists of concept perspectives of world art in a typically historical fictional setting. As a child Gilles aspired to become a comic book artist. He was interested by 19th century and renaissance artists such as Zorn, Repine, Sorolla, and Sargent. Despite his interests he never took any art classes in school. Rather he would teach himself to sketch by reading books, watching videos, and copying or redrawing pictures he liked.
Beloeil discusses how he has produced successful concept art and what steps he takes in his overall creative process. He appreciates style in other artists work, meaning that artists who have style and repeat their style in other drawings or paintings have confidence in what they produce. As well as having something to say or represent in their artwork. While Gilles is inspired by artists who have style, he would rather take the ‘scientific approach in art.’ Experimenting with different values and different ways of thinking conceptually.
In an interview Beloeil said, “To execute a successful concept art you need, in my opinion, to focus on the overall design of your image first, the drawing, and on values. A successful illustration gets these 3 things right. Details, colors, edges and subject matter come after” (Gilles Beloeil in interview). Gilles described how even his five-year-old son inspires him. He mentioned how a child’s imagination is nearly endless and that he is ‘fearless’ when he draws. Beloeil stated, “Your mind just wants to organize everything to make it look good, and the result is often that all your paintings look the same” (Gilles Beloeil in interview). Gilles mentions repeatedly to keep a young student spirit. Seeking new information and fundamentals of art is his way of developing new skills. Processing new material is a difficult task to him at first, but after understanding the goals of a certain visual he now has a new skill to add to his digital knowledge.
Concept art’s role in relation to World Building is the first step in building a narrative. Gilles Beloeil’s concept artwork is a perfect example for the relationship between concept art and world building. For Gilles, his concept art is focused on creating visual values and immersive fictional environments. The color scheme chosen for his artwork expresses the mood of a character in a particular situation. From that situation and mood, Beloeil built a history of this fictional world. It is important to him that while he creates the form of this fictional world that he focuses on the environment design and expressing the moods that the main character would feel during a certain scene. When asked in an interview if there were any tips he had for concept designers, he expressed the importance of a color palette. A color palette is the first step for creating the mood that the artists desires. After a mood is set, the story begins to be told.
Gilles Beloeil intended for his concept artwork to serve as an inspiration for Ubisoft’s production team. While his work is seen as two-dimensional, his values and ideas speak volumes. His depiction of a world full of piracy and war not only creates a dystopian environment but also succeeds in continuing the ongoing theme and story line of assassin’s creed. His visual values are similarly expressed through different mediums and genres. The audience is first introduced to assassin’s creed as a historical fiction, then storyline eventually turns to be science fiction as well. Both genres are largely different in concept, however Gilles was able to capture the ambiance of both the past and the future. His immersive environments are not limited to one time period and his artistic values are only to evolve with every new world created.
Works Cited
The Next Big Interview: Gilles Beloeil by lovelessdevotions on DeviantArt. (2016, March 21). Retrieved from https://www.deviantart.com/lovelessdevotions/journal/The-Next-Big-Interview- Gilles-Beloeil-597888837
Beloeil, G. (n.d.). Portfolio. Retrieved from, https://www.gillesbeloeil.com/projects
Comments