UCA, Teeside or Hertfordshire?

i recently got an offer for university of hertfordshire and UCA farnham to study concept art but i’m not sure which uni to go to….im thinking about going to teesside too i’m an international student who is interested in working in uk for the games industry or movie industry and im really only into the whole pre-production concept drawing stuff. i would like a uni that genuinely helps their students to get more industry connections and ive been getting mixed reviews for these schools. please help thank you!!!

Reply 1

aspalax

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

Hey there! All three of these unis are pretty sensible picks for concept art. I don't think there's a "bad" pick here. My background is in Games Art and I currently work in the UK games industry.

Teesside and Herts have particularly good industry connections, but Farnham benefits from being geographically very near Guildford which is a big hub for the UK games industry (meaning you might have better access to more localised events like Guildford Games Festival).

I'm of the opinion Staffordshire has the best concept art course (specifically for games, I can't speak to film) currently - I would say Teesside is probably my pick of these three, because it is (relatively) long-standing, especially compared to other concept art courses, and unlike the slowly more-prevalent "comic and concept art" courses, has remained strictly concept art and focused on those subject-specific skills. (There are nicer areas of the UK to visit as an international student, but hey... that wasn't what you were asking :redface:

) Remember I am subjective and my opinion of these courses comes from my personal experience and those of students and graduates I have met and opinions of people I have met in the games industry of their own university experiences.

The main thing about concept art courses is that it is industry standard to have 3D integrated into this workflow (it is very difficult to be a concept artist without some knowledge of 3D) and not all courses teach it. From reading the course information page, Herts and Teesside both do, but UCA doesn't specify. That alone has put me off recommending UCA out of your three picks.... so you're probably looking at either Herts or Teesside. Here is a good resource about how 3D may be part of your workflow. Link

The main things I recommend if you want to be a concept artist:
- Learn 3D
- Talk to people in the film and gaming industries
- Learn to work to specific briefs with specific guidelines. There's some examples of what concept art briefs might be available online.

- Learn some business skills, especially for freelancing and information about being self employed, what that meaningfully means for you and your finances, how to set your own rates, etc.
- Have a backup plan

The reason I recommend gaining some freelancing and financial literacy is the vast majority of concept art work is gig work and short-term contracts. Because you are often only needed for pre-production, it is very difficult to get full-time work as a concept artist unless you work at a very large studio that has a lot of concurrent projects. Even then, a lot of senior concept artists still work on contract.

Feel free to ask me any specific Qs you might have, I will do my best to answer.

(edited 9 months ago)

Reply 2

Teesside University

Official Rep

Original post

by catsheriff

Hi there!

It's great to hear you're considering studying concept art at Teesside 😄

It's a big decision choosing which uni to go to, so it's important to do lots of research. Start by checking out the different uni's course pages, making note of things like the facilities available to you, the modules, how you'd learn and how you'd be assessed. It's a great idea to go along to an open day too so you can see the facilities for yourself, and speak to staff and current students.

At Teesside, you'd benefit from industry connections by taking part in the annual international animation and games festival, featuring experts from Rockstar, Pixar, Disney and Sony. To find out more, head to the course page here. You can also check out this video to hear from Teesside's concept art teaching team as they discuss what you'd learn and the projects you'd work on.

Most importantly, it's your decision - after doing all of your research, go with what feels right for you.

I hope that helps and best of luck!

Thanks,
G 🤗

Reply 3

topladymacbeth

hertfordshire, trust me on this one

Reply 4

moid

Thanks to topladymacbeth and aspalax 🙂 I am one of the lecturers on the Concept Art degree at Hertfordshire and I will warn you that although we do a lot of drawing you will also need to learn a fair bit of 3D, because as aspalax mentions, so much of the concept art made in industry is done in 3D these days that it is extremely difficult to get employment in the UK as a concept artist if you can't use 3D as well.... unless you confine your future career to only be working in 2D games... and even there 3D is useful. I have worked on 2D and 3D videogames and even for the 2D games we would model characters and animate them in 3D and then paint over the frames to make them more 2D looking - why? because if the client wanted changes made to the motion or design of a character it was quicker to do it in 3D, render out all the sprites (frames of animation) from the different angles the engine needed and then touch up the bits that didn't look 2D enough, than it was to re-animate everything in 2D. We often used 3D models as bases for paint overs for the backgrounds; again, for speed - 3D solves complex perspetive issues instantly - yes you should know how to contruct perspective correctly, but for anything complex a 3D program will do it faster. So look at 3D as something that can help you get more work done faster - and in this industry there is never enough time to do everything as you wish it was done; you just learn as many short cuts to creating something that the client likes and will pay for within the scary deadline you have.