Concept art is definitely a very exciting area: to be the first person to give a visual definition to an idea is extremely gratifying.

Essentially, you need to be able to draw and paint very realistically. Concept art is generally used to show financiers what the movie will look like, long before the costume, effects and make-up folks get to see it.

In 'real life' movies, your concepts need to show real-looking people so that it is easy to imagine an actor in that position. In the more fantastic genres, concepts need to look absolutely believable (For example, a washing up liquid bottle painted grey does not look like a spaceship) for the idea to succeed.

To be good enough to get into that field you need to be able to draw:

• Humans, both male and female, any age, in any position, with any expression and in any costume you can think of. People need to look at your drawings and be able to tell immediately what age the figure is, what gender, and how they are feeling.
• Animals of all sorts - quite apart from perfectly ordinary animals appearing in movies, most alien life forms are derived from either human or animal physiology, so the better you understand (and can draw) animals, the more likely you are to draw believable concepts.
• Buildings from every period, real or imagined - learn about different styles, practise getting the perspective perfect.
• Landscapes - again, perspective is hugely important. Accuracy too - a green blob is not a tree - you should aim to be drawing and painting actual identifiable plants.
• Machinery and vehicles - they have to look right.

Generally, a sound understanding of proportions, scales, perspective and light and shade will get you a long way, but nothing can make up for uncountable hours of practise, not to mention looking very carefully at the world around you, thinking about how to approach drawing it.

Once you're confident, put together a portfolio and send it to film-makers whose work you admire. And keep on sending it until someone gives you a commission. In the meantime, go to conventions, network with anyone you can find who is involved in the industry.

Good luck, and have fun with it!

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