CONCEPT ART - 2026/7

Module Overview

Fundamental to all aspects of visual games design and digital media arts more widely is the conception and creation of the visual image. In this module you will develop your observational skills and fine tune the innate craft skill we arguably all possess to depict and portray using an array of image-making tools, with drawing and other mark-making at its core. It is a fantastic opportunity to get to grips with the theory and practice of drawing and image production.

The module is designed for those both familiar with and new to practical image-making, the module will include a series of classic studio sessions through which you will be able to explore life drawing, still life, location drawing and imagination-based image-making. It will also introduce and develop digital photography as an artistic technique - both as facilitation and reference for your image-making and as an artistic end in itself. Through these exercises you will cultivate the observational abilities that underpin the specialist techniques of 3D modelling, character design, motion graphics, film-making and animating you will encounter later in your degree.

Likewise, the module will also provide you with the chance to develop a portfolio of your own images, which will hopefully demonstrate your progress and improve your own confidence in seeing, depicting and portraying. Concept Art is a key module that sets the stage for digital applications of visual arts in video games and games design. As such, it connects to other visual arts and games design modules in your first year as well as to those that follow in later years of study including the Final Major Project at the culmination of the degree.

Module provider

Music & Media

Module Leader

MOONEY Stephen (Lit & Langs)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 4

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 1

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Indicative content includes:

• Introduction to Observation and Invention
• Still Life
• Life Drawing
• Drawing Architecture and the External Environment
• Image Composition
• The Photographic Image
• Exhibiting Image
• Reflecting on Studio Practice

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate:

• their knowledge and skills of drawing and image-making


• subject knowledge relating to the close analysis of form, meaning and context


• cognitive/analytical skills in critical thinking


• professional/practical skills in communicating ideas in visual form that will feed forward into their future careers in the games and creative industries and beyond


• creative engagement with the opportunities and limitations of a particular mode of drawing and visual representation, skills that will feed forward into their modules in future years of the degree, including their major project in their final year.


• creative engagement with the themes discussed on the module, which may include sustainability and global cultural awareness matters


• an ability to locate their own creative work fruitfully and articulately in relation to existing art traditions and the contemporary field of visual production as part of their journey to hone their contextualising skills through their degree

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• Ongoing Coursework / Portfolio (80%)

This summative assessment is an opportunity for students to present a selection of creative drawn material. During each session, you will be set a piece of homework to complete a portfolio. This will often be to continue an open-ended exercise started in class. There will be a class crit at the end of some of the session, where we provide feedback as a class on the work each student has produced. Briefs will be provided each week and will generally be an extension of class exercises. For the final Gallery show you will present your portfolio as a piece of art. Truly seeing the development from generic to authentic gesture and style. 

• Reflective Report (20%)

This summative assessment is an opportunity for students reflect on and situate this work through a reflective Reflective Report of up to 800 words (including 3 chronological pieces created in class or from the assessments), critiquing and analysing your development and progress in your drawing skills. Reflect on the lessons learned and the practice of really seeing. The whole report should be written from the point of view of what you have learned creatively and technically that will make you more efficient in future projects. Is it an inclination for specifics things to draw? Do you see a pattern? This should be submit as a PDF.

Formative Assessment & Feedback:

Formative assessment and feedback will be provided through a series of practical studio sessions, that are supported by preliminary craft lectures and aligned with individual image-making activity. In doing so, it will allow you to gain practical, verbal and written skills in drawing and image-making. It will also provide you with the opportunity to develop skills in expressing your ideas in visual form.

Students will be provided with a range of formative assessment and feedback opportunities. These include feedback given during studio sessions, subsequent critical discussions and personal tutorials. Specific feedback on assessment preparations will be provided during the later studio exhibition sessions as part of the confidence building safe space of the drawing workshop element of the classes.

Drawing, presentation and critical analysis skills will be developed and honed which will feed forward to the summative assessment at the end of the module and towards building the students’ resilience and confidence in presenting work publicly.

There is the option of a range of other feedback mechanisms agreed between tutor and students in week 1 of the module, such as seminar contribution and writing exercises.

 

Module aims

• provide students with the opportunity to explore a range of image-making techniques
• provide students with an understanding of the fundamentals of drawing from life
• provide students with an understanding of the fundamentals of image composition
• provide students with the ability to create drawings and images from observation and imagination
• introduce students to the process of reflecting upon their studio-based activities

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

• provide students with the opportunity to cultivate a skillful, creative and critical understanding of drawing and image production as well as hone and develop students’ visual arts and drawing skills (in a variety of forms) by developing an awareness of the application of their creative practice in informing their critical thinking, and vice versa, and in further developing drafting and workshopping skills through in-class discussion and sharing of artistic experience alongside study of critical and source materials


• facilitate students’ productive reflection on their creative work and connect this to critical approaches encountered on the module


• hone and develop students’ writing skills in academic writing, and creative writing (in a variety of forms) by developing an awareness of the application of their creative practice in informing their critical thinking, and vice versa, and in further developing workshopping and editing skills through in-class discussion and sharing of writer experience alongside study of critical and source materials


• equip students with a basic grounding in resourcefulness and resilience as new or developing artists by giving them the freedom to experiment with form and style in response to form-based exercises, and by providing them with the supportive and encouraging safe space of the creative studio within which they can take the beginning steps in receiving and giving constructive critical and practitioner responses to their own work and those of other students and begin to develop a further awareness of their creative process


• help students develop further the sorts of visual communication skills so valuable in the games industries and related creative industries (and beyond) through the editing and feedback process engendered though the exercises and the workshopping process in tandem with an emphasis on seeing alongside drawing as a critical tool in developing artistic skills

The learning and teaching methods include:
Introductory lecture(s)

• Practical studio workshop on elements of drawing and image-making


• Individual drawing and image-making activities


• Gallery exhibition seminars at the end of the module to review and reflect on student work-in-progress


• Guided reading

The preliminary lecture will provide you with an introduction to the practice of observation and invention in image-making. In subsequent weeks, you will cultivate your skills in a series of studio-based workshops that will provide you with practical drawing and image making challenges. These sessions will also provide you with a chance to receive formative feedback on your work-in-progress and to ascertain any issues or troubleshooting requirements before you move towards producing your own portfolio work.

Students will also engage with preparatory reading, including creative work by other students. Designed to help students reflect on and apply their learning to creative and critical outputs, the studio workshop environment acts as a safe space for developing and exchanging ideas, support and observational and drawing skills.

Varied learning materials such as lexical texts, visual materials, sculptural objects and other physical material prompts, video and sound objects, games and gamified texts are designed to increase student accessibility and will present them with a range of interpretive materials and approaches with which to work and develop their own thinking and creative responses.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: DMA1017

Other information

The School of Arts, Humanties & Creative Industries is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the following areas:

Employability: this 1st year module explores drawing and visual art not just in relation to games and the games industries, but beyond to a whole host of industries and fields that utilise visual art and drawing skills, such as film, tv, comic book, music and many other industries by providing up-to-the-minute knowledge and understanding of tools and techniques used everyday in these fields at professional level. In focussing on and growing key drawing skills in various media, in this module you will develop the sorts of drawing abilities that will facilitate your practice as a professional visual arts practitioner. The skills and aptitudes developed in this module will feed forward to the visual arts and design modules throughout your degree, especially in the fields of character design, digital environemnts and animation.

Equally important for employability within these areas (and often overlooked) is the development of ‘personability’: so that employers, collaborators, funders and commissioners want to work with you.

Global and Cultural Capabilities: drawing and visual arts are fields that reach out to all parts of the human experience and all parts of our global cultures and also play a very important recording and preservation role in narrativising and keeping alive and vibrant different cultures and experiences, especially those that might otherwise be silenced or endangered. You will be asked to respond to forms and modes of visual expression from more than one perspective and potentially in relation to different cultures and times. The weekly workshopping sessions give students the opportunity to present your own visual work and to experience and respond to those of others in a friendly, constructive and open forum. Games Design students will be exposed, throughout their degree, to a wide range of approaches, textuality and visuality from all over the world and students are encouraged to bring this knowledge into their drawing, visual arts and design practice right from the beginning of their study of drawing and visual art.

Resourcefulness and Resilience: this module, through workshopping, group work and shared experience will help equip you for the real world setting of your current and future drawing and visual art practice. You will benefit from the experience of your peers (a really important group, as you will be the visual artists of the future), from your tutors who are all have professional drawing and visual arts skills and from periodic guest speakers attached to the Games Design programme as you progress through your degree. This module provides students with a number of challenges which reflect the current state of the art. Students need to respond to these with inventiveness and flexibility and are often required to research and develop their own solutions to given problems. This module also helps set the stage for more detailed discussions in later visual arts and design modules on your degree about your practice as an artist, the practicalities of building a portfolio of work and a profile as an artist in the games industries and beyond.

Sustainability: Students are made aware of sustainable production practices around the production and presentation of visual art. Furthermore, from a content viewpoint, students may choose to produce creative work that directly addresses environmental and sustainability issues as part of their subject matter. Teachers across the School also work closely with the University of Surrey’s Institute for Sustainability to explore and promote the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2026/7 academic year.