Concept Art Spotlight: Kekai Kotaki

Kekai Kotaki is one of the most exciting American concept artists working in the video game industry today. Originally from Hawaii, Kotaki has built a career in Seattle creating concept pieces for ArenaNet, designing some absolutely stellar art for the Guild Wars series. Though most concept art tends to be more functional than artistic, the same can't be said for Kotaki, who has distinguished himself by crafting some of the most detailed and smartly composed concept pieces you'll find online today. Kekai's art exhibits both western and eastern influences, revealing a deep familiarity with the U.S. fantasy tradition, while incorporating a subtle anime flair that keeps his work from feeling overly ham-fisted (I'm personally reminded of the best Final Fantasy Tactics art when examining his character models). Not only are his renders gorgeous, they're intelligently composed and balanced so that his finished pieces feel more like illustrations than raw concept work. Kekai is also one of the few artists who can claim to have successfully mastered both character and environment pieces. Here are some of his most inspiring digital paintings.  

See more of Kekai Kotaki's work on Kekai Kotaki Tumblr

and his personal website kekaiart.com

Concept Art Spotlight: Jakup Rozalski

In general, fantasy concept art tends to favor a kind of quasi-realism, an ultra-polished digital gleam that lends itself to video games and CG powered film. At its very best, this quest for hyper detail can produce some stunning artwork (see last week's Concept Art Spotlight devoted to portrait artist Eve Ventrue). Yet at it's very worst, digital concept art often looks like, well, digital concept art. That is to say, less like art and more like a collection of shiny character models and oversaturated matte landscapes.

That's why it's so refreshing to encounter an artist like Jakub Rozalski whose pieces lean more toward impressionism than realism. While Rozalski is often a contributing artist supplying work for larger projects, much of his stuff feels more like quality illustration than toss away concept art. Each piece seems to tell its own story, and you'd be hard pressed to find an artist whose work conveys more narrative power. Though he works digitally, his painterly style adds a certain cloudy ambience to each piece that suggests a greater world beyond. Jakub is especially good at using fog and haze to capture the menace of beasts on the prowl. 

Jakub has done a fantastic series of paintings dedicated to The Witcher as well as a series of alternate history pieces for his 1920s series. His work is currently serving as inspiration for new game based on north mythology. Here are some of favorite pieces by Jakub: